The Dark Ocean

Title: The Dark Ocean - The Quiet (19/20)
Author: Rann Aridorn
Notes: I know, I know. Seems like it's been forever, huh? I'm afraid you shouldn't get your hopes up for it speeding up any time soon. Part twenty seems like it's like pulling teeth to get any work done on it. I've decided to finally release this part, even though I'm not entirely happy with it, either, just because at the very least it does what it needs to do, and I've kept everyone waiting way too long.
Part of the problem with part twenty I'm having is that I just can't help but feel that I've started running into something I swore I'd avoid when I started making a really serious go of this... tokenism for Ron, and by extension Yori. I wanted their fight scenes to be as big and important as the others, and it seemed like it was, but it just... wasn't as fun to write. Too, Shego's fight was cinematic and dramatic in my head, but managing to convey that has frustrated me repeatedly.
Anyway, I'll give working on part twenty another go as soon as I upload this, so cross your fingers.
Legalish notes: All characters having appeared in Disney's Kim Possible are the property of Disney, and are used here without permission, but with no intent for profit. All other characters are original and the property of Rann Aridorn.


"Punk," Kim whispered, shocked completely out of her Chione persona.
"Hey, you remembered, cool." Punk stepped out of the back of the truck, her long, wavy pink hair still falling down her back, contrasting with the black of her jacket and the dark blue of a GJ bodysuit. "I'd like to stick around and catch up, but-"
Green light flared into being from off to one side.
"But that. I'll just leave you to get to know Mesh."
"DIE, BITCH!" Shego snarled, leaping from the stairs and towards punk, her hands ablaze. Punk turned towards her and launched herself into the air, impacting against Shego in a tackle and actually carrying her backwards, both of them smashing through the door at the top of the stares.
"Shego!" Kim called, then whirled back forward at the sound of someone else stepping off the truck, and came face-to-... coat. She blinked at the sight of nothing but red cloth filling her gaze, so looked up. And up. And finally found an extremely pale face, the lower half of it covered by the long, buttoned coat's high collar, a thick mountain of wild black hair held back by a red bandanna tied around the seven-foot-plus woman's forehead.
"Top o' th' mornin' to ya," Mesh greeted genially, before punching Kim in the chest.
If she hadn't been wearing the impact-absorbing bodysuit, it would have cracked or broken a fair number of her ribs. As it was, Kim flew backwards through the air, hitting the ground and tumbling to a stop against the counter where the cash register had once been.
'At least it wasn't getting thrown into a wall this time,' she thought dazedly.
Shuriken and several knockout gas disks flew towards Mesh and the inside of the truck, but ice flowed out of the floor from nowhere, enclosing the projectiles harmlessly. Mesh charged forward like an oncoming train, and Kim flipped up to her feet and onto the counter, turning to jump and smash feet-first through the boards covering what had once been the front window.
She'd just have to hope that Shego could hold her own against Punk, and that Ron and Yori could take that ice-powered girl that had been there last time and was obviously here again. Right now she had her own hands full dealing with a giant woman who seemed to be as strong as Punk was.
Mesh jumped over the counter and out the window as well, smashing through some more boards in the process. Kim had taken off running down the street, but halted as her eye caught the glint of more than one scope sight on rooftops. Damn, it had all been a set-up!
"Best think fast, lass!" Mesh called, barreling down on Kim and swinging a fist down at her. She was wearing some kind of gloves that had metal plates across the front of the fingers, explaining some of the ache in Kim's ribs.
Kim whirled to face her and brought her staff up, lifting it under Mesh's wrist and forcing the strike up, then spinning it around the big woman's arm several times at high speed, putting her off-balance. Then she whirled and grabbed her wrist, heaving with her entire body to throw Mesh through the front window of an Army surplus store with a loud crash.
"Tha' was pretty damn fast," came the stunned comment from inside.
Back inside the store, Ice Princess stepped out of the back of the truck, wearing an all-white version of the GJ bodysuit. Ron had emerged from hiding, glaring at her hatefully through the eyehole of his mask, Yori perched atop a stack of shelves.
