There is not one universe. There are many.
A multiverse.
We have the technology to travel between the universes,
but travel is highly restricted and policed.
There is not one you. There are many.
Each of us exists in present time, in parallel universes.
Years ago, one person sought to destroy the balance in the system.
He was stopped and in the end, balance was maintained.
Now another force has arisen,
a power mad individual seeking to become...
The One
Chapter 1: The Monkey Lord
Time: October, 28th 19:47 local time Salazar Universe
Night had fallen in the mountainous regions of Africa that Kim Possible and her sidekick traveled through. The sun had just set in at glorious sunset that had set the sky aflame, but the redheaded hero was in no mood to appreciate the sight. Her mind was focused on one task and one task alone. Tonight it would all be over.
"What's your status, Agent Possible?" Dr. Director's voice crackled over the GJ communicator.
"We're just outside of Monkey Lord's lair," Kim replied in a soft, measured voice that betrayed none of the feelings that currently warred inside of her.
"Are you certain that you two can handle this alone?" Dr. Director asked, worried that her top agent may have lost perspective on the matter. Facing one's nemesis in the field was not a place to allow personal grudges to cloud one's judgment.
"I'm sure," answered Kim curtly, her voice glacially cold. "This is personal; between me and him. One way or the other this ends tonight."
Dr. Director wanted to scrub the mission, even glass the lair from orbit with one of the GJ particle beam satellites, but something in Kim's tone stopped her. The steel in Kim's voice was evident to everyone who heard it and left the impression that she would tolerate no interference in her mission tonight from either friend or foe.
"We'll have a GJ strike team standing by, just in case," assured Dr. Director before breaking the link. "Good luck, Kimberly."
Kim turned to her sidekick, no partner, and told him in a low voice. "No talking until we reach the main chamber. Monkey Lord has sound seeking mini missiles."
"Gotcha, Kim," her blond partner replied with a confident smile.
Kim glanced at her partner and nodded slowly, spurring him into motion. With fluid and practiced ease, the two hefted their grapple guns and fired them. The cables sailed high along the cliff face, clattering about as the hooks found purchase among the rocks. Swiftly the pair scaled the cliff until they reached a rocky outcropping that marked the entrance to the lair.
Kim nodded again to her partner who pulled out a small GJ hand-puter to hack the access codes from the gates that barred their passage. He flashed Kim a victorious smile and a thumbs-up as the locks hissed and the door cracked open with a muted clank. Kim peered inside and took stock of the monkey ninjas standing guard several yards in the tunnel. She reached inside her backpack and pulled out a handful of small round grenades. With a flick of her wrist, she rolled the weapons at the sentries' feet. Immediately, a thick vapor began to spew from ports recessed in the grenades' surface and enveloped the guards. The monkeys had only seconds to register their predicament before the gas overtook them and rendered them unconscious.
Kim gave in to a thin, bloodless smile and pulled the door open wider, wary of any other traps. After a long moment, she nodded again and the two stood up and slowly made their way into the bowels of the lair. Suddenly, Kim pulled up short, unholstered her GJ issue plasma blaster and motioned towards the pair of laser turrets that swept the corridor as they scanned for intruders.
Kim dropped to one knee and steadily took aim after she made sure that the laser targeter was off. The turrets had infrared sensors that could track the beam back to her position. It was a lesson that had cost her tremendously a couple years ago. She took a deep breath and quickly squeezed the trigger twice, reducing the turrets slag.
"Move!" she hissed urgently as she bounded to her feet and charged forward into the lair's main chamber.
"Glad that you could make it, KP," Monkey Lord greeted her from his position on the raised dais in the center of the room. "It just hasn't been the same without you."
"It's over, Ron," Kim told her one time friend and partner as she kept her blaster trained on him. A part of her was still saddened to see him like this. The Mystical Monkey Power had unbalanced Ron's mind over the years and by the time he had killed Monkey Fist his descent into madness was complete. In a way, Ron had become Monkey Fist. And her enemy.
