Chapter 25 - Flying High and Digging Deep
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Very suddenly and just as jarringly, Kim awoke to find her heart ratcheting in her chest and sweat dripping off of her forehead directly into her eyes, forcing a gasp from her lips followed closely by a loud indrawn breath. Any stealth or surprise that she may have attempted was ruined right from the beginning by the abruptness of her awakening and the violence of her inhale, but she knew exactly what was happening because she'd seen it done to Ron.
Kim's metabolism was currently supercharged, likely in a bid to remove the fear toxin from her body, as well as whatever sedative she was given while she was being moved from place to place…
And Kim was given a sedative in transit, of that she was certain, because according to the info that Clare was displaying on her HUD, both she and Bonnie were kept unconscious for just over two hours, and they were currently located at a much higher elevation than when they first lost consciousness (judging by the air pressure of their surroundings).
~You can cover a lot of ground in two hours, but the Rocky Mountains are the closest to Middleton~ Kim wrote into the message area of her HUD, only for Clare to immediately reply with the word ~Yes~.
~What else do we know~ Kim mentally typed out to Clare, while slowly curling up into a seated position, looking up at the massive, heavy, solid-steel manacles cinching her hands together and attaching them to the ceiling by wrist-thick segments of chain, and then studying the bars securing her tiny, stone-walled cell.
~Bonnie is healthy but remains unconscious, and Master has asked one of his senseis to inform GJ about your presence at a high elevation within the general proximity of Colorado. My Master believes he will be able to dows your location once he arrives in the area~
~Arrives?~ Kim empathically prompted, even as she moved towards the bars, leaned her shoulders back against the hard and unyielding bars, and scanned the metal-catwalk floored tunnel that contained her little cell. A short row of jail-cells filled a tunnel both on Kim's right and left side, and while some of the cells were larger than others, all of them were carved directly into the bedrock, betraying the fact that this location was a recent addition to what was likely a big operation.
~A cave complex or a mine~ Kim typed out to Clare, before abruptly turning her attention away from the message prompt that the spirit fed her in return because something much more… present… was dominating her attention. A woman wearing a skin-tight suit reduced to little more than shredded rags was securely bound to a foot-thick metal table in a jail cell a short way down the hall.
And the woman was so distinct from any other person, Kim couldn't have failed to recognize her even if she tried…
A long, lean, unnaturally powerful meta-human with paper-white skin with a vague green tint and long, raven black hair was being held prisoner by whatever organization built this cave complex, and judging by the warped, scorch-marked metal lining the walls of her cell, the professional villainess was not happy about it. Even now, Kim could see the woman's well-toned limbs straining against the six-inch thick steel clasps securing her body to the table, her efforts doing little more than chafing her wrists and ankles to the point of bleeding, which caused Kim to wonder why the woman wasn't burning the metal holding her down… until the answer was obvious. Shego's bonds would turn into molten slag that would melt her hands right off of her body…"
"KIll you, I'll kill you, I'm going to kill every single last one of you," the woman quietly growled through audibly strained vocal cords, rasping her way through a vengeful mantra that would normally make her sound completely unhinged, but instead impressed upon Kim just how strong and unyielding the woman actually was. After all, who else could continue fighting, continue resisting like that when they were trapped and vulnerable to such an extreme degree?
Ron could. That much the man made clear to Kim just a few hours earlier… and now it was time for her to prove that she could do the same.
Along with a wave of gritty determination and a sense of comradery that she'd never felt for the woman that she was looking at, Kim strained against the chain to hang her body close to the bars of her cell, drew in a deep, bracing breath, and then she called out the woman's name.
"Shego!"
After flinching and then freezing in place as if she'd just received an electric shock, Shego's head slowly turned in Kim's direction, at which point she stared at the redhead with a hazy look of disbelief in her eyes, as if she believed she was hallucinating. Then a feral smile slowly grew across her face, and she visibly decided to roll with the crazy… "Welcome to the party, Kimmie. The accommodations suck, and so does the food…"
Pressing her face as deep as possible into the gap between the bars of her cell, Kim could see that an IV line was hooked up to Shego's left elbow, feeding her what looked like a saline solution mixed with a blue fluid that she couldn't identify… "Is that a sedative," Kim asked, her words matter of fact, but also impressed."
Despite everything, a visible swell of pride suddenly drew away the harshness of Shego's grin, revealing the classically beautiful lines of her pouty little mouth, her button nose and the elegant arch of her eyebrows, even as her head dropped limply back against her metal table and beads of sweat were dislodged from her filthy looking hair. "Unlike you, Kimmie, it takes more than a few metal restraints to keep me captive… so I'm surprised by the size of those manacles you're wearing…"
Nodding her head, Kim leaned her back against the bars of her cell and debated what she could even say in reply, considering the fact most evil lairs were filthy with concealed camera and audio recording equipment, and she knew exactly why the two of them were being jailed so close together. Whoever their captives were, they wanted Kim and Shego to talk shop to each other, reveal their cards, discuss their plans, and ruin whatever ideas they might come up with in the process.
This kind of matchmaking was bush league stuff within most espionage circles, which meant that Shego was either a world class actor that was working for the enemy (which was extremely unlikely), or the woman's unguarded words were a result of the sedative she was being fed.
Still… Kim needed to know what Shego knew, and she figured she could freely talk about anything that her captives already knew about her, which had her turning back in Shego's direction and shrugging her shoulders. "I've… leveled up recently. Accessed some meta-human strength of my own…"
"You've never not been a meta-human," Shego immediately scoffed, along with an out of character little giggle. "Anyone who can fight against me on an even footing is no longer human, after all… I'm the farthest thing from."
"How were you caught, and why are they keeping you," Kim asked, when she couldn't construct a response to Shego's words.
