The flight back to the States and to Middleton Airport was long and uneventful; there were no celebrities or battles or mishaps of any kind and they simply used the time to relax and talk about home life, their future and prospective schools for their daughters, and several other things they planned to do once they got home. Shego dozed but when she awoke she always found Kim reading or watching the in-flight movies. The younger woman assured her spouse that she still felt absolutely fine and that the intensity of their Scotland mission, as well as the recent stresses of that ‘GJ’ evaluation, were not weighing heavily on Kim’s mind.
They also managed to renew their membership in the Mile High Club.
The walk through the terminal was also without challenges, which speaks highly of the quality of Shego’s latest passport and other identification. They were within a few feet of the car rental kiosks when Shego sidled up to Kim and placed her hand gently on the redhead’s shoulder.
“Kimmie, take a good look around and tell me what you see.”
Her tone was light and her expression neutral, but there was an edge to her voice that got Kim’s attention. Just as the day when Team Possible had routed Drakken from his dilapidated lair, Kim made a subtle pirouette, ostensibly looking for the best bargain in a rental car. What she noticed gave her pause.
“I count eight.” Kim blew her nose delicately into a tissue.
“Huh?” Shego’s exclamation almost blew their feigned nonchalance. “I count seven. Where’s number eight?”
“At the phones.” The two kept moving slowly down the corridor.
“Yeah, I got her.”
“No, over by the restroom, those phones.”
“Damn. Ok, you win. Want to play the bonus round.”
“Sure.”
“Ok, for all the tea in China and a roll in the hay when we get home, riddle me this: what are eight Global Justice agents doing here?”
Kim’s brow furrowed in puzzlement, but not alarm; these were allies, not enemies. Eight men and women of blatantly inconspicuous attire and attitude were milling about the terminal, apparently for no reason. While no one else would have had reason to notice anything, both warriors had fought with, and against, ‘GJ’ long enough to recognize operatives anywhere.
“I got nothing, but good job on spotting them the first place.” She stood on her toes to give her spouse a quick peck on the cheek. “I guess I’m getting slow.” Kim blew her nose again and then sniffled.
“No way, Pumpkin; you forget that I’m more used to spotting and evading these jokers. Besides, you’re not paranoid enough yet.” Shego noted that as they made their way towards the parking lot exits, the agents were keeping a staggered pace with them.
“Well, I am now.” The Kimmunicator was in her hand and activated. Wade’s face appeared, but as the two women glanced down in preparation of asking a few questions, it was apparent that this was a day for discretion.
“Hi, Wade.”
“Hey, Kim, welcome home!” The boy set aside his soda and looked at his friend with his usual friendly but inquiring expression. “What can I do for you?”
“Wade, we’re still here at the Middleton Airport, and I’ve got what might sound like an odd question; is anything going south of cheese in the vicinity?”
“No, I was already monitoring your flight so I’ve had an eye on the airport all day. Why?”
“There are more than half a dozen ‘GJ’ agents within a stone’s throw from our location. They’re obviously incognito, so we won’t approach them, but we’re wondering if we should be on the alert for something.”
Kim wiped at her nose again and then reached out to drop the flimsy tissue in a waste receptacle along a nearby wall. Wade accessed some records and scanned the results for her.
“Nope, nothing special that I can see. Maybe it’s some kind of ‘Homeland Security’ thing. As far as I can tell, you two are the most important visitors to the airport today.” Shego shrugged at this and Kim decided to let the matter drop for now.
“Oh, wait, that reminds me…” Wade turned and snagged a printout. “You did get a message on your site from Global Justice. Nothing marked urgent or that connects to the airport, though.”
“What’s the sitch?”
“Unknown; they don’t leave a message, per se, just a request that you contact them after you get home and get settled.” Wade brightened. “Hey, maybe they want to talk with you again about a career!”
“Could be, could be… OW!” These ruminations were cut short when Shego suddenly tugged sharply at Kim’s hair. To be more precise, the tall woman had gently taken a handful of the red tresses and was attempting to pull Kim closer to the exit.
“Come on, Pumpkin, I’m bored and tired. I want to go home now.”
“Bye, Wade! I’ll call you later if anything comes up.”
Lovingly dragged from the terminal, Shego and Kim went searching for the most expeditious method of returning home. What they failed to see was five of the ‘GJ’ agents converge on the waste receptacle and use ‘hazmat’ equipment to extricate one small wad of tissue. There was a cursory examination of the interior folds of the tissue before it was locked into a sealed container; the tissue was black.
The ride home was excruciatingly slow and Shego had promptly nodded off when they reached the freeway. With only her thoughts for company, Kim gingerly removed her hand from the grip of her sleeping lover. She held her hand up to her face; it was her right hand, the hand that no so many hours ago had disappeared in a flash of light and fire. It had been blasted to atoms by a miniature bomb, shredded and cauterized and gone forever, beyond healing. Then it had grown back right before her very eyes.
There had been gouts of fluid that she had expected to be blood, her life’s blood, spurting from her pulpy wrist. Instead, the fluid had been darker, so dark that it might have been tar. It had spouted and then gelled and solidified into what appeared to be her right hand, all in less than two seconds.
Shego grumbled in her sleep and turned towards the cab door, drawing her empty hand closer to her chest, as if she were missing Kim’s touch already. The redhead glanced guiltily at her resting lover, and carefully lifted her own purse from the floor of the cab to her lap, opening it as she did so. There was something that she had to know, that she had to see for herself. Kimmunicator, laser lipstick, even her grappling-hook blow drier were all set aside in favor of one small item. Kim unbent and straightened the paperclip and held it firmly in her left hand. One deep and held breath later, she acted; the thin spear of metal was thrust deeply into the palm of her new right hand.
There was nothing, no pain. She examined this for a few minutes before withdrawing the clip from her hand. In a daze, Kim exchanged her grip on the slender rod and jabbed it through her left hand… and almost screamed. Pain shot through her hand and up her arm, much like she would have anticipated; she ground her teeth to avoid alerting the driver of the cab or awakening Shego.
Kim felt stupid and sick. She was about to pull the offending item from her hand when the pain stopped as if switch had been thrown. She carefully lifted the injured hand to her face and watched the paperclip shift and twist as the tendons and the muscles of her flexing hand manipulated it from the inside. Wanting to test this amazing condition further, she pulled the metal from her hand.
“I could teach you to pick a lock with that, you know.” Kim gasped and spun in her seat. Shego hadn’t moved but she was watching Kim with one sleepy eye.
“Sorry, Kimmie, did I startle you?”
“A little! Doy! You almost made me jump out of my skin!” So she couldn’t have seen; of course she didn’t see! Kim giggled and rubbed her hands. Kim leaned against her lover and decided to keep her little secret all to herself for the time being.
“I already know how to pick locks, you taught me how a long while back.”
“Yes…” Shego let out a prodigious yawn, rousing herself and sitting straighter to lock her arms around Kim. “But that was using specialized picks and rakes. I’ll teach you how to make do with ordinary household objects.” Shego motioned down to Kim’s hand.
Kim noticed the straightened paperclip in her hand and frowned. She had no idea where it had come from and let it drop from her fingers to the floor of the cab; a fast as the item could fall, she changed the topic of conversation.
“Tired?”
“Yeah, I never do sleep soundly on planes. Too used to being the pilot, I suppose.” Shego opened her other eye and gazed at Kim with some interest. “I don’t remember seeing you asleep; aren’t you tired?”
“Oh, not really! I dozed on the plane, I must have.” Kim turned away to glance at the passing scenery. She pulled a tissue from her purse and brought it up to her face, blowing her nose.
“I hope you’re not bringing a cold home to the girls. I hate it when they’re feeling under the weather.”
“So not! You know that I never get sick!”
“Yeah, right. I seem to recall you getting your snotty illin’ all over me a few years back. We were sick as dogs for days.”
“It’s nothing, really; the air conditioning on the plane dried me out a little.” Kim looked down at the tissue and quickly tucked it back into her purse. Shego settled back against the door, making as if to return to her nap for the remainder of the ride. Kim had been enjoying the heat and smell of her lover while they were close, and it was leading her mind down amorous paths.
“Shego?” The ‘pout’ was forming.