"Hey there, Ron. And you must be Yori." Ice Princess looked back and forth, a vague hint of distance in her eyes, as if she was having a hard time focusing. "I think Punk wanted me to say that I'm sorry."
"You're -sorry-?" Ron growled.
"Well, yeah. I was pretty messed in the head back then, I shouldn't have done that to Yori. So I'm sorry." She paused for a moment, then continued, "That said, I've kind of gotta beat the hell out of you now, so let's get started on that."
Ice Princess wrapped her arms around herself and bent forward, the air crystallizing around her and the temperature in the shop dropping abruptly. The ice quickly encased her, forming a sphere from which four protrusions grew, thumping down on the floor. Yori and Ron quickly threw more shuriken and gas bombs, but the shuriken bounced off the ice harmlessly, and the gas roiled around it harmlessly as the protrusions grew, lifting the sphere off the floor and taking on the semblance of almost skeletal, monstrous legs, the sphere beginning to elongate, broadening and lengthening, something at the front of it beginning to bud forth.
"Run!" Ron called, turning for the way Kim had gone out. Unfortunately, before either of them could move, the weight of the ice became too much for the dilapidated floorboards to bear. With a loud creaking, the floor collapsed, dropping everything from ninjas and freezers to giant ice-things down into the basement amidst a giant cloud of dust and debris.
Yori coughed and shoved some boards off of her, standing quickly and calling, "Ron!"
"Here," Ron answered with some coughing of his own, staggering to his feet and over to his wife's side. "Where'd she go?"
He was answered with three overlapping roars as a trio of monstrous heads emerged from the dust, more of it settling to reveal the giant Cerberus made of ice standing across the basement from them, its rough surface glistening like crystal, powerful legs carrying it slowly towards them with footsteps that shook the ground.
"Aw man, that would be so cool if it wasn't gonna gnaw on our frozen corpses," Ron complained.
Upstairs, Shego leapt to the side, avoiding another of Punk's punches, which smashed a crater in the brick wall and broke some of the bricks loose from their mortar. She used the brief opening to slash the side of Punk's face with her glowing claws, the broad, ugly gashes spattering blood onto her jacket and bodysuit where they hadn't been cauterized.
Punk wheeled around and almost batted at Shego with her hand, but the impact was enough to knock the green-skinned woman back and almost stagger her. Punk rolled her shoulders, the visible muscle on her face pinkening where it had been burned before steadily knitting back together, leaving it whole.
"Don't suggest trying to cut me to pieces, kid, you'll be at it all night."
"Sounds like fun," Shego growled, clicking her claws together before curling her fingers, one hand leading slightly and the other close to her shoulder. She rushed in, slamming a palm across the other woman's jaw and slashing down with the other, cutting across Punk's stomach. Not giving an inch, she kept up the assault, pounding punches to Punk's shoulders and working her upper body, slashing and jabbing with her claws in quick, light movements that let her keep up the intensity of the assault.
Punk's fist jerked into sudden motion, Shego's claws raking across it in the midst of the attack before the pink-haired mutant's strike hit her in the face and lifted her off her feet, sending her flying backwards far enough to smash through a window. Her hand shot out, claws digging into the brick on the side of it, before she yanked hard and propelled herself back inside and into a roll, coming up to one knee facing Punk.
"You are starting to seriously damage my calm, but not much else," Punk growled, walking steadily towards Shego, leaving a steadily-shrinking trail of blood spattered on the floor as her wounds closed up and bruises shrank away to nothing.
"What -are- you, the fucking Terminator?!" Shego snapped back, standing and taking her Jaguar Jiu-Jitsu stance before rushing in again.
"No, bitch," Punk snapped back, taking a half-step back and twisting her body as Shego's first strike, hand shooting out to catch Shego's wrist and hold it. "I'm the fucking Wolverine! SNIKT!" Her fist smashed into the side of Shego's face, rocking the younger woman's body with the impact. Not releasing her grip on the green-skinned girl's wrist, she continued to slam blows into her, bending her over with a punch to the stomach, bringing her back upright with an uppercut, and then knocking her to the extension of her arm with a backhand. Punk finally turned and spun Shego once, twice, before suddenly yanking her arm and tossing her upward, the battered superhuman smashing through the ceiling and into the third floor, thudding lightly against a ceiling beam before dropping to land with a thump and a loud creak on the floor.