"For a few months, I came willingly, and at the time, it felt like I had all sorts of reasons to cooperate," Shego loosely, absentmindedly described, even as her right bicep tensed and strained against the metal that was pinning her arm... "Then 'that man' demanded I do something that made all of those reasons feel like total bullshit, I felt a splitting wrenching sensation tear open my mind, and I realized I was being used. I tried to sneak out, I was caught, I tried to fight my way out, I lost, I was roughed up, knocked unconscious, and I woke up here, trussed up like a Christmas turkey… Why am I still alive?… Well… DNAmy has the hots for my body… Apparently my inhuman blood is filthy with a rather useful mutagen."
All of the sudden, Kim knew exactly why it took so long for DNAmy to move for the chemical manufactury… along with two other, far more upsetting pieces of information… Whoever was running the show had enough power at his disposal to bring down Shego, and he was treating the woman like a resource, rather than a human being…
"And Drakken," Kim finally asked, when once again she failed to construct a response that would mean anything to the woman strapped down across the hall. "Is he here too? Is he being manipulated?"
"He's… You know, I don't actually know," Shego slowly realized while blinking in surprise. "He might be working for that man, but I… huh... I can't remember."
In Kim's eyes, Shego's current lack of recall could only mean that Draken was, in fact, still working with whoever was trapping them, because whoever the ringleader was, they'd already proven that they could prevent their victims from remembering who they were, which implied they could do the same for other people. Kim couldn't remember who altered her perception of Ron all that time ago, Yori couldn't remember which 'Master' ordered her to join the ranks of Ron's soulmates, and now Shego was referring to the ringleader as 'that man', implying she couldn't remember his identity.
It all came back to this mysterious man, this being who was messing with people's memories and perceptions.
With a sigh, Kim turned her attention back towards the extremely thick and durable manacle that was cinching her hands together, and in the meantime, she decided to ask a more practical variety of question. "What do you know about the security and the goons being employed here?"
"Heh.. heh heh… You won't even believe me," Shego slowly giggled out, her cheek laying flat against the metal table to watch Kim investigate her manacle.
"Ninjas," Kim guessed, while idly trying to slam the manacle against the wall of her cell, only to discover the chain didn't allow her the required clearance.
"Okay, so maybe you will believe me," Shego mused as if to herself, before drawing in a breath and launching into a list. "Ninjas, more than one local villain, a wild array of mutant animals, all of the standard Henchco security stuff… and a metric fuck-ton of military ordinance."
"Wait, what," Kim immediately gasped, whipping her attention back in Shego's direction. "I thought super-villains disdain conventional weaponry?"
"Well, that man definitely doesn't… and I don't think he sees himself as a villain either, but more like a warlord," Shego haltingly described, as if remembering any details about the man at all was hard, maybe even painful. "This cave, it's located at the bottom of a cruise missile silo, and all of the techs that are stationed here have been… turned."
Turning her attention inwards, Kim finally saw Clare's response to her earlier question regarding Ron's arrival.
~Master is currently flying through the stratosphere in your direction in a hypersonic jet with many rockets strapped to its hull. He should arrive in Colorado within the next ten minutes~
In a furious blur of empathic typing, Kim instantly sent a warning message to Ron's HUD, only for Clare to respond in his stead~
~Master's focus is fully occupied surviving the reverse g-forces caused by rapid descent and deceleration, so I will reply for him. I have warned Stoppable sama that approaching your location is highly dangerous, but the aircraft that he's flying in moves far too quickly to maneuver over short distances. Please prepare for his arrival~
"Shit, shit, shit," Kim ranted to herself, as a series of red, spinning lights suddenly bathed the tunnel that she was jailed in within a flashing crimson light, and she knew exactly what she was looking at.
The missile silo was being activated.
A series of missiles were about to be launched in the direction of Ron's aircraft.
While rapidly pacing back and forth within the cell, Kim read Clare's immediate assurance that she just finished warning Ron, at which point she snarled an uncontainable bout of fear-based aggression, repeatedly heaved herself up into the air when she yanked down on the chain, and then turned her attention back in Shego's direction.
"You're looking pretty wild there, Kimmie," Shego pointed out with a loopy looking grin. "I suppose you're expecting some company that these missiles might pose a problem to?"
Rather than responding to that question, Kim thrust the manacle binding her wrists together as close to the bars as she could, and then she stared into Shego's eyes with a deadly serious expression upon her face. "How much energy can you release at the moment?"
"More than enough to kill you, considering how little control I have," Shego replied with a scoff. "I see what you want, but to destroy that chain would take a whole lot of instantaneous heat, and I can't figure out which version of you to aim for…"
"Like I said before, I've got a little extra now, and can likely regenerate burned skin," Kim quickly rattled out, well-aware that she was being overheard by the guards. "Do it now, please!"
With an unhinged laugh and no further hesitation, a brilliantly bright green light suddenly coalesced around Shego's hand, she grunted in maxed out mental effort, and a dense mass of fiery neon energy careened across the hallway in Kim's general direction.
Kim's perception of the world slowed down then, as her vision became green-tinted with an outpouring of Clare's energy, and she started moving very, very quickly. Even as she saw a quad of guards dressed up in blood-red ninja garb enter into the tunnel in her peripheral vision, Kim tracked the volleyball sized teardrop of superheated plasma that was flying in her direction, noted the fact that it was going to miss her face by just a few inches on her right hand side, and then leaned back upon the chain in order to pull it taught in juuuust the right location.
With an almost inaudible sizzling sound, a segment of the chain that was connecting Kim to the ceiling instantly melted down into red hot slag, allowing the molten links that were attached to Kim's manacle to swing down perilously close to her torso, even as she started moving to use it to her advantage. With arms outstretched in front of her body, she rapidly pivoted in such a way that the molten chain link whipped in the direction of the two closest ninja, sending a spray of liquid metal flying in the direction of their faces.