“Hmm?” The pale woman might have been a lump under her dark green jacket, her eyes were closed and her mouth slack.
“Can we call Bonnie and go out tonight?” There was no reaction to this and an outside observer might have thought Shego had fallen asleep, but Kim could tell that her lover was wide-awake; Shego’s heartbeat and respiration had increased.
“Shego? Sheegee-weegee?” Pale brows drew tight under black bangs.
“If I open my eyes, will I be sorry?”
“Mmmmmm, could be!”
“Here’s the deal: I get a nap, then you call Rockwaller. ‘Kay?”
Kim almost purred with delight at this.
“Survey says…!” Kim leaned in to administer a special nuzzle, she leaned in and down.
“HEY! KIM? GHAA!”
The cab driver remained silent the whole time, simply content to know that he could keep telling the story of this fare for years to come.
The apartment was silent and it would remain so because of the telephone call Kim had made to her parents moments ago. The children would stay at the Possible home for the night and Kim would collect them at breakfast the next morning. Something about the call made Kim feel sad, feel empty; she’d asked her parents to watch the girls many times, and they loved having the twins, but this time Kim had blatantly lied to her folks as to the reason for the request.
She had told them that she and her wife were exhausted from the flight and possibly fighting a cold and that they didn’t want to give the infants any germs, also that they’d sleep the rest of the night in their bed. And she told them all of this knowing that it wasn’t true. Shego heard nothing and had dropped her bag in the hallway, immediately collapsed on her bed after taking care of some very basic hygiene; she would be out cold for as long as Kim let her sleep. Kim took their meager luggage to the bedroom and quietly set everything against the closet door to be put away later.
Back to the telephone, Kim made another call.
“Bonnie? Hey! It’s Kim! We’re calling to see if you can come over…!”
The room was dark, like the womb or the grave. Shego guessed that she hadn’t passed on to the Afterlife because Kim wasn’t in her arms and she doubted that Heaven smelled like that nasty potpourri Kim had started using earlier in the week. Her face was pressed down into damp cloth from where she’d been drooling in her sleep and the faint irritation across her cheek told her that she’d have a line on her face from a crease in her pillow.
Glancing at the clock and then at the pale sunset through the window blinds, she was satisfied to see that she hadn’t wasted the afternoon being totally insensate. Locating her hairbrush, she began to comb the tangles from her lustrous, black hair, walking to the door as she did so. Shego heard voices from the living room and quietly opened the door, silently peeking out. Kim was seated at the couch with Bonnie Rockwaller, talking and laughing.
Shego hadn’t realized that Kim would have already called Bonnie; she’d assumed that there would be more time to settle in and then call the other woman just before they were ready to pick her up for a night on the town. The former villain watched the two younger women with no small degree of jealousy; seeing Kim and Bonnie together made Shego envision what she and her spouse might have been like had they met earlier in life, as friends and not as foes.
The feeling sat like a burning coal on her heart. She carefully shut the door so that she could get dressed; the tiny spring within the latch ‘twanged’ ever so slightly. From fifteen feet away and in the middle of a conversation, Kim heard the noise.
“Excuse me a second, I’ll be right back.” Kim moved to the bedroom door and slipped inside as Shego pulled items from their closet. Holding a traditional ‘little black dress, she turned to her wife and cocked an eyebrow.
“How long has Bonnie been here?”
“Just over an hour.” Kim practically charged at the taller woman and grabbed her in a bear hug. “I’m so glad you’re up! Now you can talk with her! We’ll have so much fun!”
“Kimmie, have you been smoking crack rock?” Failing to free her pinned arms from the grip of the younger woman, Shego stood there bemused.
“No, silly! Now hurry up and get dressed!” Kim released her clinch and grabbed a few items of her own from the closet without even looking and tossed them on the bed.
“I want you to talk with Bonnie while I get ready, Ok?” Kim almost threw Shego into the tight dress and hustled her out into the hall. The door was shut fast before Shego had a chance to say another word. Bonnie looked up and smiled at her.
“Hi, Shego. I hope that we didn’t wake you.” Wow, she was beautiful. Bonnie was wearing a pale green dress that Shego noticed immediately; how the dress supported and shaped Bonnie’s substantial bosom was noticed very shortly thereafter.
“Hi.” Shego felt like a child at the school play who’s been pushed out on stage without having learned her lines. “I was just getting up anyway.”
“Did you want to go out with us? Kim said that she was taking me to ‘Club Rina’.”
“Um, sure, love to.” Shego almost felt slighted. Wasn’t that the plan all along?
“What are those?” She pointed to the large books. Bonnie glanced down at the volume on her lap and smiled guiltily.
“A few of our yearbooks. Here, take a look at what Kim drew in hers!” Bonnie slid down the couch a foot or two and patted the empty spot, inviting Shego to have a seat. The tall woman felt a bead of sweat run down her back. While not as wholesome in appearance as the Goddess she was living with, this brown haired, tanned young woman just screamed ‘sexy’.
“See?” Bonnie noticed none of Shego’s discomfort and held out a book. Her pretty and expressive face, her beautiful skin and amazing figure were truly a sight to behold. Shego could barely tear her eyes away.
Lifting the book to examine the tiny portraits better, Shego located her spouse’s head shot among the goons and losers of her class; her heart melted as it did years ago when she first looked upon that angelic face and deep emerald eyes. Sliding her gaze just a few images over, she saw Bonnie’s younger self, recognized the self-hatred and bitterness that she’d known all too well once upon a time.
A pair of devil’s horns was drawn over Bonnie’s head, and a matching mustache and goatee were added as well. Shego could imagine her lover sketching on the page as she glared across the high school cafeteria at her rival. After a few seconds, Bonnie lifted the book from Shego’s lap. The backs of her hands touched pale thighs.
“And here’s what I’d drawn in mine.” The same book, the same page, but with Bonnie’s image unmarked and Kim’s altered face looking up at them. Kim’s gorgeous smile was unchanged, but the large and mismatched eyes superimposed on the redhead’s image had pupils that were looking in different directions; the eyes could only be described as ‘googly’.
This struck Shego as being so absurdly funny that she snorted with laughter and proceeded to choke, her pale face turning a bruised ‘dusky’ color. Bonnie hung her head slightly and allowed herself a guilty grin.
“Yeah, I did that sort of thing throughout the whole book! Her smile only makes the eyes look more demented.” Bonnie closed the volume and set it aside.
“So, do you have any yearbooks?”
“I, uh, didn’t save anything from those times, at least not here.” Bonnie nodded.
“The first thing that I tried to do after school ended was start a new life; you know, distance myself from the old as much as possible.” The tanned girl looked at Shego.
“Kim didn’t tell you about me, did she?” Shego shook her head.
“Other than a few passing comments over the years, no, and certainly nothing recent. In fact, considering our little talk at the market, you and I have spoken more than she has to me about you.” Shego tripped on her tongue and grinned. “Pardon all the pronouns.”
Bonnie smiled back.
“Maybe she didn’t want to make a big deal of it to you, not sharing the history we did from school. I don’t want to make it a bigger mystery either, so…” Bonnie sat back and kept herself calm. “I came back to town to specifically see Kim. I’d heard that she’d had twin girls and wanted to see them together. I lost a baby not too long ago, you see.”
Several pieces of data that Shego had floating in the bottom of her mind, like so many loose coins, suddenly fell into place. She held both hands out to the younger woman.
“I am so sorry to hear that. Really, I am. When Kim got pregnant… I don’t think that I can have children of my own. So when it happened, it was a major issue with me and that’s the start of how we finally got together.” While many close acquaintances had learned this over time, this was the first time that Shego herself had ever told anyone. Bonnie nodded and retained her control.
“Was it a miscarriage?” Is there ever a delicate way to ask such a question?
“No, I had my son for a few months before he died, so I did get a chance to be a mom for a short time.”
“Oh, that’s… that’s…” Shego felt the inside of her chest break loose in a way that she never thought she could ever feel. Having known this other woman for as short of a time as she had, she didn’t think that any of this would mean all that much; but she’d been wrong. Having been a mother herself for almost a year, and the months of caring for a pregnant Kim before that, made her know exactly how if would feel to suddenly lose those two little miracles that she ached to see each and every morning when she first left her bed.