Ron's entrance into the world of villainy sparked off a war that left most of his contemporaries either dead or crippled. DNAmy sought revenge for her lover Monkey Fist and was now in a coma for her troubles. Her injuries had brought Dr. Drakken into the fray. Drakken was now happily playing with colorful bits of yarn and Shego's disappearance had brought Ron up against both the Seniors and Team Go. Ron still limped slightly from that battle, his injuries never fully healed. With the elimination of most of the major villain community, Dr. Dementor and Jack Hench had launched a preemptive strike against Ron in hopes of curbing his growing power. They failed. The sad thing was that in a just few years time, the self-styled Monkey Lord had done more than GJ could ever accomplish.
"Actually, Kim. It's just begun," Ron told her as his monkey minions moved around the room to encircle the hero and sidekick and his eyebrow quirked slightly at the sight of the man beside his one time partner. "So you run with Mankey now?"
"You have no right to judge me," Kim informed him coldly. "I offered to help you and you refused and turned to a life of crime."
"Kim, can't you see how much more fulfilling living without order is? How much..." Ron's voice trailed off as a vague feeling of unrest settled in his gut. "Something's not right here."
Kim had only a moment to reflect on Ron's discomfort before a loud report cracked and a single bullet plowed through Monkey Lord's skull. Even as his dead body began to collapse, a hail of bullets tore through the squads of monkey ninjas, rendering them down to stinking piles of meat.
Kim whirled towards the source of the gunfire as she pushed Josh out of the way. She began to leap forward in attack only to have her motion end in a sickening tumble as another bullet slammed into her left shoulder, her gun skittering across the floor from her.
"Josh! Run!" she ordered as she seized at her wound in pain, her shoulder already drenched with blood.
"Kim!" Josh cried as he ignored her command and ran to help her. Two more cracks echoed in the chamber and Josh fell to the ground, well short of Kim as he clutched at his shattered knees in agony.
"No," she moaned as Josh rolled on the ground, shrieking in pain.
The sound of slow, measured steps prompted Kim to raise her head, hoping against hope for a GJ evac team. She stared in surprise at the sight of Ron walking purposefully towards her and in spite of the tendrils of fire that arced from her shattered shoulder, she swiveled her head to look back towards the dais. Monkey Lord still lay there in a widening pool of blood, one eye wide with shock, the other a gaping ruin of flesh.
The new Ron was clad in a black suit that looked like some form of body armor. He had a hard look on his face that rivaled chiseled granite as he strode through the bloody remains of Monkey Lord's army. He gave Monkey Lord's body a satisfied look and spread his arms wide.
"Booyah!" he howled at the ceiling, causing Kim to gasp in surprise. It was no hallucination, no one but Ron would ever use that phrase. Almost as an afterthought, the dark Ron turned to Kim and studied her with a bored look on his face.
"Hiya, Kim," he said emotionlessly and gave her a smile that did not touch his dead eyes. Kim found herself scrabbling backwards in retreat as Ron advanced on her.
"Please," she pleaded in terror, her eyes on the gun Ron held negligently in his hand. "Please don't kill us."
"Us?" Ron asked and twisted his head to take a close look at Kim's partner for the first time. His eyes narrowed as he recognized the boy on the ground.
"D-don't hurt K-kim," Josh gasped from behind teeth clenched in pain as he tried to lever himself up to somehow defend Kim.
"So anyone gets to fuck Kim Possible," Ron growled in low, dangerous voice, guessing at the nature of the relationship. In the blink of an eye, he raised his gun and fired off two quick shots that took Josh through both shoulders. Josh let out a pained grunt before he thankfully passed out from the pain.
"You KILLED him!" Kim shouted in horror.
"I have no wish to see this or any other Josh dead," Ron replied smoothly as Josh's chest rose rhythmically in shallow breaths. "Crippled on the other hand, I can live with. Mr. lead singer isn't going to strumming a guitar anytime soon."
"You-you're insane," Kim gasped as she continued to push herself away from the psychopath who wore Ron's face.
"Perhaps," Ron conceded as he holstered his sidearm and slowly began to advance on Kim's prone body. "But that isn't for you to judge."
"No. Don't. Please," Kim wailed in terror as Ron drew close to her and he pulled out a small dagger.