Shego slowly pushed herself up, coughing a bit before spitting blood (and a tooth) onto the floorboards. "I don't think... that's how... that saying goes," she gasped out.
Punk leapt through the hole Shego's passage had created and landed lightly, straightening up and starting to crack her knuckles. "Sorry. I'm having trouble catching up on my pop culture. Have you seen those new iPea things? I mean, damn."

Kim jumped through the window Mesh's passage had broken to find the red-clad woman already on her feet and brushing glass off her shoulders.
"Now this promises to be tolerable intrestin'," Mesh said thoughtfully, thumbing her nose a few times. "Let's see if ya can be keepin' it up."
The giant of a woman stepped forward twice, long legs eating up the distance between herself and Kim as she brought a hand down in another hard punch. This time Kim could barely block with her staff, and the impact bent her arms in closer to her body; she was thankful she'd traded out her beloved wooden staff for the Tweebs' high-grade metal alloy, that punch probably would have broken the wooden one.
Kim blocked another two quick punches, feeling each one send the impact and power through her arms all the way to her shoulders and into her aching ribs. It was only as Mesh raised a hand for one of those downward strikes that she had an opening to swing the staff in against Mesh's side.
The blow connected, but it felt wrong, almost as if it had been blocked instead. It was less like hitting body armor and more like she'd aimed higher and Mesh had been tensed, ready for it. Either way, it gave the red-clad fighter a chance to swing her other fist in, and Kim ducked low before scrambling off to the side and around, heading deeper into the store where she hoped some of the clutter would limit the bigger woman's movement.
Mesh followed, continuing to deal those fast, hard punches, though Kim was able to ward her off somewhat with quick swipes of her staff. The redhead grit her teeth as she tried to parse the style... except it was barely even like a martial art! The broad swings, smashing downpunches, and occasional rough attempt at an elbow-slam were more like someone had practiced bar-fighting the same way most experts diligently practiced kung-fu or a real fighting style!
In fact, Mesh left herself open to bring both hands up, but it was so swift and smooth that Kim didn't have time to take advantage before both fists were swinging down, aiming to connect with her shoulders or neck. Kim thrust her staff up, letting it take the blow instead, though her knees bent at the impact of the strike.
Then there was the sound of cloth ripping, and nothing but the instinct she'd learned in the back alleys and in prison saved her life. Before her conscious mind had even registered 'Knife!' she was hurling herself backwards, the blade slicing through the trailing front of her coat and opening up a thin line of material just along the undersides of her breasts, the bodysuit parting a half an inch and displaying somehow-unmarked skin.
Kim shifted her feet to regain her balance, then stared at Mesh. From a hole in the side of her coat had emerged a third arm, holding a strange knife whose blade curved down and over the fronts of her fingers, the tip pointed downward. "What in the world?"
"Tch, an' here I went an' ruined me coat f'r nothin'," Mesh said with a sigh, one of her hands not holding the knife coming forward to undo the buttons along the front of her coat before shrugging out of it, revealing a fourth arm bearing another of the strange knives on the other side. Under the coat she was wearing a simple black tunic-like garment, open at the sides and belted around her waist, the open sides apparently there to accommodate her multiple limbs. The tunic was loose-fitting, but fit well enough that Kim could pick out a second, smaller pair of breasts beneath the larger ones in the appropriate spot on Mesh's slightly elongated torso. "Y'know what those things be costin'?"
The eyepieces of Kim's eyes narrowed. That's why the earlier hit hadn't done much... Mesh had been keeping her second arms folded under her coat, and tensed them to take most of the impact. "What the heck -are- you?"
"Irish," Mesh answered amiably, swinging her lower arms around a bit as if they'd been cramped. "What, can't y'tell?" Then she was coming in on Kim again, and this time the attacks seemed faster than before, as if struggling not to use all four arms had been holding her back. She was like a hailstorm of punches and slashes, the knives letting her slash at Kim or stab from different angles with a slight twist of the wrist.