“I’m sorry, it’s just that I think that… that I know how you’d feel, and…” Shego slid across the couch and hugged the young woman, holding her close and letting the tears come. Bonnie was shocked at first, but accepted the embrace as it was intended.
They were still holding each other when Kim emerged from the bedroom wearing an electric blue dress that Shego had only seen once before; Kim had been wearing it when they’d had a huge fight in a very posh restaurant a few years back.
“So, is everyone ready?” Kim seemed oblivious of the drama playing itself out on the couch. Shego gave Bonnie’s shoulder a squeeze and winked at her new friend.
“Perfect timing, Possible. Yes, I think that we’re ready.” The ladies stood up and shared a ‘yes-I-used-to-be-evil’ smile before following Kim to the door.
Interlude.
“Subject is on the move.”
“Acknowledged, follow as a safe distance.”
The interior of the van was illuminated with a red light; the agents knew the value of this whenever they were required to exit and then reenter the van after nightfall. The red light required less time for the eyes to adjust and it didn’t affect your ability to read the digital indicators from the surveillance equipment.
“Do you know for certain if this is a drill?”
“I only know what you know.” The agent lifted his face away from the external targeting system, now being used to track three young women as they walked down the streets of downtown Middleton.
“I really do hope that this is just a drill.”
End Interlude.
While not catering to any specific clientele, ‘Club Rina’ was a place that folks from all walks of life and of varying tastes could visit and feel safe and accepted. This was evident by the words stenciled underneath the sign outside; instead of the expected ‘No Shoes, No Shirt, No Service’, it read ‘No Fears, No Regrets, No Anxieties.’ The house music was kept well below ear-bleed level and the lighting was of different intensities, this was so you could select your own comfort level of light versus dark.
“Hey, it’s kind of like the ‘Draco Tavern’!” Kim nodded excitedly at Bonnie’s observation but Shego didn’t have a clue.
“I guess that I should thank my cousin Larry that I even know what you meant by that, but yeah, it is like the ‘Draco’.” Seeing that her pale lover still didn’t understand, Kim let her off the hook.
“It’s a bar for aliens, featured in several stories by Larry Niven. Everything there is designed to make anyone feel comfortable and they cater to every known species.”
“Sorry, Pumpkin, I prefer my ‘Sci-Fi’ old school; Wells, Bester, Verne… know what I mean?” Kim turned to Bonnie and they both grinned mischievously.
“’Know what I mean, Verne?’” The two younger girls managed to say this in perfect harmony and burst out laughing.
“Jinx, you owe me a soda!” Bonnie hung her head in mock defeat and then left their table to weave among the other patrons towards the bar. While they’d taken a cab to the heart of town and then walked the rest of the way, Kim wasn’t drinking anything hard that evening though Shego had opted for a Glen Livet neat. It’s amazing how fast a good scotch can grow on you.
“Damn kids.” Shego muttered as she sipped her drink. Kim decided to take that as a challenge for one of the games they’d started playing together.
“Old fart.”
“Pampers.”
“Depends”
“Breakfast at noon.”
“Dinner at four.”
“Chewable vitamins.”
“Viagra.”
By this time Kim had slowly positioned her hand just above Shego’s bare thigh. As she made her last move in the verbal joust, she lowered her hand. Her lover’s eyes went wide.
“Kim, I don’t think we want to do this now, Ok?”
“What? Why not? Most of these folks have seen us hanging all over each other before, what’s different about now?” Shego looked around the room and did in fact see many familiar faces.
“True, but we’ve brought a guest with us tonight.”
“So? Not everyone here is, you know…”
The raven-haired woman smiled and hung her own head; after all this time, her precious Kimmie still didn’t like to say the word.
“That’s not my point. Bonnie’s known you for years and me for a few days; she’s accepted that we’re together and that we’re a couple.” A deeper reason for her concern suddenly hit her.
“Maybe I was looking for a new friend that we could share. I don’t want us to scare her away.” This statement made Kim brighten.
“Oh, that’s perfect! I’m so glad to hear you say that!” Kim placed her hands together atop the table but did lean over and give her wife a tender kiss on the cheek. It was at this point that Bonnie returned and passed a fresh drink to both of her new friends.
“Hey, Rockwaller, you’re not here to cater to us. You’re our guest tonight.” At this, Bonnie raised her glass and proposed a toast.
“To new friends and new beginnings.” The other two joined her.
“Bonnie!” Kim’s exclamation made the others jump slightly “Let’s dance!”
The tanned woman looked eager enough, but something in Kim’s manner was starting to make Shego uneasy. Too many times in recent days her partner’s moods had swung from manic to depressive; this had the earmarks of another episode.
“Maybe Bonnie just wants to enjoy her drink and some pleasant conversation?”
“Right, as if! Besides, I’ve got happy feet!”
Kim stuck out her tongue and dragged Bonnie away, the other girl smirked and rolled her eyes to indicate that she recognized when Kim Possible wasn’t about to be denied. Shego watched them move to the dance floor with a sinking feeling in her gut.
She wasn’t the only one; several other pairs of eyes watch as well.
Bonnie hadn’t let herself feel so free in a long time. It was as if she’d been reborn just a few short weeks ago, ever since she had first contacted her mother and asked if she could visit. The hardships of the past year were falling from her shoulders and life started to look good again. It wasn’t easy at first to reconcile the Kim Possible she had known at school with the Kim she was learning about now; the new lifestyle her former-rival had chosen since that earlier time had made no sense to her whatsoever.
Grief, she soon discovered, has a cleansing effect; things that were very important to you once become less so, and things that didn’t mean as much to you were now hardly worth noticing. Such was the way she now saw Kim; whatever her old-new friend did to find happiness in life was Ok by Bonnie, even if she didn’t share that same belief.
Right now Bonnie was having a hard time keeping up with Kim on the dance floor. Having shed the club scene along with so many other things after the birth of her son, her dance moves were both rusty and out of date. Kim proved to be a generous partner, however, and repeated her moves often so that Bonnie could learn the new steps. In a short time, they were whirling around the floor and laughing.
At one point Bonnie felt herself being grabbed around the waist and hauled off her feet, her legs being swung on the air and her body being rolled across the back of her dance partner. Her scream of surprise quickly became one of excitement when Kim gently set her back on the floor.
“That’s something that Shego taught me awhile back!” A hundred reactions passed through Bonnie’s mind at that point, but she could only say one thing.
“Again!”
Shego was still watching and nursing her drink, but felt that old pang of jealousy creep up behind her. Kim was using HER moves on ANOTHER woman. Well, she’d soon put a stop to this!
Bonnie’s feet had just touched down for a second time when she felt herself being firmly turned around. There was Shego, standing tall and regal against the moving lights and the pounding beat of the music. With her black hair and black dress, her pale face and neckline seemed to float in the air, disembodied.
“May I cut in?”
Bonnie felt a little disappointed, but not totally surprised. The song had changed and she was a little out of breath.
“Sure, that’s… GHAA!” As a new song filled the room, the tanned woman found herself in Shego’s grip this time, hauled off her feet yet again and being propelled into the air. She was expertly caught and carefully set back down, but immediately Shego began to twirl them around and around, letting Bonnie lean back to gain speed through momentum. Bonnie howled with laughter as the capable Shego led her around the room and taught her even more dance moves.
Kim was standing pretty much where they’d left her, eyes wide with glee and hands clapping together ecstatically; she was practically bouncing up and down as she watched the dancers. The other patrons were used to seeing the combat-like moves of Kim and Shego on a regular basis; tonight was a treat as they watched each woman trade off on their guest.
The solitary redhead smirked and moved closer.
Bonnie was moving so fast that she found herself unable to keep her eyes open for fear of vertigo. She relied heavily on the abilities of her dance partner to keep her from being hurt; Shego was more than willing to oblige. The former villain had lost herself in the thrill of the motion, the thunderous beat of the music, and the miasma of the lights.
This might almost have been a fight with her Princess, but with only the shared connection of desire and none of the blows of heated combat. She also closed her eyes, relying on training and experience to keep her feet on the dance floor, picturing Kimmie in her arms, feeling Kimmie’s breath on her neck. Shego opened her eyes to behold the brown-haired and tanned young woman before her, not the angel who bore her children.