And the ninja reacted with the swiftness that Kim expected from Journeyman level spiritualists, recognizing the danger that the dollops of red-hot slag represented to their vulnerable skin, causing them to leap backwards and away from the danger at inhuman speeds… directly into Shego's field of view and the surge of energy that she cast in their direction.
With a furious fwooshing sound, a wave of neon green power knocked the two ninja off of their feet while burning the skin of their arms and face-shielding hands. Nevertheless, the two ninja trailing behind the newly burned men turned a pair of tranquilizer guns in both Kim and Shego's directions with the air of long practice.
Pop! Pop!
Even as Kim managed to deflect aside the dart aimed at her by using her manacle as a shield, she heard Shego snarl in frustration, because a dart just sank into her thigh.
Moving with the efficiency of a professional, the ninja that just put down Shego instantly joined the ninja that was attacking Kim, and they both trained their trank-guns at her body from two different directions.
Crack/crumble!
A single instant after a metal shearing sound rang out from down the tunnel, a metal bar flew like a javelin towards the left side ninja, catching the man off guard and catching him in the head with enough force to send him flopping to his back… and Kim made the most of the provided opportunity.
Dashing towards the bars, Kim made the most of the Kusarigama (chain and sickle art) skills that she'd cultivated within Ron's mindscape by foisting the segments of chain attached to her manacle outwards through the bars before yanking her hands in a way that caused them to curl back in her direction. With flawless precision, she managed to secure the chain around the ninja's neck, before pivoting her body to yank him in her direction. At the exact same time, she shot out her right leg in a sidekick that relied on extreme levels of flexibility, hammering a rising heel into the ninja's chin exactly as it arrived within reach.
Crack!
Pop!
With a grunt followed by a groan of maxed out frustration, Kim looked down at the tranquilizer dart that just sank into her right arm, even as the attacking ninja dropped the gun from newly limp fingers, and his unconscious body slumped bonelessly to the floor…
"Kim, Kim! Did you see it! I just used Ron's spiritual power for the very first time," Bonnie yelled out as she dashed up the tunnel, only to skid to a stop to gape at the pale flush and look of lethargy that was sweeping across Kim's face. "Oh…. shit."
Reaching out, Bonnie instantly withdrew the completely emptied tranquilizer from Kim's arm, before a grim look grew across her face and she took a hold of two of the bars… Ten seconds, twenty seconds passed before finally a vague green aura grew outwards around Bonnie's hands, arms and shoulders, and the bars of Kim's cell were bowed outwards just far enough for a woman to step through.
In the meantime, Kim struggled to tolerate the wide array of fever symptoms that were making her feel as if her body was being microwaved from the inside out, because Clare just increased her metabolism to dangerous levels in order to keep her both conscious and moving, and she was just barely capable of assisting her brunette friend when the woman reached into the cell to pull her free.
"Going to… just… leave me?" Shego quietly croaked out, when Bonnie half carried half led Kim down the tunnel and began pulling her past the villainess's cell.
"I can't carry the both of you, and we're definitely about to have company," Bonnie pointed out when Kim suddenly halted in her tracks.
"Yesss… You most definitely are… a highly amused British voice drawled out from the solid steel door leading out of the tunnel, as the one person that Kim wanted to brutally murder stalked in her direction, flanked by a half dozen blood-red ninjas on both sides.
"Monty Fiske," Kim growled, her violently shaking hands fisting weakly at her sides, her breathing growing increasingly labored in response to the intensity of her emotions.
"The name is Monkey Fist, young Ms. Possible," Monty replied in a smooth and unaffected voice, even as he depressed a button that was attached to his hip, and Kim's hands were instantly yanked down towards the metal grills comprising the floor.
The metal catwalk… all of it… It contained an electromagnet that was pulling Kim's manacles down towards the floor with thousands of pounds of unrelenting force…
As if the newly magnetized floor wasn't enough, Monty gestured towards his ninjas, causing a large number of trank-guns to be aimed in Kim and Bonnie's direction, and then another gesture sent a ninja into Shego's cell. Over the next twenty seconds, as Kim and Monty took part in a high-tension staring contest, the ninja in Shego's cell, bound the villainess's hands flush to her waist within a three-inch-thick rig of solid steel before pulling her body free from the table.
"Shiela Go… you have officially become more trouble than you're worth… so you'll be happy to hear that your presence is no longer required," Monty calmly explained to an increasingly awake and alert looking Shego.
"If you've even touched them, I swear to God I'll tear you to bloody little strips and then I'll feed you to Amy's monsters," Shego panted out, her words dripping nearly maddening amounts of anger and hatred.
"If you will recall the last time the two of us met in battle, then you'll know why… your threats are of very little significance to me," Monty coolly replied, before gesturing for another two of his ninjas to secure Kim and Bonnie's arms while the other three continued to train their trank-guns on the girls.
"Before this is over, you'll wish you didn't bring yourself to my attention," Kim growled out as her ankles were cuffed together and Bonnie was given similar treatment at her side.
"Please do try to control your egotism, young lady," Monty sarcastically chided while turning away and then pausing in place with his hands clasped behind his back. "You, are not the star of this show… This… All of this… is for somebody else…"
"And he's going to completely destroy you… again," Kim very slowly, very clearly, very angrily enunciated.
"Come along then," Monty idly ordered with a gesture at his men that had them hauling Kim, Bonnie and Shego down the hallway at his back… "Let us all go see just what the boy can really do…"
With the flashing red lights on the walls casting the hallways into a foreboding, hell-like ambiance, and a dozen blood red ninja tightly gripping their restraints, Bonnie, Shego and Kim didn't bother to struggle as they were hauled up into the complex surrounding the missile silos.
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Two Hours Earlier…
After climbing a series of boarding stairs that felt more like the rungs of a ladder, Ron ducked through a thin compartment that was a little too short to be considered a proper hallway, before entering into a cockpit that had a shiver running up his spine.
