Title: The Dark Ocean - Aftermath (6/?)
Author: Rann Aridorn
Notes: This part marks the start of a change in the way parts are 
released and titled. I'm going to focus more on what's going on in that 
part, on a sort of... organic story growth. The parts are only going to 
be numbered so that people can keep track of the order, but other than 
that, there will be less focus on keeping every part a certain length. 
Expect some fairly short parts and some fairly long parts.
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.


	"Yori!" Ron's voice filled the room, shouting one name over and over 
again, hands trembling as he held his friend close, screaming her name 
as if that might keep her alive.
	"OhnonononononononoYori!" Rufus squealed, running around the floor in a 
panic, making high, keening sounds of distress.
	"Finally got one," Ice Princess murmured, the blonde teenager 
straightening up a little, only to be shoved on her ass as Punk rushed 
past her, the rents in the pink-haired mutant's shoulders still looking 
raw and exposed, but the wounds themselves closed.
	"Jesus Christ and Mary," Punk whispered as she came to a stop near 
them, staring at the multitude of little crystalline ice shards stuck in 
the motionless ninja's back, blood oozing slowly from around them.
	Kim stared from across the room where she sat, having just gotten Shego 
calmed enough that some rational thought was starting to return. Those 
yellow-green animal eyes were starting to focus more clearly, but she 
was still looking at what was going on in quiet confusion.
	"Yori! Yori!"
	Punk fell to her knees, a pair of thoughts repeating in her mind every 
time the blonde boy screamed. Clich� though they were, nothing had ever 
seemed quite so true.
	'What have I done? I've killed a kid!'
	Looking back and forth, bordering on panic herself, Punk's gaze lit on 
the unconscious Ken's tanto. Wild hope widened her eyes as she snatched 
it up.
	"Kid! Give her to me!"
	Ron's head snapped up, staring at her with wild eyes, eyes that were 
just bordering on crossing a line they might not come back from. Punk 
attempted to put every last bit of sincerity she had left in her being 
into her own eyes.
	"I might be able to save her, but you've got to give her to me now!"
	Ron hesitated for only an instant, before nodding ever so slightly. 
Tucking the handle of the knife between her teeth, Punk hauled Yori into 
her own lap as gently as she could while hurrying, trying to get her 
moved into a sitting position, transferring the knife to her left hand.
	"What the hell are you doing?!" Ice Princess shouted, getting to her 
feet again.
	"You shut up!" Punk snapped back with a snarl. "You so much as twitch 
and I'll rip your goddamn head off!"
	Taken aback by the vehemence as much as the threat, Ice Princess stared 
at Punk as she tried to position her arms without jostling the ice 
projectiles in the young ninja's back.
	"Hey! What are you doing?!" Kim called, carefully releasing Shego and 
standing up, starting to hurry towards the small group on the other side 
of the room, the green-skinned woman following close on her heels.
	'What I pray to God isn't just jerking off,' Punk answered silently, 
taking a deep breath. She hissed as the blade slide lengthwise along her 
forearm, cutting deep, crimson actually spurting out briefly before 
starting to flow liberally. Jabbing the knife in at the last, making 
sure she'd have enough of a wound before her healing factor could close 
it, Punk finally dropped the tanto, then lifted her limp-fingered hand 
to Yori's lips.
	The blood flowed down over Yori's paling lips, coloring them almost as 
if she were wearing garish lipstick. But it also slid between them, and 
the dying ninja gave a quiet gurgle as it pooled in her throat. She 
coughed, almost starting to shudder, and Punk swore.
	"Help her swallow, dammit, she's gotta swallow!"
	Motivated by sheer desperation, Ron launched into motion without 
question, his hand coming up to rub Yori's throat gently. She gurgled a 
little more, then actually gave a tentative swallow, then another.
	Punk could feel her breathing coming hard, her head slumping. Her 
healing factor was good, but at this point she'd left enough of her 
blood in this room to paint a small shed. When her slit wrist actually 
healed enough to stop bleeding, she let her hand drop, feeling like she 
just wanted to curl up in a corner and sleep for about a week.
	But they were in a seconds count sort of place. Carefully finding 
handholds, she stood up and let Yori settle into her arms, turning 
towards Kim and Shego. She did pause for a moment to evaluate the 
black-haired woman, who was still staring at her with something 
approaching hatred. But at least it was human hatred. Walking over to 
her, Punk waited until Shego got the idea and held her arms out.
	"If we're lucky... and I mean miracle-type lucky... she'll get enough 
of my healing factor to pull her through this. But you need to get her 
somewhere. Between your mom and places Shego must know, she'll probably 
live, but you've gotta go now."
	"... Alright," Kim acknowledged, glancing at Shego and the injured 
girl, then nodding. "We're going."
	"Dammit, Punk!"
	"YOU! SHUT! UP!" Punk roared in Ice Princess' general direction. 
Stalking back over to where Ken was laying and trying not to stagger, 
Punk bent to pick him up and slung him over her shoulder like a sack of 
grain. Grunting quietly, she raised a hand to touch the small white 
device clipped to her jacket collar. "FG. Pull out now."
	/"Acknowledged. I'm done here anyway."/
	Punk shoved the superpowered teenager ahead of her as they went towards 
the door, pausing to glance over her shoulder at Kim and her friends 
running out of the room and deeper into the complex.
	'This all went to Hell real fast.'