Why does it hurt to see how damn beautiful this stranger is? Why am I even looking?
Suddenly Shego felt another pair of hands touching her. It was Kimmie, looking every inch the Princess that she was, embracing Shego from behind. Shego went to turn towards her, to return the embrace, but was unable due to her hold on Rockwaller. Kim seemed to sense this and directed their uniform motion until she was on the opposite side of their little enclave. She embraced Bonnie this time and lowered her cheek down onto a tanned shoulder, the brown-haired woman oblivious to the tender kiss.
“A friend we can share.” Kim kept her eyes upturned and distinctly spoke the words to Shego, barely audible over the music.
The tall woman felt the world slide out from under her and all the heat from the dancing withered inside her chest; there was no other way that she could interpret that statement. Shego released her hold on both women and backed away, leaving Bonnie content in Kim’s arms, her eyes closed to the world, moving back and forth in time with the music. Kim watched her spouse move off, a question on her face.
What had just happened? They’d never talked about doing anything like this before. Their relationship was built around just the two of them and the children, no one else. What was Kim thinking? The tall woman grew a few shades paler and felt as if a hole had opened beneath her. Kim was upon her a few seconds later, a confused Bonnie in tow.
“What is wrong with you?” Kim’s question did nothing to make the situation any clearer.
“Me? What did you mean by what you said just now?”
“Just what I said! You were the one to make the suggestion!”
“WHAT?”
“’A friend we could share’, those were your exact words back at the table!”
Bonnie stood off to the side, equidistant between the arguing women. She’d been having so much fun and had completely forgotten the full nature of the relationship between Kim and her partner; it simply wasn’t relevant as far as she was concerned. But now she was hearing things that made her skin crawl.
“Wait… what exactly are you two talking about?” She felt betrayed. “What is it that you’re wanting from me?”
Shego turned to the frightened and disgusted girl, her hands out in defense.
“Nothing! I swear that I have no idea what… Kim! You have to know that I never meant THAT!” Shego was too torn between anger and desperation to make much sense.
“I wanted us to have a fuller life, remember? Not just fights and apologies, but more! Maybe some friends that we both knew, not… DAMN IT, I love you and only you and don’t want to share you like THAT!” Leaving the stunned redhead to assimilate those words, Shego turned to Bonnie again.
“Bonnie, please, I’m not sure why this is happening, but I had no plans to make you anything more than a friend.” She came as close to begging as she ever had with someone other than Kim. “Please, please believe me!”
“I’ve got to go…” The tanned woman felt sick. Her vision blurred and everything was starting to skew. She threaded her way to the restrooms.
“SEE what you’ve DONE?” The taller woman spun back to see not an angel but a demon with a head of fire standing directly behind her. Kim’s hands were raised like claws ready to strike.
“Kim, what the Hell is wrong with you?” Two sets of emerald eyes glared at each other, but when Shego looked at Kim, she only saw the void staring back at her.
“The only thing wrong with me is that I never noticed how damn selfish you are!” Kim grabbed her purse from the table and stormed towards the door. Shego remained standing and started to shake with anger and fear; she would feel so much better if she could throw a punch at someone. Meanwhile, several nondescript patrons filed out of ‘Club Rina’ in the wake of the fuming Kim Possible.
When Bonnie Rockwaller left the restroom, the crowd was still enjoying itself in full swing, as if the drama from only minutes before had never occurred. She passed by the table she’d been seated at, but there was no sign of either Shego or Kim. The regret proved to be a bitter pill and she didn’t look back as she walked out of the club.
The town had been her home, but she wasn’t used to walking this section of town, especially after dark and she needed either a cab or directions. This moment of indecision broke her composure just enough to let the tears fall. Once upon a time she’d been the cock of the walk, lording over underclassmen and keeping her little herd of friends under her thumb. Now she was alone and empty and letting life spit in her face once again.
“Hey.” Bonnie looked towards the source of the voice. Her face contorted in disgust and she spun on her heel to leave the speaker behind.
“Rockwaller, wait.” Bonnie kept moving; she would not give this person the pleasure of seeing her squirm beneath her emerald gaze.
“Nuts, why do they never listen?” Back near the club, an agile form started running towards Bonnie, building up a good speed before leaping onto a mailbox. One, two, three flips between wall and curb and street sign landed Shego right in from of the retreating young woman.
“Please wait a minute, we really need to talk.”
“Piss off!” Bonnie made to pass the tall figure, but was blocked each time. When a small spray can of Mace was thrust forward, a pale hand knocked it aside before it could be utilized.
“Oh, no, you didn’t!” This was bullshit! She was Bonnie Rockwaller, the toughest girl to walk the halls of Middleton High School. She could lay a smack down with the best of them! Bonnie sideswiped a shin and heard a satisfying yelp of pain. She took advantage of the distraction to reach forward and grab Shego’s upper arms, yanking the greenish woman closer.
Bonnie rammed her forehead into Shego’s, ringing both their chimes, but only Shego fell backwards onto her butt.
“OW! Damn it!” Shego felt so stupid for letting this untrained whelp gain the upper hand like that. Without thinking, she ignited the plasma fields around her hands.
“So are you going to rape me now, is that it?” Even through her tears, she planned to go down fighting. Shego looked up at Bonnie in startled amazement; then down at her glowing hands in comprehension. She quickly extinguished the fields.
“No! No, this is going all wrong, just give me a second, will you!” Shego rose to her feet, rubbing at the spot on her forehead where Bonnie had clocked her a moment ago. “Damn, girl, tell me you didn’t learn that in cheerleading.”
“No, Kim… did that to me once.” Breathing hard, Bonnie didn’t feel threatened so much as emotionally exhausted. She didn’t leave the shelter of the wall, and Shego stayed where she was, not moving any closer.
“Bonnie, listen to me. I swear to you I had no intention tonight beyond the three of us having a good time.” Her words reached her own ears. “A good time dancing!”
“Oh, yeah? Then what was Kim talking about? She practically wanted to serve me up to you on a platter with an apple in my mouth.”
“Ok, see, now you’ve just put what has to be the weirdest image that I’ve ever had into my head.” Shego brushed the grit from the curb and sat down. Bonnie’s former fashion sense asserted itself.
“Don’t sit on that dusty cement in that dress, you’ll ruin it.” She wasn’t feeling as if she were in danger anymore, so she left the wall and moved to the curb. Shego didn’t move or even turn to watch Bonnie. She was marshalling her thoughts and choosing her words very carefully.
“Bonnie, I want you to know about something that happened to us the other day. Something happened to Kim and she’d been acting strange ever since.” Only then did she look up and make eye contact. “I think that something is seriously wrong with Kimmie and I need your help.”
Kim was wandering the deserted streets of Middleton hours later when she suddenly stopped and wondered where she was. Ever since she had stormed away from ‘Club Rina’, her head had been filled with dark and angry images, each and every one superimposing itself on the real world around her. Her embarrassment and shame were completed when Shego betrayed her, refusing to allow Bonnie to join them in their love.
She just could not understand what was making Shego act so different!
And it wasn’t only Shego, though her spouse’s recent actions were most prevalent in Kim’s mind. Everyone was acting weird! Duff Killigan started their fight at the absolute peak of his fighting style, but slowed down to almost a crawl near the end. Even the entire town was under the grip of some strange influence; the people that she interacted with daily were moving slower, speaking slower and apparently thinking slower as well!
Did everyone believe that she’d gotten fat and lazy from having children? Were they all just hoping to make things easier on poor, fat, stupid, Kim Possible? Why would her wife make such a big deal over a few flips on the playground unless no one believed that she was capable anymore! And on top of everything, Shego berates her for being a poor homemaker! Just because a few towels or bed linens get dirty! I mean…
The thought wiped itself from her mind; she had been skirting the edge of something dark, something bad, something that she did NOT want to think about and her subconscious effectively rerouted her train of thought away from it. As if to force the argument, Kim felt a burning in the back of her throat; it was a feeling that she had become all too familiar with over the past week, but could never anticipate it or prevent what was about to occur. She halted in her steady march down a nameless street, dropped to her knees and retched.