"You're not her," Ron stated softly as he knelt beside her and looked through her to see another Kim. "She would never beg like that."
"No. No," Kim whimpered as Ron drew the knife lightly across her cheek and down her jaw. She shied away from the touch of the cold metal of the blade and Ron grabbed a fistful of her hair to halt her retreat.
"But you do resemble her," Ron whispered as grabbed the terrified girl's right ear and pulled the blade upward in a short, vicious jerk.
Kim let out an agonized shriek and her one good hand flew up to the side of her face as blood poured from the wound. She felt the blood trickle down her arm, dimly aware of her tormentor circling around behind her. She let out a pained gasp as Ron roughly flipped her onto her stomach and felt his knee grind into her back. His right hand reached down to grasp her chin firmly and the left gently cradled the back of her skull. Her pain-filled eyes widened as she realized his intent and she reached behind her in a feeble attempt to swat Ron's grip off her head. Her motions grew more frantic as Ron applied pressure, slowly turning her head. Out of the corner of her eye, Kim caught sight of the insane look in Ron's eyes and fought him with every ounce of strength left to her even as the first sound of her cracking vertebra echoed within her skull.
***
Two black clad figures rushed into the main chamber with weapons drawn and fingers tensing on the triggers. The redhead drew in a surprise breath at the carnage that littered the floor of the chamber, especially at the sight of her body with its head twisted at a sickening angle. The corpse's eyes stared at her accusingly as if blaming her for her death.
"Dammit! We're too late," Kim Possible growled. "Funsch is not going to like this."
"How many does this make?" Will Du asked as he lowered his weapon and perfunctorily checked the body of Monkey Lord for a pulse, already knowing the answer.
"You know very well that Ron has just one more to go," Kim snapped back furiously.
"I meant how many versions of you he's killed," Will clarified as he scanned the remainder of the room, wary of any traps their quarry might have left behind for their arrival.
"This makes number fifty-six that he's killed," Kim answered quietly as she knelt by the body of her counterpart and gently closed the staring eyes.
"Kim, this one's still alive," Will Du informed her as he knelt by Josh Mankey. "Multiple frangible bullet wounds, shattering both kneecaps and destroying both brachial nerve plexuses. Painful, but not life threatening with proper medical attention."
"Of course," Kim scowled as she looked down at the body of her counterpart in this universe. "Ron doesn't want to give himself any male competition."
Kim reached down and briskly patted down the corpse and retrieved the GJ communicator from one of the pouches on its hip. "Agent down," Kim said quickly as she activated the unit. "Send back up immediately."
"What's your situ—" Dr. Director's voice squawked over the link before Kim tossed the device onto the floor and fired several shots into the unit, silencing it.
"I never did understand his fascination with randomly killing alternate versions of you," Will said as he consulted his wrist comp for the next wormhole opening. "Wormhole opens in forty-five seconds. I'm redirecting the vortex to open here."
"He's punishing me," Kim replied absently as she stared at the mutilated body of herself. "And tempting me."
"This isn't your fault," Will reassured her. "Thirty seconds."
"No, I should have stopped him long before this. Before he got this strong," Kim said as she remembered another time, a happier time. "You read the files. You know how close Yulaw got. And Ron's different. He's insane."
"I know," Will said evenly as he stared at Monkey Lord's body. "We won't even be able to kill him now."
"There are things worse than death. And I think I know just how to do it too," Kim said as she fixed the sight of her dead body in her mind just before the wormhole opened and whisked them away to their home universe.
A/N: 'Lo all. If you're reading this then thank you muchly.
The One was not a popular movie and was much lampooned, but I for one liked it. At least the concept of it. For some reason I seem to be fixated on an evil Ron. I'm not entirely sure where I'll take this, but I hope you enjoy the ride.
Fortunately, Tax season has just ended, so hopefully I will be able to get back into the swing of things. Updates will be forthcoming for my other projects, but I just can't guarantee when. Maybe if I hit the Lotto I can devote all my attention to my writing. ^_^
The One is owned by Columbia Pictures and Revolution Studios. Kim Possible is owned by Disney.