	Kim settled Yori carefully face-down in the hovercraft's back seat, 
then leapt into the driver's seat, sweeping her gaze over the controls, 
simply refusing to be nervous. Shego clambered in next to her, and Ron 
moved to kneel in the legroom in front of the back seat, his hands on 
Yori's arm as if he could hold her in this world and keep her from the next.
	As they lifted off of the pad and flew out into the stinging ocean air, 
Kim angled their flight low, practically skimming just above the waves, 
knowing that Global Justice reinforcements were no doubt lingering about 
somewhere close. As they sped towards the fallback position, she glanced 
at the woman in the passenger seat.
	Shego still had a fairly distant look about her, as if she weren't 
quite sure what was going on. At the moment, she was looking down at her 
hands, at the claws jutting from the tips of her shredded gloves, and 
the deep cut in the middle of one palm.
	"Shego? Are you with me?" Kim asked nervously.
	"I'm... trying," Shego murmured, sounding a bit hazy. She shook her 
head. "Feels... fuzzy. Like after anesthesia."
	"Shego, I really, really need you to try hard, okay? Is there anywhere 
we can take Yori? Somewhere supervillains go to get patched up when 
their death rays explode?"
	Shego frowned, a small crease appearing in the center of her forehead. 
"I... yeah... couple. Doctor Rob..." She rubbed her forehead. "No. He'd 
turn her into some weird cyborg. We need... nnng, God, why can't I think?!"
	"Try for me, baby, okay?" Kim urged quietly, not even noticing the pet 
name she'd used.
	"Yeah. Okay. I..." Shego took a few deep breaths, glancing over her 
shoulder at Yori's still form, and Ron's drawn, tight expression. She 
gave her head a quick shake, then nodded. "Havana, Cuba. There's a 
faster transport at the fallback place, we can pick up some of the 
others, and use it to get there in ten minutes. They've got stuff there 
that no legal hospital does." She left unsaid the rest: 'If they can't 
save her by the time we get her there, she's dead anyway.'