The convex shape of the windows, the thick metal comprising the seats and the way that they protruded directly from the deck plating, the copious seatbelts, the padding, the oxygen masks built directly into the dashboard, the way that absolutely everything was welded into place and angled to be seen by someone incapable of movement…
This was the cockpit of a rocket ship.
Moving up behind Ron's back, Yori ran a hand up his ribs to his shoulders as she squeezed past his body, but then she paused in place with their chests pressed together, and she planted a kiss into his jaw just where it met his ear.
"I'll be fine," Ron assured, even as he turned into the kiss, cupped Yori's cheek and pressed their foreheads together. "I'm just… taking it all in. I've done a lot of wild and wacky things over the years… but space-travel… Woah."
"I did not kiss you because I was worried," Yori admitted, while slowly easing away from Ron's body and moving to the left side pilot's seat. "Your expression just now… Fear, determination, wonder and enthusiasm… So complex and nuanced. So charming…"
Moving to the right hand seat, Ron smiled at his newest soulmate, before beginning the long and arduous task of strapping himself into the very deep, very padded, very complex armchair, donning his oxygen mask to hang just below his chin, and then turning in Yori's direction. "Is there anything that I need to keep in mind?"
"Your lungs, your breathing, your circulation, and your brain," Yori immediately supplied with a newly serious expression upon her face and a hand resting upon Ron's forearm. "The speed of our ascent will require we endure ten g-forces for at least two minutes, which means we must prevent damage to our soft-tissues, bones and organs, yes, but of vital importance is that we continue the flow of oxygenated blood to our brains. Then, later on, when we descend, these seats will spin around to face the opposite direction, and we'll need to repeat the effort a second time. If you pass out, all of the systems that you've put in place to preserve your body will lose efficiency."
"And what about the flight itself," Ron prompted.
"A smooth and steady mach ten through the stratosphere," Yori described while looking up and left in a way that made it clear she was struggling to explain. "While, yes, we'll be moving at astronomical speeds around the planet, once we've achieved max velocity, the g-forces pressing against our bodies will quickly drop away, and since the nose of the ship will frequently need to orient downwards to remain within Earth's gravity well, our bodies will actually feel lighter than normal…."
"I hate how freaking jazzed I am about all this, because… Kim and Bonnie… but… come on. This is all so damned cool," Ron haltingly described.
Reaching over, Yori squeezed Ron's hand as the door to the cockpit slid closed, indicator lights flickered to life all across the cockpit's dashboard, and a thrumming started shaking the entire ship with the preflight sequence.
A com unit in the dash suddenly lit up, coming to life with a staticky burr. "Yori san, Stoppable san… Are you both strapped in and prepared," a male voice asked from back in the control room.
After double checking all of Ron's belts with fussy sweeps of her closer hand, Yori nodded her satisfaction and then pressed a button on the coms. "Affirmative, Mission Control. Stoppable san and I are strapped in. Please begin the launch."
With a mundane little click, followed by a resounding thump that filled the entire hanger, large clamps started moving the ship towards a gently descending tunnel that would act as its runway, and a towing rig connected to a hook system on the back of the hull in order to accelerate the ship to flight speeds (similar to on an aircraft carrier). Ron watched all of this happen in the form of a digital screen on the dash, displaying a series of little icons denoting the state of the ship and all of its various movements.
"Ten," the unknown man in the control room suddenly began. "Nine… eight… seven… six…
Closing his eyes, Ron subvocally communed with Clare and his Rufus corp via his HUD system, making sure that the spirit was assisting him with the various inhuman feats he'd need to pull off in order to survive the next few minutes… and the short answer was yes. Adding his will to the spirit's efforts, he focused on the super-durability of his bones and internal organs, the beating of his massively beefed up heart to move oxygen from his extremely efficient lungs…and he waited, as the voice on the radio counted down from five, four, three, two one…
Along with a cacophonous booming whirring sound located down beneath the ship, a nearly instantaneous acceleration powerfully squeezed Ron's body back into his seat, but that didn't stop him from taking in the view, Hundreds of lights blurred past on both sides of the cockpit window as the ship careened down the runway tunnel, and then a bright, sunny morning almost blinded him when the ship was ejected into open air. The ship lurched and pitched slightly to the right as its ramjets initiated to full power and it began hurtling forward under its own power, and Ron's stomach sank at the frequent changes in inertia.
For two or three very scary seconds, the airship accelerated while it was still descending down into the mountainous slopes surrounding Yamanouchi valley, flirting with some of the slopes that were blurring by on both their right and left sides. Then, finally, the airship's nose tipped up above the horizontal and then continued rising with enormous amounts of power. Again and again, more and more ramjets were initiated to push the ship into a faster and faster climb, until finally the pressure being applied upon Ron's body wasn't merely uncomfortable anymore, but felt brutally violent instead. G-forces well beyond his wild imaginations pummeled his body like the fists of a giant, compressing his body, squeezing him like a grape in a wine press, forcing him to focus inwards, to maintain his organs, to release more MMP to saturate his body.
The sky through the cockpit windows grew wet and then misty, as the unrelenting speed that they were flying at caused the moisture in the air to vaporize against the hull, and then the sunny blue sky above them started to darken by shades with every few seconds that passed. Finally, the airship was so high an elevation, there wasn't enough atmosphere for the sunlight to refract off anymore, so the view outside of the window darkened to a deep and inky black, broken only by the stars glimmering where they hung, unfathomably far away.
Space. Ron was in space. Albeit, just the very beginnings of it, but still…
Woah.
With the absence of atmospheric gasses to get in the way, the airship quickly reached its max velocity, at which point the g-forces that were crushing Ron into his chair slowly eased away, and he was left feeling… buoyant… light as a feather… and he simply lay there in his belts for several seconds, enjoying his newfound comfort… Then he saw Yori unbelting herself at his side, and he blinked in surprise because he hadn't thought that they'd move around.