A multiverse.
We have the technology to travel between the universes,
but travel is highly restricted and policed.
There is not one you. There are many.
Each of us exists in present time, in parallel universes.
Years ago, one person sought to destroy the balance in the system.
He was stopped and in the end, balance was maintained.
Now another force has arisen,
a power mad individual seeking to become...
The One
Chapter 1: The Monkey Lord
Time: October, 28th 19:47 local time Salazar Universe
Night had fallen in the mountainous regions of Africa that Kim Possible and her sidekick traveled through. The sun had just set in at glorious sunset that had set the sky aflame, but the redheaded hero was in no mood to appreciate the sight. Her mind was focused on one task and one task alone. Tonight it would all be over.
"What's your status, Agent Possible?" Dr. Director's voice crackled over the GJ communicator.
"We're just outside of Monkey Lord's lair," Kim replied in a soft, measured voice that betrayed none of the feelings that currently warred inside of her.
"Are you certain that you two can handle this alone?" Dr. Director asked, worried that her top agent may have lost perspective on the matter. Facing one's nemesis in the field was not a place to allow personal grudges to cloud one's judgment.
"I'm sure," answered Kim curtly, her voice glacially cold. "This is personal; between me and him. One way or the other this ends tonight."
Dr. Director wanted to scrub the mission, even glass the lair from orbit with one of the GJ particle beam satellites, but something in Kim's tone stopped her. The steel in Kim's voice was evident to everyone who heard it and left the impression that she would tolerate no interference in her mission tonight from either friend or foe.
"We'll have a GJ strike team standing by, just in case," assured Dr. Director before breaking the link. "Good luck, Kimberly."
Kim turned to her sidekick, no partner, and told him in a low voice. "No talking until we reach the main chamber. Monkey Lord has sound seeking mini missiles."
"Gotcha, Kim," her blond partner replied with a confident smile.
Kim glanced at her partner and nodded slowly, spurring him into motion. With fluid and practiced ease, the two hefted their grapple guns and fired them. The cables sailed high along the cliff face, clattering about as the hooks found purchase among the rocks. Swiftly the pair scaled the cliff until they reached a rocky outcropping that marked the entrance to the lair.
Kim nodded again to her partner who pulled out a small GJ hand-puter to hack the access codes from the gates that barred their passage. He flashed Kim a victorious smile and a thumbs-up as the locks hissed and the door cracked open with a muted clank. Kim peered inside and took stock of the monkey ninjas standing guard several yards in the tunnel. She reached inside her backpack and pulled out a handful of small round grenades. With a flick of her wrist, she rolled the weapons at the sentries' feet. Immediately, a thick vapor began to spew from ports recessed in the grenades' surface and enveloped the guards. The monkeys had only seconds to register their predicament before the gas overtook them and rendered them unconscious.
Kim gave in to a thin, bloodless smile and pulled the door open wider, wary of any other traps. After a long moment, she nodded again and the two stood up and slowly made their way into the bowels of the lair. Suddenly, Kim pulled up short, unholstered her GJ issue plasma blaster and motioned towards the pair of laser turrets that swept the corridor as they scanned for intruders.
Kim dropped to one knee and steadily took aim after she made sure that the laser targeter was off. The turrets had infrared sensors that could track the beam back to her position. It was a lesson that had cost her tremendously a couple years ago. She took a deep breath and quickly squeezed the trigger twice, reducing the turrets slag.
"Move!" she hissed urgently as she bounded to her feet and charged forward into the lair's main chamber.
"Glad that you could make it, KP," Monkey Lord greeted her from his position on the raised dais in the center of the room. "It just hasn't been the same without you."
"It's over, Ron," Kim told her one time friend and partner as she kept her blaster trained on him. A part of her was still saddened to see him like this. The Mystical Monkey Power had unbalanced Ron's mind over the years and by the time he had killed Monkey Fist his descent into madness was complete. In a way, Ron had become Monkey Fist. And her enemy.