The blackness spilled from her mouth, thick and rancid, splattering the ground at her feet and quickly congealing into an odorous pool. When Kim was finished, she stood uneasily and looked about. Her chest felt as if an elephant had stepped on it and her head ached; her throat and nose burned from the vile fluid that she’d just evacuated from her guts. She spit the remnants of the tarry substance out onto the ground.
And then her mind reset itself, the past several hours scrambled like an egg.
Not sure what she was doing out here of why, Kim used a shaky hand to pull her deactivated Kimmunicator from her purse. She was about to contact Wade when the screen suddenly activated of it’s own accord; he was apparently attempting to contact her.
“Kim here, what’s the sitch?”
“The sitch is that I’ve been trying to reach you for hours!” The young boy rubbed the sleep from his eyes and quickly pulled on a T-shirt.
“Sorry, Wade, it was a ‘girls night out’ sort of thing.” This made her pause; what made her say that? And if she’d been out with anyone, where were they? Something odd was going on but it would have to wait until later to be sorted out.
“I’d turned the Kimmunicator off for awhile. What’s going on?”
“Remember the other day when I’d said that Monkey Fist had been spotted in South America? He’s still there and he’s kidnapped a team of scientists that were encamped at the border of Columbia and Venezuela. Here, I’ll download the exact location to you.” Kim could see that the data was now on her own machine.
“Any idea what he’s up to?”
“Yeah, and it’s weird.” Wade covered his mouth when he yawned, but that didn’t slow him down at the keyboard. “Check this out.” An image appeared on the tiny screen.
“Ewww! Is it dead? The poor thing!” The image was black and white, but very clear. It was of a forest or jungle clearing, and there was a crate of fuel oil in the middle of the picture. Seated atop the crate with a stick propped under its chin to keep it upright was a species of primate that Kim had never seen before. Its eyes were sunken and its body had that unmistakable posture of death that once you’ve seen it, can never be forgotten.
“If it wasn’t, it surely is by now; Kim, that picture was taken almost 90 years ago!”
“What was it?”
“That is supposedly the only photograph of an ‘Ameranthropoides loysi’, or ‘deLoys's American anthropoid’. There were two sighted by Swiss geologist Francois deLoys way back in 1920 while he was on an expedition. It was reported that they attacked the camp and this one was shot, but the other one got away.”
“So what do we think Monty is doing down there? Is he looking for more of these creatures?”
“Could be! No one took this too seriously at the time because most researchers suspected the picture to be a hoax, or that it was just a large spider monkey. But the thing is that spider monkeys rarely grow as much as four feet tall and this thing was almost a foot taller than that.”
“So it’s an ape?”
“That’s another thing! South America has many species of monkeys, but the Western Hemisphere doesn’t have any known indigenous apes. Fiske might be down there to see if he can recruit some of these poor things for his ranks of Monkey Ninjas, or to look for their version of a Monkey Temple.” The boy frowned as he looked at the sad image of this mysterious dead creature. “Either way, it’s bad news for someone!”
“Then I’m there. See if you can work out some transport and I’ll get Ron; I think that this will also be a job for our resident Mystical Monkey Power expert.”
“Will Shego be going with you this time?” This question caught her off guard, an uneasy feeling looming over her shoulder. Where was Shego? Weren’t they supposed to have gone out tonight?
“No, um, not this time. She’s going to stay home and see to the girls… yeah.”
“You got it, then!” The young man was never so happy as when he could contribute to the work of Team Possible. He paused in his preparations to look intently at his friend. “Kim, are you feeling alright?”
“Sure, why?”
“Nothing really, you were just looking a little peaked. Tired?”
“Not really, certainly not when there’s a mission!” She said goodbye after promising the boy that she would contact him again when she’d rustled up Ron. Breaking the communication link, she accessed a street map of Middleton; she needed to find her way home and get changed.
She was standing in front of the apartment building after a short late-night bus ride across town and found the apartment quiet and dark. Kim searched the rooms and couldn’t find Shego anywhere, and since the children were also gone she assumed that her lover had to go out and that the girls were with their grandparents. Kim went straight to her closet and changed into her ‘mission clothes’.
She had no memory of having planned a night out or lying to her folks and asking them to watch the children. Open yearbooks on the sofa caught her eye as she walked back across the living room. Glancing down she saw the old pictures of her classmates, especially the altered images of Bonnie and that of her own face. This gave her a great idea: they should ask Bonnie to come with us to ‘Club Rina’ while she’s in town!
Exiting the building, Kim drove her own car in the direction of Ron’s house. As late as it was, she knew that it might be difficult to get her teammate focused. She sent a call signal to Ron’s own Kimmunicator and waited for him to answer. Eventually a slurred voice responded to the call.
“I’m sorry, but you’ve called at a time when most descent folk are asleep in their beds. Please leave a message at the sound of the beep.” There was a short pause, then…
“m’beep…”
“Rufus, please put Ron back on the line, it’s really important.”
“hokay…”
“Kiiim… whaaaat?” The whiny tones made her smile as she envisioned Ron huddled beneath the blankets. She glanced away from the road long enough to transmit the image file of the deceased primate to Ron’s machine.
“Ron, I really need you to take a look at your screen right now.” She heard grumbling and coughing as the sleepy young man shifted around in the bed. There were a few silent moments while he was probably forcing his blurred vision to bring the image into focus.
“GIANT DEAD MONKEY!”
Kim almost lost her grip on the wheel as the scream made her Kimmunicator shake in her hand.
“Ron?”
“GIANT!”
“Ron, I’ll be there in…”
“DEAD!”
“Rufus, please tell Ron that I’ll be there in five minutes, Ok?”
“MONKEY!”
“hokeydokey!” Kim ended the call; that actually went better than she’d expected.
When she finally arrived, Ron and Rufus were waiting outside on the porch. Rufus had gone back to sleep in Ron’s pocket, but the young blond man was wide awake and clutching his ‘mission satchel’ to his chest. As they drove off towards the airport, he explained to Kim what he’d brought.
“Since we’ve never actually fought a Zombie Monkey before, I’ve brought some herbs, rock salt and a VHS copy of ‘Serpent And The Rainbow’.”
“Ron, I don’t think we’re dealing with a Zombie Monkey here.” She smiled at his chaotic enthusiasm.
“One step ahead of you, KP!” Ron opened the satchel wide to expose a mallet and several sharpened wooden stakes. “I’ve covered the Vampire Monkey angle too!” Kim giggled at this; she loved Ron so much, but more like a brother than anything else. He heard her and lifted his head from the satchel to admonish her.
“KP, you mustn’t underestimate the power of the Monkey Undead. Now where did I put that garlic clove?” As if in reply, there came a soft ‘poot’ from his pants pocket.
“Whoa, little man, that was rank! I don’t want to hear you come crying to me after you’ve been turned into an Undead Zombie Vampire Naked Mole Rat.” The only reply was another soft ‘poot’.
Having called Wade back to confirm transportation, Kim was again flying out from Middleton airport; this time, however, she didn’t have the luxury of flying in a concord. The refurbished DC-10 was now acting as a modest cargo carrier for several companies with offices in Central and South America. The pilot was an older gentleman with a southern accent and a full head of white hair; he was clean-shaven but he had luxurious sideburns and his hair was swept back in an all-too-familiar style.
“Say, there, lil’ mama… Ahm sure glad that you were able to reach me before I had to take off, mah schedule’s pretty tight these days.”
He smiled at her from behind his aviator sunglasses, one corner of his mouth turning upwards sharply. The name on his pilot’s license read ‘Aaron Priestly’, but Kim knew him by another name. While the man himself had never needed Kim’s assistance, she had once helped to save a member of his estranged family from a burning building, earning his undying gratitude. While his family, and indeed the world, believed him to be dead, he came out of voluntary seclusion to offer her a ride whenever he could; a new life brought new opportunities, and he’d chosen to learn how to fly.
“Hang tight, kids. We’re almost over your drop.” Kim and Ron checked each other’s parachutes and prepared to jump from the plane. They opened the door and steadied themselves against the wind shear. As Team Possible secured their safety goggles, Rufus emerged from Ron’s pocket wearing his own pair of undersized goggles and a matching white scarf.