"Once this ship is moving at full speed and elevation, it operates similarly to the high-altitude airplanes of old," Yori explained with a gesture back at the hallway that they entered through. To the right of that compartment is a bathroom that I'm about to make use of… I'll be back in just a moment."
Smiling and nodding his head, Ron's attention was drawn to the patchwork of belts and bindings that were holding him in place, which took a moment to figure out before he was free to bounce to his feet… There it was. The cockpit window. Which, at the moment, had a much better view of outer-space than it did Earth, as the planet was well below the nose of the ship. Moving closer, Ron sidled to the side of the dashboard computers that crowded the windows, and then he gasped as he saw what he was looking for.
Earth. The shiny blue ball, rotating lazily in a collage of blues, grays and whites… except… that wasn't all. Over and above the light refracting off of the gasses shrouding the planet, Ron could see a kaleidoscope swirl of different colored whisps, like vapor except not, rising away from the planet like flames from the Sun, before curling back in to descend back towards the surface. Massive eddies of glowing, transparent, unearthly… other… making Ron feel smaller, but at the same time more connected, leaving him just standing there, his mouth hanging open.
"Earthbound spirits," Yori suddenly breathed out almost directly into Ron's ear, before steadying the man's flinch with her hands at his waist and her mouth against his cheek. "Earth is completely suffused by them… Humans, animals, even beloved objects can carry a spirit over time, and upon release, they cycle the planet, awaiting rebirth, transcendence… or oblivion."
"Beautiful," Ron breathed out, his hand curling behind his back to hold Yori in return, their cheeks pressed flush together. "Seeing this… it would do a lot of people a whole lot of good."
"Yes, and yet the ability to see this, opens us up to being seen in return," Yori repeated, as apparently, she wanted Ron to recognize that he was now a target. "For the most part, what we're looking at right now is terrestrial, by which I mean these spirits are born of this plane, but amongst that mass, there are spirits that are not as welcome, not as comfortable here, not as happy to merely exist and coexist."
"Back in Middleton, Bonnie and Kim were trying to find out more about GJ's affiliation with Yamanouchi and the 'unseen', Ron admitted before turning his head to look at Yori's flawless profile from close range. "GJ won't talk about it… Not a peep."
"Outside agencies are, for the most part, powerless to do anything but run away from the unseen, thus, they prioritize keeping the public both ignorant and at a distance," Yori explained with a nod into Ron's hair. "GJ has a branch that investigates unseen events and then liaisons with us, but rather than frontline agents, these men are good at telling stories…"
"Government spin-doctors," Ron mused.
"I am unfamiliar with that term, spin-doctor, but I can see that you understand," Yori allowed, while easing Ron away from the window and drawing him across the cockpit. "Come, Stoppable sama. I must show you to the drop-bay."
Sure enough, after descending through a chute at the tail end of the hall with yet another ladder-style stair, Ron found himself standing in a drop-bay full of some pretty interesting gear. Lines of rope, belaying belts, grapple hooks, lightweight body armor and weapons were strapped to the hull, along with a pair of parachutes and yet another fully inflated life-raft.
"If there's somewhere to land, I'll bring us down and we can take our time setting out. If the operation site is on a cliff or in a forest, then we'll belay down and let the autopilot find a suitable location," Yori described. "Either way, we'll be leaving through that bay."
Nodding his understanding, Ron watched as Yori climbed a nearby bulkhead wall to pull a box full of MRE's (meals ready to eat) from a secure container in the ceiling. Then he was drawn to a bench lining the hull of the compartment, where the woman sat him down, straddled his lap, and then handed him a high calorie meal bar with the words, "breakfast", and "eat."
Suffice it to say, someday very soon, Ron fully intended to transcend the mile high club by nineteen additional miles, but for now, he merely allowed his cheek to rest atop the breasts that were straining the bust of Yori's ninja garb, felt the woman gently comb her fingers back and forth through his hair, took comfort in the TLC that the kunoichi was providing him, and slowly chewed his way through a rather tasty pemmican bar… He was worried. He was keyed up. He wanted to run, to fight, to hurt whoever was holding his girls… but for now, he needed to wait, and it appeared Yori knew exactly how he felt.
"Soon, Stoppable Sama… Soon we will deliver justice to those cretins that attack what's yours," Yori breathed out directly into Ron's ear in between kisses to his earlobe and jaw.
"Soon…. very soon, we will be the reckoning…"
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Over the course of the following five minutes, Kim, Bonnie, and a very wobbly looking Shego were hauled up into the silo complex proper, where they saw about two dozen more blood red wearing ninja pushing around countless mundane looking military technicians at a wide array of workstations.
"Where did you find so many ninja willing to defect from Yamanouchi," Kim suddenly asked, because while the ninja she fought weren't masters the likes of Yori, they definitely were accessing spiritual power and that much was obvious.
After freezing in place for just a single moment, Monty slowly turned to regard Kim with a twisted smile that didn't even begin to reach his eyes… "Your belief that attendance at Yamanouchi is the only avenue to attain spiritual power is ignorant to a sacreligious degree. Do not speak of that which you do not know…"
Kim merely arched an eyebrow at that, because Monty's outrage just caused the man to reveal far more than could be considered wise…
Likely recognizing his own mistake, Monty quickly moved them up another flight of stairs to a massive metal door, inside of which was a vast and circular room, complete with a megalomaniac-villain space in the middle (throne plus viewing monitor), surrounded by a descending control-theater full of computer terminals and much larger displays.
And up on the largest monitor, positioned to curve around one half of the curcular room, was a massive map of North America with a red dot crossing Colorado in the base's direction.
"It occurs to me, I am honor bound to warn you about something in advance, Ms Possible… I am well aware that you have some variety of empathic link with Mr. Stoppable," Monkey Fist slowly and dramatically explained, after pivoting in place and activating the electromagnets in the deck-plating to pull Kim's hands down to the floor. "Not even a full minute after you were knocked unconscious at B&W Chemicals, Yamanouchi's elder council authorized the use of a priority one transport, which can only mean that the boy knew the exact moment you were caught."