Ron's entrance into the world of villainy sparked off a war that left most of his contemporaries either dead or crippled. DNAmy sought revenge for her lover Monkey Fist and was now in a coma for her troubles. Her injuries had brought Dr. Drakken into the fray. Drakken was now happily playing with colorful bits of yarn and Shego's disappearance had brought Ron up against both the Seniors and Team Go. Ron still limped slightly from that battle, his injuries never fully healed. With the elimination of most of the major villain community, Dr. Dementor and Jack Hench had launched a preemptive strike against Ron in hopes of curbing his growing power. They failed. The sad thing was that in a just few years time, the self-styled Monkey Lord had done more than GJ could ever accomplish.
"Actually, Kim. It's just begun," Ron told her as his monkey minions moved around the room to encircle the hero and sidekick and his eyebrow quirked slightly at the sight of the man beside his one time partner. "So you run with Mankey now?"
"You have no right to judge me," Kim informed him coldly. "I offered to help you and you refused and turned to a life of crime."
"Kim, can't you see how much more fulfilling living without order is? How much..." Ron's voice trailed off as a vague feeling of unrest settled in his gut. "Something's not right here."
Kim had only a moment to reflect on Ron's discomfort before a loud report cracked and a single bullet plowed through Monkey Lord's skull. Even as his dead body began to collapse, a hail of bullets tore through the squads of monkey ninjas, rendering them down to stinking piles of meat.
Kim whirled towards the source of the gunfire as she pushed Josh out of the way. She began to leap forward in attack only to have her motion end in a sickening tumble as another bullet slammed into her left shoulder, her gun skittering across the floor from her.
"Josh! Run!" she ordered as she seized at her wound in pain, her shoulder already drenched with blood.
"Kim!" Josh cried as he ignored her command and ran to help her. Two more cracks echoed in the chamber and Josh fell to the ground, well short of Kim as he clutched at his shattered knees in agony.
"No," she moaned as Josh rolled on the ground, shrieking in pain.
The sound of slow, measured steps prompted Kim to raise her head, hoping against hope for a GJ evac team. She stared in surprise at the sight of Ron walking purposefully towards her and in spite of the tendrils of fire that arced from her shattered shoulder, she swiveled her head to look back towards the dais. Monkey Lord still lay there in a widening pool of blood, one eye wide with shock, the other a gaping ruin of flesh.
The new Ron was clad in a black suit that looked like some form of body armor. He had a hard look on his face that rivaled chiseled granite as he strode through the bloody remains of Monkey Lord's army. He gave Monkey Lord's body a satisfied look and spread his arms wide.
"Booyah!" he howled at the ceiling, causing Kim to gasp in surprise. It was no hallucination, no one but Ron would ever use that phrase. Almost as an afterthought, the dark Ron turned to Kim and studied her with a bored look on his face.
"Hiya, Kim," he said emotionlessly and gave her a smile that did not touch his dead eyes. Kim found herself scrabbling backwards in retreat as Ron advanced on her.
"Please," she pleaded in terror, her eyes on the gun Ron held negligently in his hand. "Please don't kill us."
"Us?" Ron asked and twisted his head to take a close look at Kim's partner for the first time. His eyes narrowed as he recognized the boy on the ground.
"D-don't hurt K-kim," Josh gasped from behind teeth clenched in pain as he tried to lever himself up to somehow defend Kim.
"So anyone gets to fuck Kim Possible," Ron growled in low, dangerous voice, guessing at the nature of the relationship. In the blink of an eye, he raised his gun and fired off two quick shots that took Josh through both shoulders. Josh let out a pained grunt before he thankfully passed out from the pain.
"You KILLED him!" Kim shouted in horror.
"I have no wish to see this or any other Josh dead," Ron replied smoothly as Josh's chest rose rhythmically in shallow breaths. "Crippled on the other hand, I can live with. Mr. lead singer isn't going to strumming a guitar anytime soon."
"You-you're insane," Kim gasped as she continued to push herself away from the psychopath who wore Ron's face.
"Perhaps," Ron conceded as he holstered his sidearm and slowly began to advance on Kim's prone body. "But that isn't for you to judge."
"No. Don't. Please," Kim wailed in terror as Ron drew close to her and he pulled out a small dagger.