“Ok, ya’ll be careful now!” The adventurers moved to the door and Rufus gave their pilot a big grin and a thumb’s up.
“tee cee bee!”
“You got it, lil’ man. Takin’ care of business!”
The Team jumped and the automatic mechanism closed the door behind them. Kim managed to look back upwards and made a salute of gratitude before the plane flew out of sight; she was barely able to discern the words ‘THE KING’ emblazoned across the underside of the fuselage.
Daybreak had occurred hours ago, but there was no way to know this when you were deep in the forests of South America. The canopy overhead blocked all but the most direct sunlight and the undergrowth was thick enough to require a machete. Landing less than a mile from the last known location of the missing expedition, Kim used Wade’s data to lead them to the site.
The tents were shredded and the rest of the equipment strewn about the tight clearing. They found a radio, but it was in pretty bad shape.
“Ron, can you use your abilities to track Monkey Fist?” The young man regarded her uneasily, never having become too comfortable with his control over his Mystical Monkey Power, but he sat on the ground and closed his eyes in silent mediation. As she watched him, Kim recalled what she knew about her foe, Monkey Fist.
Born into the modern aristocracy, Lord Montgomery Fiske was like most of the landed gentry of his class: lots of property and little remaining wealth to afford its upkeep. Since most of the old titles didn’t come attached to fortunes anymore, Monty quickly spent his inheritance searching desperately for a power that would allow him to take all the riches that he could ever dream of. He thought that he had found the answer in the form of Mystical Monkey Power.
A magical force that could only be harnessed when certain artifacts were assembled and specific rites performed, anyone empowered with Mystical Monkey Power gained the fighting prowess and innate skills of… well a monkey. To this end, Fiske had gathered dozens of monkeys and trained them in the ways of the Ninja, skills that the creatures almost seemed bred to command with better acuity than any human.
Monty also had another trick up is sleeves, literally. Years ago, he had used medical science to graft the hands and feet of an ape to his own limbs, further enhancing his own impressive abilities of dexterity and hand-to-hand combat. Now calling himself ‘Monkey Fist’, he and his Monkey Ninjas were constantly searching the globe for ancient ‘Monkey Temples’ and rifling them for treasure and additional mystical knowledge.
After several minutes, Ron was on his feet and moving away quickly through the underbrush without a word spoken. Halfway up the slope of a mountain, they stopped about three miles later at the edge of a deep ravine where Ron sank to the ground and appeared to come out of his trance. There were no other sounds except for birdcalls and the roar of a waterfall on the other side of the chasm. Together, they shared a set of binoculars and picked out a few more details of importance.
“Look, there’s some equipment that could have come from the expedition’s campsite!” Kim nodded at his findings, but was more concerned for the scientists.
“Now if I were a kidnapped scientist, where would I hide?” The young man looked high and low through the lenses but could see nothing.
“Uh, Ron.”
“Hang on, KP, I’m still looking.”
“Ron, I think you should…”
“Geez, KP, how about a little teamwork here? I’m looking for the scientists!”
Just then Ron felt a gentle tap on his shoulder and noticed the vague shape of an arm out of the corner of his eye; the arm pointed down into the depths of the ravine. Following the direction of the pointing finger, he found his quarry.
“Hey, yeah, I can see them! They’re tied against some trees down there. Way to go, KP!”
“Um, Ron, I’m still back here. You really should turn around now.” Her tone was insistent, but it didn’t make any sense; after all, how else could he still feel her hand on his shoulder?
“Oh, alright, what’s so important that…?” He turned in the direction of the helping hand, noticing just then how dark and furry that it was. He kept turning and noticed a slender form, covered with short dense hair, dark brown in color, crouching low and regarding him with a calm and intelligent gaze.
Before Ron could scream, the beast placed a finger against its lips; this action stunned Ron into the desired silence and he looked over to where Kim was surrounded by three more of the apelike creatures. No one was making any overt signs of aggression or violence, so everything was calm for the moment. They were just sitting quietly.
The beast closest to Kim set down a coarse bundle of cloth, which it unfolded to reveal some berries, roots, and a hunk of what looked like…
“cheese!”
Rufus was out of Ron’s pocket in a flash and he approached the food, gingerly sniffing everything. The beast seemed to smile and tore away a small piece of the rough cheese, tossing it to the rodent. Tasting the comestible, Rufus nodded at the mysterious creature in gratitude.
“nize munkee!”
These were not natives or any known race of humans; these were identical in build and stature to the poor dead creature Kim had seen in her Kimmunicator. There were two marked differences, Kim noticed. One was that these creatures were alive. Beyond the obvious, the import of this fact was how robust they looked compared to a misguided hunter’s trophy. The second was that they were wearing clothes, of a sort.
Dark green cloth, tightly woven and apparently stitched by hand, adorned their bodies in a simple smock, with patches of thin, tooled leather for either protection or decoration. The beasts appeared to be giving the young people a cursory examination.
Slowly as not to alarm them, Kim withdrew her Kimmunicator and opened a channel to Wade. The creatures watched appraisingly and nodded to each other as she worked the device. The youngest member of Team Possible greeted his friends warmly.
“Good, you made it! What did you find out?”
“Well, we’ve spotted the kidnapped expedition and we think we know where Monkey Fist is hiding…” She kept her voice low and steady. “And we think he may suspect that there are more of the ‘Ameranthropoides loysi’ around to entice or force into his Monkey Ninja ranks”.
“Really? Why do you think that?” Wade took a long slurp from his soda as he awaited her answer.
Kim and Ron shared a quick glance, both shrugging to acknowledge that there really was no better way to do this. She pointed the Kimmunicator toward the group of crouching beasts, each of whom raised a hand in greeting.
The choking subsided after a few minutes.
“Oh, WOW, this is amazing! Kim, we’ve just got to record some data on these guys!”
“Tell you what, Wade; I’ll leave you and the Kimmunicator here with Ron and I’ll climb down to the ravine to see what Monty is up to.”
“No way, KP! I’m not letting you go down there all alone without anyone watching your back!”
As Kim carefully climbed down the hanging vines towards the bottom of the ravine, she smiled ruefully at Ron’s concept of ‘backup’; the tiny, pink rodent was already fast asleep in the nest he’d fashioned in her hair. There was less vegetation growing at the bottom of the ravine, apparently because less direct light got down here, and the shadows were heavy and thick along the narrow passage.
When she reached the bottom, Kim could see that there was only one way to go now; the west end of the ravine opened up onto a rocky mountainside but the ravine curved eastward and became narrower. It was in this eastern direction that she could detect the fresh tracks and spoor of several animals. She could smell them also, the rank odor biting her nostrils; the Monkey Ninjas were very close.
The first order of business was to free the captives. With Rufus standing atop her head like a U-Boat commander on his conning tower, Kim circled the trees where they were bound a few times to ensure that she wouldn’t be seen, then she crept closer and got their attention. There were only four people, three men and one woman, which would make escape easier since she wouldn’t have to manage a crowd.
“Hey… I hope you don’t mind, but please try not to look in my general direction, Ok? There might be hidden sentries and I don’t want them to see me cut you loose.” Kim spoke sotto voce while she pushed herself over to the scientists and proceeded to examine the think ropes that bound them.
“Thank goodness you’ve arrived, young lady!” The leader of the expedition was a portly gentleman wearing, of all things, a monocle and a pith helmet that matched his khakis. “I take it that you’re the vanguard of the cavalry, what?”
“No, sir. It’s just me. Please don’t move after I’ve cut these ropes.” Kim decided against using the laser cutter for fear of alerting any sentries, as they might see or smell any smoke. “I was informed of your expedition and how it had been captured.”
In a short time, each of the scientists was free and Kim was explaining to them how she wanted them to leave the area. Unfortunately, they didn’t want to go.
“Blast it all, girl, this is the scientific find of the century! My colleagues and I studied the 1929 report by Dr. George Montadon and we’re convinced that there are more of these ‘Ameranthropoides loysi’ mucking about here somewhere! We’ve just got to find them!” The man was becoming quite angry and red in the face. His voice was also getting loud enough for them to be in danger of being heard.
“Why?”
“Eh? What’s that?”