Neither Kim nor Bonnie said anything at all, as they had no intention of revealing anything or playing Monty's game.
"Keeping this empathic link in mind, I'm also aware that young Mr. Stoppable will already know about my defenses by now…" Monty slowly described, before turning towards a tech at the closest work-station with a vicious smile upon his face. "Activate silos one through six, Simon. I want enough cruise missiles in the sky to destroy an entire squadron of those ships…"
With an unemotional nod, Simon immediately depressed a series of buttons at his terminal, and over the next twenty seconds the entire complex shook, as half a dozen grain-silo sized missiles began spraying white hot fire down into their bays.
Turning back in Kim's direction, Monty grinned at the redhead as if everything they were doing was nothing but a game. "Do it, Ms. Possible, Do it now… Let your savior know what's coming for him, let him know that just one of those missiles will destroy absolutely everything within half a mile of its detonation… and then let him prove that he's worthy to be my nemesis."
"Now I know I'm hallucinating," Shego slurred out from her spot on the floor, where she was being held flat on her back by all of the magnetized metal cinching her arms to her waist. "The spastic goofball side-kick… your nemesis?… You do remember that you defeated me in a fight, correct?"
Kim, Monty and Bonnie all scowled in Shego's direction in response to the woman's affronted sounding words, but in the end, it was the super-villain that responded to her snide sounding comment. "If events play out the way that I want them to, you shall see first hand. You will witness what Stoppable san is truly capable of with the power that - he - stole - from - me…"
Sure enough, when Monty turned back towards the monitors ringing the walls, the map from before now displayed the icons for half a dozen missiles heading in the direction of Ron's rapidly approaching dot.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
For the lion's share of the flight from Japan to Colorado, Yori kept Ron occupied by showing him where everything was located on the ship, learning how to quickly activate the emergency hatches and drop-bay doors, donning the lightweight black body armor that was strapped to the walls, cinching the grapple hook harness securely around his waist, and donning a pair of wakizashi short-swords (because full length katana aren't efficient when fighting in cramped locations like tunnels or hallways), but eventually Ron and Yori were ready to go, and they were back in the cockpit watching the various readouts on the dash.
Just five minutes earlier, the airship crossed into the state of Colorado, at which point Ron asked Yori to alter their flight path ten degrees to the North, as they were heading a little bit South of Kim and Bonnie's location… As he'd suspected from the beginning, he could sense his women with enough clarity to act as a dowsing rod in their direction…
They were just twenty minutes out now, and most of it would be spent decelerating at a rate that would normally be just as lethal as the acceleration was before. For example, a few minutes earlier, making the very gentle ten degree turn to the right took over thirty miles to achieve and was done very, very carefully, because at the speeds that they were moving, maneuvering in any direction at all caused insane amounts of g-forces to be heaped upon their bodies.
The priority one transport was not intended to be a fighter jet. It was rapid movement in straight lines, and was not suited to be a weapon of war…
Long story short, when Ron felt that Kim and Bonnie were located deep under the mountain range that they were approaching, Yori programmed the airship into a rapid descent and deceleration, the cockpit seats and controls all spinned around to face the back of the ship, and the ordeal began anew.
With a computer driven lack of mercy, the airship began plummeting back down into Earth's atmosphere, and the weight of the world came right along with it. At exactly the same time, Clare began informing Ron that Kim was awake, was jailed at the bottom of an American military missile silo, and that the complex was coming to life in preparation for an attack.
"We're approaching a missile silo that's becoming operational as we speak," Ron grunted in Yori's direction, the effort to speak made almost impossible by the weight that was squeezing his chest inwards towards his spinal column.
"Nothing we can do yet without tearing the ship apart," Yori choked out in reply, even as her fingers laboriously tapped at a few buttons arranged on the armrest of her seat. "We'll need to wait until we're closer, slower, more maneuverable… to make a decision."
With a grunt of understanding, Ron returned his focus on maintaining his body under the pressure being applied by their deceleration, even as he saw a radar display appear on a monitor welded into the nearby wall, and saw the half dozen missiles that were flying in their direction.
It would be a race to see what would happen first, the missiles arriving to blow their airship to smithereens or their deceleration towards a survivable elevation.
Yori finished typing after increasing the power of the jets that were slowing their airship down, and Ron felt his… everything… being squeezed to the point that he tasted blood in his mouth, and the entire cabin shuddered as it was stress tested well beyond the limits that it was designed to operate at. The seats shook and bent in towards the dashboard displays, and Ron glanced aside at Yori to find her doing the exact same thing in his direction. The missiles were only a minute away at this point, and there was nothing they could do but pray that the ship could survive what they required from it until it was time to make their move.
Ron forced himself to smile at his newest lover, because by the Gods was she going above and beyond the call of duty for him, and he wanted her to see just how much he appreciated her. Yori smiled in return, her expression strained but committed, her eyes full of love.
Through the deafening tinnitus sounds and the pumping of his heart in his ears, Ron didn't hear it at first, but a beeping coming from the dash announced something that caused Yori's smile to grow into a feral grin just a moment before the weight being applied upon their bodies started to ebb away.
They were pulling out of their dive. They were moving at survivable speeds at a survivable elevation… They were tearing the belts and bindings away from their bodies with spiritual strength, and they were pushing their way to their feet as if the remaining g-forces were completely inconsequential.
Fifteen seconds remained until their airship got up close and personal with several incoming missiles…
It was time to fucking move!
Utilizing enough spiritual power for their perception of the world to slow to a crawl, Yori and Ron blurred out of the cockpit and down the central compartment, before leaping down the chute to the drop-bay and the slowly-opening drop bay doors. Yori moved right, grabbing a parachute, and since they needed a way to slow down ASAP, Ron ran left, ripping the emergency life-raft free of its tethers.