Kim was purely on the defensive now, blocking fists and knives, the punches rocking her arms, the slashes drawing sparks from the metal of her staff. Then Mesh brought her fists up again, and there was even less of a chance to take advantage of the opening. Kim knew she'd have to be ready to throw herself back, maybe fall to the ground, to avoid the knives because there just wasn't enough room to dodge the strike completely.
The fists came down and Kim blocked with her staff, keeping her body ready to move. But the knives swung up instead, hooking over the staff between her hands. Then Mesh slammed her foot into Kim's stomach and knocked her backwards into a table, the contents rattling as Kim's staff clanked to the floor.
"An' that bein' that," Mesh said simply, kicking the staff away. "So why don't ye just get down on yer knees an' be puttin' yer hands behind yer head?"
Kim scowled, her hands reaching back and searching the contents of the table. Rusty saber? Nope. Boot knife? Nope. Kerosene lantern, nope. Then she found something, or rather a pair of somethings, and wrapped her hands around them. She gave each trowel a spin as she brought it up, then flicked her wrists to snap the heads into the proper position.
"Ye be kiddin' me," Mesh said flatly.
"Would I kid? Besides, you forgot one very important thing."
"An' what be tha'?"
"Never assume a woman does not have ninjas at her disposal."
Mesh frowned, then her eyes widened as she remembered just who else Kim had on her team. She whipped around to look behind her, but saw nothing but an empty (and torn-up) shop. Then the flat of a shovel clonked heavily against the back of her head, making her duck forward and wince. She slowly turned to look at Kim, who had retreated to a more open part of the store and was grinning and making a motion as if waggling her eyebrows, which was somehow all the more obvious because of her mask.
"... I'd almost like ya if I wasn't gonna hurt ya so much," Mesh muttered, starting after Kim again.
Though the staff was the weapon Kim was best with, it had been hampering her in the shop's tight quarters. Now she was able to focus on her own speed and her greater mobility than the big woman's, ducking and weaving, blocking the knife slashes with the metal shafts of the trowels.
She saw an opening, just a heartbeat's worth of one, she took it, snapping one trowel up and smacking the underside of the head against Mesh's cheek. Mesh twitched just a bit in reaction, giving Kim time to strike the side of one of her lower hands in the same motion, making her drop the knife. Then Kim hopped back as the angry woman came at her again. But now the punches and strikes were clumsier with anger, and Kim dodged them more easily, letting herself get pushed back, until Mesh swung a punch in too far.
Kim dodged to the side, letting Mesh overextend and smacking her other knife-bearing hand, then clonking across the back of the head with the other trowel. Mesh staggered forward and slammed into the wall, and the trowel-bearing redhead danced back a bit further, then glanced around and dodged behind the shelf that had been behind her back.
"Lass, when I get hold of ye, I'm gonna-" Mesh growled, whirling around, then cutting short her tirade as the redhead wasn't immediately visible. "... C'mon, now ye be hidin' from me?"
Then the shelf creaked and began to topple forward. Mesh's eyes widened a bit, and she quickly pressed herself back against the wall, judging it too far for the shelves to reach. And she was right, the shelves fell short. The firebox the shop owner had apparently put atop them for safekeeping, however, didn't. The reinforced metal and plastic box clonked Mesh squarely atop the head, then toppled off to one side.
"..." Mesh scowled, pointing a finger at Kim. "I'm gonna get ye. ... One of these days." Then her eyes crossed and she fell forward across the downed shelves.
Kim heaved a sigh of relief, then dropped the trowels and hurried to pick up her staff. She glanced around quickly, then spotted a door in a side wall. The flower shop on the other side was too close to this one for there to be anything between them, the two areas must have been one at one point. Kim kicked open the door, then rushed into the shop, taking a moment to close the door and shove the store's safe in front of it. Then her hand went to her ear.
"If you can hear me, try to disengage and meet back up in the flower shop across the street, we're surrounded and can't stay in the open! ... Acknowledge! Someone talk to me!"
But the only thing she could hear was her heart pounding.

-End Part Nineteen