“Why do you want to find them?” Kim could feel the muscles along her shoulder blades tightening from stress. What could this fat old man want with those creatures, if not to exploit them? What had those creatures ever done to humanity that they should be noticed? Hell, they obviously weren’t even ‘beasts’ but something unprecedented!
“Didn’t you hear what I said, girl? I said…” He didn’t get to say anything at that moment because Kim reached forward and grabbed his ascot in her tiny fist and yanked his face right up to her own.
“Now you listen to me.” Lips drawn back tightly over clenched teeth, green eyes flashing as if they were Shego’s own plasma, the world-saver could almost feel her nails popping the bloated flesh of the man’s red neck, feel the warmth of his blood run along her arm and onto the ground beneath them.
Rufus went rigid; something was very wrong here. His instincts told him to run and hide as fast as he could, but surely he was safe here with his beloved Kim.
“When I say ‘go’, you will crawl out of this ravine on your bellies and not make one damn sound. Do you understand me?” She ran her eyes along theirs; there were four frightened nods. “You will move west towards the open end of the ravine and from there you will climb up the mountain until it flattens out and my partner meets you.”
She lifted Rufus from her head and set him on the ground.
“You lead them to Ron, Ok? Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.” The rodent had trouble understanding; this was Kim, their Kim, but something had changed. He carefully backed away from her, nodding to signify his comprehension.
While the forest was not particularly warm that day, the humidity must be affecting her breathing; her voice cracked and caught a few times as she hissed her words out. Thoroughly disgusted at this pitiful band of ‘intrepid explorers’, Kim cleared her throat and spit against a tree. The spittle was viscous and as black as pitch.
“Go.”
Kim watched the four scientists crawl away after her tiny pink friend and she pulled herself up into a sitting position against one of the trees. She felt suddenly tired and spent, drained as if from long exertion, but she’d done little since she and Ron had parachuted down. She sat there and listed to the birdcalls and the rustlings of hidden forest creatures and tried to relax, tried to shut her mind down. It was so peaceful here that even in the face of danger Kim felt as if she could have curled up and gone to sleep. It seemed as if she hadn’t slept in…
Wide-awake and on the alert, Kim heard and smelled several small simians in the immediate vicinity. Staying low to the ground, she crawled on all fours to the eastern end of the narrow ravine, making no sound even though he was moving faster along the ground than most humans can run when upright. She wasn’t in the least bit concerned for Monkey Fist and his minions, but she wanted to know why he was here in the first place.
As the gorge grew narrower, the overhanging boulders and draped vines created a surreal amphitheater at the terminus. Kim had expected to find either a Monkey Temple or a burial site, or even an active settlement of the mysterious ‘Ameranthropoides loysi’ now that she’d seen the living, breathing ones! What she did find was even stranger.
Pointed towards the Heavens at the closed end of the ravine, was a spire; much like that of a church or cathedral, it was cylindrical and tapered to a very fine point. Vines and other vegetation encrusted it like a living façade, but the clear signs of rust between the leaves and stems could only mean that this was made of metal! All other Monkey Temples, and thanks to Fiske she’d seen more of those than she’d ever care to, were built from carven stone blocks.
The base of the edifice was round and the height of the entire building was approximately forty feet tall but only ten feet in diameter, making it more of a chapel than a cathedral. There were two large windows about halfway up it’s walls and an aperture just below them along one side; Kim grabbed handfuls of vegetation and pulled herself up.
Once inside it was obvious that generations of birds and other arboreal critters had lived in here from time to time; the single space ran from just a few feet above ground level right up to almost the very peak of the spire. Every surface was filthy with dirt and spoor and vines and broken glass.
Glass? Kim could see that the windows, while so dirty as to be almost opaque, were still intact and undamaged. Upon closer inspection, Kim saw that several crypt-like alcoves lined the inner walls and these had once had doors of glass, now long shattered. Upon an even closer inspection, Kim could see the faint sparkle of jewels and crystals along the walls over her head.
Climbing hand over hand, she moved upward to an outthrust platform protruding from the rear inner wall; she crouched on this while she took a closer look at the gems. They were lined up in nice, neat rows and didn’t really seem to be precious stones at all, just colored glass. Kim looked around for anything that would be familiar to the Monkey Temples that she’d seen in the past, but there was nothing; there was nothing about this odd building that matched any temple or theme that she’d ever seen before.
Curiosity getting the better of her, she tore decades of filth from the inner walls; desperate to find something that would identify the builders of this structure. After a few seconds, Kim exposed a small placard with cabalistic markings inscribed on it. Gouging further encrustations away with her nails, she realized that it was a small window of crystal with four symbols that looked eerily like numerals mounted beneath.
‘1971’
“Well, this is weird.” Disappointed that there would remain one more mystery in the world, Kim began to climb back down to the egress. She froze in the act of moving back to the doorway; had it been a sound or a vibration or did she just know? Regardless, she was aware that there was a welcoming party awaiting her just outside.
In the high grass around the base of the edifice, stood Lord Montgomery Fiske. He wasn’t alone; Monkey Fist was surrounded by over a dozen small Monkey Ninjas, each poised for attack but so disciplined as to not move a muscle until their master bade them so.
“Kim Possible, as I live and breath! Welcome to South America!” Monty was dressed in his usual black fighting clothes, his tangle of black hair bristling out over his sizable ears. His hands and feet were bare, exposing the altered anatomy that gave him his name. The monkeys were draped in similar black outfits, with the exception of their heads being covered, leaving only their piercing eyes to stare up at Kim.
“Do you like it? Oh, I cannot wait until I have tapped its mysteries!” He pointed towards the metal spire. “Its like nothing I’ve ever encountered before.”
“And what are your plans for the ‘Ameranthropoides loysi’?”
“Oh, so you’ve seen some? Posh and piffle! I have no use of them whatsoever!”
“What, are those monkeys too big for you to handle?” Monty furrowed his brows in anger but did rise to the bait.
“Not at all, and besides, they’re certainly not ‘monkeys’. They are apes, dear girl, and they can offer me nothing except to teach me the secrets of their machine.” His evil grin undercut the polite words and tone he had been using.
“Machine? What machine?” Kim sat on the rim of the opening, nearly fifteen feet over her foes. She felt like a predator ready to strike, but she held still for the nonce.
“What do you mean, ‘what machine’? Surely you could tell that…” Monkey Fist stopped and looked up at her incredulously. “You mean you don’t know what it is?” His look of bemusement became one of delight. “Oh, this is too much! Girl, you will never cease to amaze me with your obtuse wits and stunted imagination!” Monkey Fist laughed and what started as a normal enough chortle quickly degenerated into a very simian-like chatter.
“Well, I really could stand here and share jibes with you all day.” He raised a furry paw to wipe a tear of humor from his eye. “But my friends and I have an appointment with destiny.” In a dramatic gesture, Monkey Fist thrust his arms outwards as if to enfold his minions, then he swept his reach towards Kim.
“Monkey Ninjas, ATTACK!”
Several of the small figures leapt at the walls of the temple, climbing as fast as lightning. If Kim had allowed them to grab her, their combined strength would have been enough to topple her from her perch to certain injury below, and a quick death at the hands and feet of the rest. She was ready, however, and struck. Firmly gripping the edge of the opening, Kim swung down from the opening and kicked all but one animal away from the wall. While they landed easily below, the remaining attacker latched onto her foot and would not be shaken loose.
Taking full measure of the drop to the base of the structure, Kim firmly clamped her free foot against the monkey’s neck and let go of the edge of the doorway. Trapped in this unexpected fashion, the little animal could not get free in time; Kim felt it crunch satisfactorily beneath her feet as she landed.
Monkey Fisk froze in abject fury, his shock and amazement bordering on hysteria.
“KILL her!” The rest of his beasts broke ranks to come at her from all sides, the orchestrated maneuvers and choreographed fighting styles abandoned to better confuse her in the rapid melee of so many small bodies. Each monkey was prepared to bite and claw, as well as their full repertoire of ninja skills, to bring this human down for their master.
Kim plucked one from the air as it flew at her face. She used it as a bludgeon to knock another one away that came too close and then discarded the creature with a backhanded toss against the metal wall behind her; it rang like a bell under the impact. One slipped between her legs and climbed her back in an attempt to bite her exposed neck, but she grabbed it firmly with both hands and wrenched it free.