Not even ten seconds after climbing free from their seats, Ron and Yori launched themselves out of the drop-bay door into frigid mountain air.
In a moment so intense and timeless it became a surreal portrait in Ron's mind, Yori reached out towards the arm that he was extending in her direction, even as he angled the life-raft like a shield between their bodies and the doomed airship at their backs. Their hands caught in the middle, Ron pulled the woman close just as wind resistance finally caught the raft and ripped it away from the airship with a violence that tore them free from the newly shredded rubber and left them hurling messily through the air in an out of control ragdoll tumble. Explosive grunts of pain left both Ron and Yori's mouths at the brutality of the wind against their soft and fleshy bodies, as their ears violently popped, and they just barely managed to hold on to each other.
And yet in Ron's mind, the seconds were counting down from five, to four, to three, to two, to one…
Carhuuump, baboom, booom, booooom, BOOOOOM!!
Approaching so fast, it strained even Ron's slowed down perception, a wall of sound and heat condensed into pure force was about to slam into him and Yori, vaporizing their bodies until only ashes and dust remained.
Yori's body glowed green as she curled around Ron's torso like a mother shielding a child from danger, her face burrowed into his neck, her lips pressed into his skin, her breath pouring out in a trio of words.
Yori's intentions were clear. She intended to release it all, every last drop, every ounce of her spiritual power… to the point of death… so that he could live.
No.
With a wall of white hot fire and force growing larger within his field of vision, Ron felt his consciousness dropping into his mindscape, as he recognized that he didn't have time for half measures and failure wasn't an option. The newly built power reservoir within his mech avatar's chest allowed him to interact with the MMP directly, and he opened it up to the core directly while asserting his will into the white-hot outpouring that he just released.
Ron's mind became a singularity of focus, a human brain fully focused upon a single idea to the exclusion of all else…
You will obey, and you will do so now.
Without even entertaining the idea that his efforts wouldn't work, Ron ripped the MMP free from the reservoir and allowed it to carry him across his pavilion in the direction of the door linking his body to Yori's. Surging through, Ron saw the beautiful kunoichi's avatar up upon its pedestal, her arms outstretched, her entire form wreathed within a bonfire of roiling green power, and he careened across her garden like a spiritual bull in a china shop in order to press his hand to her diaphragm and do what was required.
In physical reality, Yori's body was situated between Ron and the blast, where she was releasing her spiritual power to act as a shield. For that reason, it was of vital importance that Ron channel his power through her body, both because she was in the way and because he needed to prevent the woman from completely exhausting her life-force.
With a mental exclamation and a forehead pressed into the brow of Yori's avatar, Ron channeled the MMP out through her back, suffusing her shield with a tidal-wave of his spiritual power before forcing out even more, and pushing with all of his might. Power as a wall, power as a source of kinetic energy, power to drive the explosion away even as it moved them away from the explosion… And Ron felt a pair of arms curl around his body from behind, as Yori's consciousness arrived to help direct his efforts. All around their bodies, an ocean of brilliantly-bright blue energy poured through the portal connecting Yori to Ron's mindscape, before swirling and storming and sinking into her avatar, and amongst it all, Clare's less dramatic green energy did what it could to preserve Yori's body.
And out in physical reality, the green barrier that Yori was pouring herself into suddenly began burning a blindingly bright white before expanding outwards in the direction of the approaching explosion, becoming a luminous blue blastwave that careened outwards even as it pushed the two of them away from the blast. A push that rocketed Ron and Yori down towards the mountain range at the speed of a bullet. A high velocity descent that was cut off when yet another blast of bright blue energy burst free, this time from Ron's body, and their trajectory changed once again.
Twice, three times, four, Ron and Yori rebounded down and away from the explosion in an erratically moving comet of blinding blue energy, before disappearing down into a snowstorm blanketing the mountain slopes.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"Hah! Haaha, hahahha YES," Monkey Fist loudly crowed towards the ceiling, honest to God elation causing a manic smile to grow across his face and warp his features into a rictus of insane joy.
Up upon the display screen, Kim and Bonnie just watched helplessly as six cruise missiles converged upon Ron's airship to create an explosion that expanded outwards in a dome more than a mile wide… only for a second dome, this one made up of shining blue light, to flash into existence just half a mile away, and deflect away the missile explosion with more than equal force, casting the shockwave, fire and smoke into the sky to part the clouds and cause lightning to discharge all over the mountain range.
Turning away from the transcendent feat of supernatural power that he just witnessed on the display screen, Monty dropped his attention towards the black-haired woman trussed up on the floor. "Do you still believe you could defeat my nemesis?"
"All I saw just now was a bright blue bubble," Shego slurred, although her eyes were still trained up at the display monitor and the fiery debris that was scattering all over the mountain range.
Turning his attention towards Kim next, Monty snapped his fingers to bring her eyes up towards his face… "You will inform Mr. Stoppable of the following. I expect him standing at the front doors of this complex within the next three hours, - or - I - will - execute - both you and the brunette."
Kim and Bonnie merely shook their heads at first, until one of the ninja standing at the door to the room suddenly shot a trank-dart into Bonnie's side, the brunette dropped unconscious within a matter of moments, and the ninja trained the gun in Kim's direction next.
"Send the message or not, I will go through with the threat either way," Monty growled out, his most recent happiness drained away leaving hostility and anger in its wake.
With a futile scowl and a pair of hands straining at the manacle, Kim began thinking of
composing a message to Ron, only for Clare to send her one instead. Clare's Master was… occupied upon the mountain range, but she would pass the message at the earliest opportunity.
Pop!