	"You blew it!"
	Punk didn't raise her head. She was sitting in the Global Justice 
flight transport they'd been extracted to, forearms resting across her 
knees, head bowed, for five minutes now.
	"We were sent in there to crush them, and we almost had! What the hell 
was all that?!" Ice Princess scowled down at Punk, hands resting on her 
hips. "Are you going soft or something?"
	She barely even saw the pink-haired woman move. All she knew was that 
her battered head swam as she was suddenly lifted off her feet and 
propelled backwards. Punk was staring at her with fury in her eyes, and 
her other hand was doing something. Then all she could hear was the 
howling of the wind as the jump door on the side of the transport opened 
and she was extended out of it, Punk's fist twisted in the front of her 
costume her only connection to the craft that was keeping them safely 
aloft over a hundred square miles of ocean.
	Ice Princess screamed, kicking her legs wildly and gripping Punk's 
wrist tightly with both hands. She stared down at the ocean whizzing 
past under them, unable to hear her own screams over the howl of the 
wind and the shriek of the turbines. She thought she might have been 
pleading and begging forgiveness, too, but she wasn't really thinking 
too hard about what she was saying.
	Then she was inside again, thrown against the seats across from the 
jump door, which was slowly closing. Punk was moving to stand over her, 
her voice as cold as any ice the superpowered teen had ever produced.
	"That is not the way I work. That has never been the way I work. That 
is not the way we are supposed to do things. And if you ever do anything 
like that again, I will forget that I do not kill children. Is that clear?"
	Ice Princess nodded vehemently, staring straight down at the floor, her 
entire body shaking as she propped herself up on both hands.
	Punk squatted down, staring at the teenager, who still wasn't looking 
at her. Her voice dropped down to almost a whisper, but still absolutely 
even and flat. "Your mother was a decent human being. She may have been 
a villain, but she was not a monster. Now, I don't know why you want to 
be a monster, but it stops now. This isn't about good guys, or bad guys. 
This is about the line that makes you human or makes you something else. 
And if you want to be something else, I will put you down like a rabid 
dog. Is that also clear?"
	"Y-yes."
	Punk nodded slowly, and murmured a quiet, "Alright then." Then she 
stood up, walking to the far end of the transport to sit down next to 
Barbara, who had pulled back the cowl of her Ferret Girl costume.
	"... What you said," Barbara began, somewhat hesitantly. "I read your 
file. It seems like... well..."
	Punk shook her head slowly, her voice hoarse from exhaustion. It 
couldn't be that she was holding back tears. "The difference was, Babs, 
I never decided to cross that line. I just... did. And I've been 
thinking about how to avoid doing it again ever since."

	Kim stared at the wall, trying to focus entirely on it, and on the feel 
of Ron's face pressed to her shoulder, on keeping her arms wrapped 
around him, on the sense that Shego was hovering nearby, just out of 
touching range.
	Focusing on anything but the heart monitor's beeping as the doctors in 
the operating room behind them worked feverishly to save Yori's life.
	*b-beep, b-beep, b-beep*

	"Would you care to explain how this mission was not a complete 
disaster?" Dr. Director demanded icily, standing in the private briefing 
room with her hands clasped behind her back, her cyclopean gaze trying 
to burn a hole in the middle of Punk's face.
	"Barbara did manage to completely destroy their database," Punk replied 
in a weary tone. "No more using any of Drakken's resources, and most of 
Wade's stuff is done for, too."
	"But rather than capturing them, and having us give the injured girl 
medical treatment, you let them go."
	Punk lifted her gaze briefly to Betty's face, opened her mouth as if to 
respond, then simply closed it. After a moment, she murmured, "I... 
didn't think I would be able to properly finish the mission. At that point."
	"I see."

	Shego stroked her hand over the trembling naked mole rat's back in an 
almost mechanical motion. Kim and Ron's distress was wrapped around her 
like a thick sensory blanket. She didn't even know the girl, but between 
the other two's emotion and the sheer magnitude of the injury she'd 
sustained, Shego felt as emotionally invested as anyone. Even Rufus' 
soft, distressed keening wasn't getting on her nerves the way it usually 
would.
	*b-beep, beep, b-beep, beep*

	"We'll review your performance, and decide the feasibility of another 
operation."
	Punk blinked, raising her head fully to stare. "What?"
	"That is all. You're dismissed."
	"That's... that is..." Punk grit her teeth, the blood starting to pound 
in her ears, temples throbbing with pain. "You're not even going to get 
mad at me, are you?"
	Without replying, Dr. Director stepped past Punk and started towards 
the door. With a sudden howl of frustration, Punk grabbed up one of 
several small briefing desks and hurled it past the other woman, 
smashing it against the wall. Dr. Director stopped where she was, but 
didn't turn around.
	"Get MAD at me! Yell at me! Do something, god dammit!" Punk raged, 
clenching her fists so tightly her knuckles popped.
	Dr. Director started to walk towards the door again. Yowling furiously, 
Punk lurched forward and took a wild swing at her. Betty ducked smoothly 
to one side, turning to face Punk finally, face an expressionless mask 
as she tilted back to avoid the next swing at her nose.
	"Curse me! Chew me out!" Punk continued her frenzied swings and 
punches, following Betty around the room as the one-eyed woman solemnly 
dodged every single strike. "Comfort me! Praise me! Do SOMETHING!"