Monty had to duck as the stunned creature sailed right at his face; he clearly saw two clutches of red hair in the beasts tiny paws. Looking back at the fray, he grinned in horrid joy as he saw blood smeared around Kim Possible’s mouth; finally his Monkey Ninjas had struck a decisive blow!
Then he noticed what she was doing to the monkey that she was gripping in her slender hands, and the distinctive wounds on the body of the monkey near her feet.
Oh, dear God, no…
Monkey Fisk screeched to signal his minions and they regrouped at is feet. Few were unharmed and one was gravely wounded. Several were dead or dying.
As one they advanced, twirling through the air as if defying gravity. Kim spit wads of bloody meat and black spittle from her mouth and waited for them. Her eyes were feral and her stance barely human as she anticipated the carnage to follow.
With scant inches to spare, Monkey Fist barely saw Kim as she leapt straight up and over their heads. She snagged two of the Monkey Ninjas out of the air and their necks were crushed in her bare hands before she landed behind her attackers. Using the small bodies as weapons, Kim threw them at Monty when he turned to face her; the remorse he felt at having to deflect the limp forms was almost too much to bear. The redhead seemed to dance from one small body to another as she pounced and ended the lives of those creatures already wounded or insensate.
More beast than man, Fiske howled like his namesake and charged the slender girl, summoning all of his skills and energies to end this battle now. He swung and punched, kicked and leapt, always a hairs breadth shy of contact with this slim girl. Kim dodged and parried, ever faster, ever quicker, gaining speed and focus with each second.
Monty was so slow! He would never touch her; this fool, this aberrant mix of humanity and science! Kim’s eyes shone like green ice and her smile might be better suited for Dante’s Inferno. She laughed freely with joy as every blow hit its mark, both his and her own. Finally…
“ENOUGH!”
Kim spun and shifted her weight, turning a full 360 degrees before landing a roundhouse haymaker right against Monkey Fist’s side. The ribcage indented nicely beneath her fist and he was thrown in the opposite direction like a rag doll. Kim didn’t follow his flight, neither on her feet nor even with her eyes. She stood there, the fire burning within her to kill everything she could touch, to end it, to end it all. Worlds died in her heart at that moment, families and entire races of people burned and suffered.
Monty Fiske lay at the base of the tree that had stopped his flight, a broken and ruined man. He could not think or feel, each torn breath a minor chord in a symphony of agony. Gasping once, twice, his breathing stopped and his heart ceased to beat; this was enough to attract Kim’s attention from twenty feet away.
From a standing position, using no more leverage than a mere flexing of her ankles, Kim shot into the air and landed before Monty after having flipped around no less than four times. Absorbing the impact with barely a bending of her knees, she crouched down to bring to eye level with the shattered body, smelling him, listening. Kim grinned before she tasted the rivulet of blood that ran down his face.
“I’d rather we finish this now, but if it means that much to you, Ok.” Kim stood and wiped the sweat from her face; the back of her hand came away black.
“See you around.” No longer a living whirlwind, Kim moved off, her gate becoming less steady with each leaden step. The forest was silent once more, the carnage ended. It wasn’t until the birds began to sing again that there was motion in the undergrowth.
Monty coughed lightly, shifting his weight off of his broken ribs; he’d barely had the time necessary to stop his heart and slow down his respiration to a crawl. The irony that Kim Possible had just about done that for him, and in almost no time at all, did not escape him. Even in the heat of battle, his ninja training and meditation disciplines could be called upon for other, more esoteric uses. And yet, somehow she’d known and let him live.
Leaning against his tree, a faint chatter from his left made him look around to see one remaining Monkey Ninja, favoring a leg and bleeding, gimped over to him and crouched, waiting for orders. It whimpered pitifully.
“Go, return to our base camp at the foot of the mountain, alert the others and have them come here to collect me.” There wasn’t going to be anyway that he could make himself ‘more comfortable’, but staying alive for a few more hours was going to be a big enough job. Fiske gave the small creature a tender scratch behind the ear before it limped away.
“Your brothers will be avenged!” The hate felt strong enough; yes, he would live.
By the time that she had walked half of a mile, Kim could barely move. Using the obvious route taken by the freed explorers, she left the ravine for the gentle slope of the mountain, intending to climb up from there. Instead, her breath was labored and her legs weak beneath her, every step quavering. So unlike the warrior born from a short while ago, Kim pushed herself beyond her limits just to gain the plateau.
“KP!”
Ron had been on the lookout for his best friend ever since the return of Rufus and the released captives. When they had returned without her, he’d been prepared to go down there and look for Kim on his own, but something held him back, some sense that stemmed from his Mystical Monkey Powers.
It told him that evil incarnate was down there, but he could sense nothing more. Ron certainly hoped that Kim didn’t run into anything like that! Now he could see her head of red hair, lank and dull in the moist forest air, slowly climbing towards them. Ron slid down the grassy slope to meet her.
“KP, are you hurt? Do you need me to carry you?”
Kim raised her head and looked towards his voice, not quite seeing him. When she finally located his worried face, she smiled in exhausted joy.
“Oh, Ron! Did everyone make it up here? Are they alright?” Ron moved close to her, helping her to her feet.
“Sure did! They’re back along the trail a few hundred yards. I kept them busy collecting their research materials.” The young man looked his best friend over very carefully. “KP, what happened to you? You look terrible!”
She felt terrible, the smile faltering on her face. Kim felt as if she were crumbling inside, as if she were filled with shards of broken glass.
“I’m fine, really… really.” She looked around, the forest a strange and alien landscape. “Hey! Where are the apes? Where did they go?”
Ron slapped himself in the forehead.
“I did my best to get them to stick around, but they said they had to leave.”
“’They said’? They spoke to you?”
“Well… not exactly. They mostly communicated through Rufus. They kept calling me ‘Bright Eyes’!” Ron removed a tiny signaling mirror from a harness pocket and examined his reflection. “Do you have any idea what that was about?”
Kim stopped listening a few seconds before he stopped speaking; the stifling heat and oppressive humidity weighed down on her, making her nauseous, making her hurt everywhere. Her throat burned and her eyes stung and her nose felt clogged with mud.
The forest erupted with motion and camouflaged figures suddenly approached Ron from out of thin air. All were suited in environmental protection suits and full helmets sealed against the outside air. One of the figures moved right up to Ron and extended both hands outward, palms forward as if in greeting, or defense. Looking around him, his body automatically falling into fighting stance, Ron backed away from the approaching form.
“KP! They’re everywhere!”
The young man was too startled to discern what the best course of action was, where the best escape route would be. Ron moved his head slightly, but couldn’t catch sight of Kim anywhere. Yes! She was already on the move, probably circling around these jokers to take them from behind and clear a path for them to get the Heck out of Dodge! Then his foot caught up against something on the ground behind him. Ron looked down.
There, in the grass at his feet, lay his best friend in the whole world, curled into a fetal position and laying on her side. Ron could not imagine how the sitch could get any worse, but what he witnessed next was proof as to how wrong he was.
Kim turned her head to look up at him; her eyes were rimmed with black and black streamed from her nostrils. The inky wetness pooled on the gentle convolutions of her ears and she coughed harshly, expelling a tarry mass of the stuff from her mouth, leaving oily stains on her lips and chin.
“Help… me…” Kim Possible wept tears of pitch.
To Be Continued…
Author’s Note: Absolutely no Monkeys were harmed during the writing of this story. There was an older animal named Crackers who had a minor ear infection, but it cleared up after a mild antibiotic was applied. You can research Ameranthropoides loysi for yourself.
I did get approval for the name ‘Club Rina’; it sounds like a pretty cool place.
‘Bright Eyes’… what’s up with that? And where did this ‘Aaron Priestly’ come from? Who’s writing this stuff?
This was a slightly longer chapter because there were a few scenes that I really wanted to occur before the fight against Monkey Fist, and I didn’t want to break the action in half. Well, it’s finally hit the fan; I appreciate those of you that stayed with me this long.
There will be more answers provided in the next chapter and all will be made clear. Stay tuned!