"You mother… fuck…" Kim haltingly managed to choke out, before she finally succumbed to the effects of all the sedatives that were being pumped into her body, and crashed to the floor like a sack of potatoes.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ron was no stranger to the cold and lack of oxygen that comes with being located within a mountain range, not anymore… What he was unused to was the snowstorm that he was currently being subjected to, since Japan is much closer to the equator, and the valley didn't get hit with as many snow-filled storms. What made the situation worse, and more concerning, was the fact that he was currently carrying Yori's unconscious body, because using her as a conduit for so much spiritual power did her some damage, both spiritual… and physical.
The skin of Yori's back and right leg was currently covered in what looked like Lichtenberg figure lightning burns in a series of deep red and angry lines, and while Clare assured him that they could completely heal her body via spiritual power, that fact did very little to make him feel better.
Ron hurt his lover in the act of saving her… It couldn't be helped. It still felt… awful.
For Yori's part, she was currently busy within her mindscape, repairing the damage done to her zen garden and her avatar, and demanding that he not beat himself up. The woman really was… She was wonderful, if a little too self-sacrificing for his peace of mind, and Ron moved even faster up the slopes towards a cave in the distance, because her unconscious body was losing heat at a rate that he didn't like, and he needed to find them somewhere to rest and recuperate.
Soon enough, Ron was moving under an outcropping of dark and gritty rock, leaving behind the snow-drifts that were driving snow up his pants and down into his boots, and he was moving into its darker, deeper depths, where the wind dropped down to a distant burr.
The interior of the cave was almost pitch black, but then Ron had supernaturally acute night-vision, and had very little trouble navigating across the rock strewn floor towards a flatter area near the back, where he gently lay down Yori and turned his attention towards the parachute… In the end, they never used the chute at all, opting instead to release more MMP into the ground hard enough to leave a smoldering crater in the rock where they landed, which was good, because the parachute was shredded and all but useless.
What the chute was good for, was warmth, because it was a gigantic mass of durable silk, and even with many tears and holes, it would still help them retain body-heat.
As quickly as possible, Ron unfurled the parachute from the bag, folding it several times to act as a bedroll, before arranging the rest to act as a blanket atop their bodies. Then, after retrieving Yori's body, he lay her down atop the mat, he drew her against his body while careful not to touch her back, and he pulled in a deep and bracing breath.
That… was too close.
Truth be told, Ron's body was in a similar state to Yori's, in the sense that the skin of his forearms and left leg were covered in what looked like lightning burns, but the scorch-marks weren't as deep, they weren't as angry, and his mindscape wasn't in anywhere near as bad a shape. Apparently, since the MMP was a part of him (technically) it did him far less damage when he channeled it outwards in every direction.
For all that Ron did both Yori and himself some damage, and he couldn't control the MMP without a ten out of ten emergency to galvanize his will… this was still a huge development, and one that he needed to meditate on as much as possible.
The MMP could be controlled, by him, on purpose…
Woah.
After cracking a smile containing not a little bit of relief, Ron scoffed, and then laughed, his amusement filling the cave, his giggles containing all of the stress that was leaving his body.
"What's…. funny," Yori slowly asked into Ron's shoulder, as she returned to consciousness to the vibrations of his chest, and then snuggled into him for more than one reason.
"There's a Japanese anime trope that I've always rolled my eyes at, that I just experienced in real life," Ron described, while running his hands through the kunoichi's extra-long hair. "I just leveled up because I discovered the power of friendship…"
"So… friendship is what you feel for me," Yori teased.
"Among several other, far more intense emotions, yes," Ron replied, kissing the woman's scalp when she nuzzled more completely into his body. "Just a day ago, I was careful to think of you as a wonderful sensei and a powerful kunoichi. Now, you're so much more… Losing you, I won't allow it. Please don't serve yourself up like that… I'd suffer without you."
"For you… I'll do what I consider necessary, but I do know how you feel," Yori described in between kisses along Ron's jaw that had him meeting her lips with his own. "Thank you for saving us…"
"Annnnd now I have three hours to knock on Monty's front door," Ron sighed out.
"We have three hours," Yori corrected.
"You haven't moved an inch since waking up, and I'm pretty sure you can't because it hurts too much," Ron pointed out.
"I am a Yamanouchi kunoichi," Yori pointed out. "Pain is no obstacle."
"Maybe, but nerve damage definitely is," Ron corrected with a sigh. "Look. We have some time. Let's play it by ear…"
Even as Yori nodded her understanding, the hands that were clutching at Ron's chest tightened around his uniform, holding him tight to her body as if afraid of letting go.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
For the first time in several years, Master Sensei entered into the Yamanouchi Elder Council meeting room, where he found himself looking at its octagonal shape, at its ambiance of staged hostility, at the pensieve looking old men that were surrounding the central pit, and he slowly shook his head. "Need we meet here, when every single member of this council can astral project?"
"The time for diversions is long past," Hurioka, a very thin, very stern, very formidable looking elder ninja by the name of Kazuo countered with a thinly veiled sneer of contempt upon his face. "We, all of us here, just witnessed the moment that the American, your pet project, just unleashed enough power to level this entire school…"
"And what? You want the boy pacified to assuage your fear," Master Sensei asked, his words belying the lightness of his tone.
"The exact opposite," Kazuo immediately barked. "That boy is a tool of prophecy, and you know it, and yet you've been keeping him away from the resources he needs to fight against the evil that's praying on him!"
With a gesture to the West, Kazuo made it clear he spoke of Monty Fiske and whatever entity was helping the man.
"Prophecy is dangerous, especially when it's used as a tool of manipulation and coercion," Master Sensei argued in return. "I do not believe that the boy is the one you are alluding to, because he is far too even tempered, far too kind, far too grounded to be the culling force it mentions."
"The boy is controlling the MMP, all of it, while fighting against one of our most persistent enemies and a foreign group of spiritualists with powers antithetical to our own," Kazuo spat out as if he was disgusted by Master Sensei's negligence and inaction. "I demand a vote. I demand that the shrine be unlocked and opened. I demand that the blade be given to its master…"