	Kim closed her eyes tightly, squeezing Ron against her, wanting to 
block out the sounds, the increased urgency with which instruments were 
hitting trays and voices were communicating.
	*beep beep beep beep*

	Punk kicked through a desk in her way, reducing it to metal and plastic 
pieces stumbling forward and actually coming close to connecting one on 
Dr. Director's chin, but the impassive woman simply turned to one side 
and stepped back.
	"Slug me! Hold me! Do anything! As long as it's not nothing!"
	The mutant swung her hand in a desperate backhand, but Betty ducked 
under it and stepped away, expression never changing.
	"Kiss me or hurt me or fuck me or just goddamn kill me but please!" 
Punk wailed, taking a catlike swipe at the other woman's blind side, 
only to have her pirouette away, deigning even the simple block that 
would have turned the blow away, but brought them into contact.

	Shego closed her eyes tightly, wanting to be able to shut out all of 
her other senses that were so much more acute as well. The smell of 
pain, and blood, and medicine, and panic, and the faint, growing aroma 
of despair.
	*beepbeepbeepbeep*

	Punk's fist slammed home with a loud crack. Blood began to run down her 
fingers, and she let her head slump forward, her bangs covering her 
eyes, her shoulders heaving.
	Dr. Director just gazed at her flatly, not so much as glancing at 
Punk's fist where it had impacted the metal wall less than half an inch 
to the side of her head.
	"... Tell me you love me... or that you hate me," Punk choked out, a 
fine trembling starting in her shoulders and carrying down her arms. 
"Just... please... care... care about me... care about anything..." She 
sank slowly to her knees, hands falling to the floor, a sob ripping from 
her chest. "Just care. Tell me you care at all. Don't be this. Don't." A 
single droplet fell to spatter on the toe of Dr. Director's boot, 
followed by a second splashing on the other. "Don't."
	Without a word, Dr. Director turned and walked out of the room, leaving 
Punk sobbing on the floor.

	Kim thrust her face up to look at the sky, pleading, pleading with 
anyone, absolutely anyone that would listen, that she wouldn't hear what 
she knew was coming.
	*beepbeepbeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee*

	Dr. Director strode calmly through the halls of Global Justice. Agents 
that saw her in passing watched her, and straightened their backs a 
little. It had been a trying time for them. Kim Possible had been their 
great hope, practically hand-picked to succeed the current leader. But 
the current leader was carrying on. What strength!
	With the weight of everything on her shoulders, she was holding up. She 
was their rock, their anchor. As long as she could go on, could they do 
any less for her? And so Global Justice continued on with its day-to-day 
business of thwarting madmen, catching terrorists, and saving a world 
that usually didn't even know it had been saved.
	Dr. Director stepped inside her quarters, the door sliding shut behind 
her. Her even gaze swept over the sparse furnishings, the missing 
decorations, the empty bed.
	She began to shake. Softly at first, in her shoulders, and then all 
over. She took a single step forward, then staggered to her knees beside 
the bed, falling with her upper body across it. She reached a shaking 
hand for her pillow, pulling it over under her face, letting out deep, 
body-shaking sobs into it, tears soaking the cotton case.

	All three of them gasped, heads jerking towards the operating room that 
none of them could have been forced at gunpoint to look into a moment 
before.
	*eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeepbeep, beep*

	Bethany threw back her head and let out a heartsick wail, the sound 
echoing off the soundproofed walls and filling her empty little world 
with the sound of her sorrow.

	Kim slowly stood, Ron releasing her and standing as well, the redhead 
turning and placing her hand against the glass, whispering in an almost 
reverent tone. "She's alive."
	*beep, b-beep, b-beep, b-beep*

	The wail trailed off, and Betty let her head collapse back onto the 
pillow, her body still shaking with the force of her crying.
	"I love you. I always loved you. I never stopped loving you," she 
sobbed to someone who could never be allowed to hear her.

- End Part Six

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