"You're not her," Ron stated softly as he knelt beside her and looked through her to see another Kim. "She would never beg like that."
"No. No," Kim whimpered as Ron drew the knife lightly across her cheek and down her jaw. She shied away from the touch of the cold metal of the blade and Ron grabbed a fistful of her hair to halt her retreat.
"But you do resemble her," Ron whispered as grabbed the terrified girl's right ear and pulled the blade upward in a short, vicious jerk.
Kim let out an agonized shriek and her one good hand flew up to the side of her face as blood poured from the wound. She felt the blood trickle down her arm, dimly aware of her tormentor circling around behind her. She let out a pained gasp as Ron roughly flipped her onto her stomach and felt his knee grind into her back. His right hand reached down to grasp her chin firmly and the left gently cradled the back of her skull. Her pain-filled eyes widened as she realized his intent and she reached behind her in a feeble attempt to swat Ron's grip off her head. Her motions grew more frantic as Ron applied pressure, slowly turning her head. Out of the corner of her eye, Kim caught sight of the insane look in Ron's eyes and fought him with every ounce of strength left to her even as the first sound of her cracking vertebra echoed within her skull.
***
Two black clad figures rushed into the main chamber with weapons drawn and fingers tensing on the triggers. The redhead drew in a surprise breath at the carnage that littered the floor of the chamber, especially at the sight of her body with its head twisted at a sickening angle. The corpse's eyes stared at her accusingly as if blaming her for her death.
"Dammit! We're too late," Kim Possible growled. "Funsch is not going to like this."
"How many does this make?" Will Du asked as he lowered his weapon and perfunctorily checked the body of Monkey Lord for a pulse, already knowing the answer.
"You know very well that Ron has just one more to go," Kim snapped back furiously.
"I meant how many versions of you he's killed," Will clarified as he scanned the remainder of the room, wary of any traps their quarry might have left behind for their arrival.
"This makes number fifty-six that he's killed," Kim answered quietly as she knelt by the body of her counterpart and gently closed the staring eyes.
"Kim, this one's still alive," Will Du informed her as he knelt by Josh Mankey. "Multiple frangible bullet wounds, shattering both kneecaps and destroying both brachial nerve plexuses. Painful, but not life threatening with proper medical attention."
"Of course," Kim scowled as she looked down at the body of her counterpart in this universe. "Ron doesn't want to give himself any male competition."
Kim reached down and briskly patted down the corpse and retrieved the GJ communicator from one of the pouches on its hip. "Agent down," Kim said quickly as she activated the unit. "Send back up immediately."
"What's your situ—" Dr. Director's voice squawked over the link before Kim tossed the device onto the floor and fired several shots into the unit, silencing it.
"I never did understand his fascination with randomly killing alternate versions of you," Will said as he consulted his wrist comp for the next wormhole opening. "Wormhole opens in forty-five seconds. I'm redirecting the vortex to open here."
"He's punishing me," Kim replied absently as she stared at the mutilated body of herself. "And tempting me."
"This isn't your fault," Will reassured her. "Thirty seconds."
"No, I should have stopped him long before this. Before he got this strong," Kim said as she remembered another time, a happier time. "You read the files. You know how close Yulaw got. And Ron's different. He's insane."
"I know," Will said evenly as he stared at Monkey Lord's body. "We won't even be able to kill him now."
"There are things worse than death. And I think I know just how to do it too," Kim said as she fixed the sight of her dead body in her mind just before the wormhole opened and whisked them away to their home universe.
A/N: 'Lo all. If you're reading this then thank you muchly.
The One was not a popular movie and was much lampooned, but I for one liked it. At least the concept of it. For some reason I seem to be fixated on an evil Ron. I'm not entirely sure where I'll take this, but I hope you enjoy the ride.
Fortunately, Tax season has just ended, so hopefully I will be able to get back into the swing of things. Updates will be forthcoming for my other projects, but I just can't guarantee when. Maybe if I hit the Lotto I can devote all my attention to my writing. ^_^
The One is owned by Columbia Pictures and Revolution Studios. Kim Possible is owned by Disney.