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The Stubborn Beast Flesh

Author: The Humbug

Disclaimer: “Kim Possible” and all characters within © The Walt Disney Company and its related entities. Kim Possible created by Mark McCorkle & Bob Schooley. All rights reserved. No profit is being collected from the fiction contained within. You can blame the rest of this on me.
Rating: PG-13 for combat violence and intimations of a physical relationship and intimate contact between consenting adult females. This should also cover a little harsh language now and then. If this will offend you, please read something else, and then seek professional help.
Summary: This is a Kim/Shego pairing fan fiction; there is love and romance between Kim & Shego, as well as plenty of action and adventure, and hopefully some humor and horror. Set in my ‘Who’s Writing This Crap’ Kigo-verse, this is a tale of what happens when something goes horribly wrong. Kasy Ann and Sheki Go Possible are the sole creations of NoDrogs (it is with great respect that I make mention of them). Special Note: Yes, I am still using the wrong first name of ‘John’ for Dr. Mr. P.

Chapter X.b / Convergence – part 2

Give me strength, Shego prayed, to do what I have to do now.

“Go, Ron!”

She lunged forward and threw her arms around Kim in a bear hug, grappling with her from behind as tight as she could. Shego immediately felt the impact and saw stars as Kim brought her head back and clocked Shego across the bridge of her nose, the red hair doing nothing to cushion the blow from the skull beneath. Ron saw none of this as he took full advantage of the warning, running for all he was worth into the darkness.

“Shego, he has our babies!” Kim’s forgotten that I’m the one holding her, Shego realized as the pain washed over her face. Another attack lent credence to this thought.

“OW!” Kim’s head reared back again, this time connecting with a pale green cheekbone. Shego had been anticipating the move this time, for whatever it was worth. “Kimmie, stop it!”

“Get off of me!” Kim pushed outwards, desperate to free her arms from the hold. “Shego, please make them let me go!”

“Kim! It’s me! Please…” Her words were cut off as her petite bride raised both feet from the ground. The sudden change in their combined center of gravity pulled Shego forward, and so as not to lose her footing or wrench her back, Shego leaned backward to compensate. Kim kicked her heels into the well-muscled shins beneath the green and black uniformed legs.

“OW! Damn it…” Shego’s grip around Kim’s arms and chest loosened just enough and the slender redhead thrust out her arms, spun around to face her wife and caught the attention of Shego’s startled eyes. Even in the dance of firelight and shadows, Kim looked angelic but Shego prepared to ward of a blow. No attack came.

“Baby, you’re bleeding!” A tiny hand was raised and the taller woman pulled back from it in confusion before she understood what had happened. Kim’s disability had again shifted her awareness of the sitch and had muddied her mental waters. Much like the time Kim had spent locked inside the medical cell deep within ‘GJ’, she was no longer fully cognizant of what was going on.

“You’re hurt!”

“I’m Ok, ba… Kimmie. I’m Ok.” Keep her distracted, nothing to remind her of the children. What was Ron’s plan? Was he clear of the danger? The former villain was eager to keep Kim with her as long as possible, letting Ron gain as much ground and time as he could and, if yet another facet of Kim’s condition was to be the distraction, so be it.

“Who did this to you? Oh, sweetheart!” Kim wiped at the blood that dripped from her wife’s nose. The touch was so tender and gentle and it sickened Shego to know that her baby was dying a piece at a time. Kim Possible was meant for better things than this.

“Um… it was an accident. You… we, uh, were sparing and…”

“I did this?” Kim looked incredulous, and then stated to cry. “Oh, Shego, I’m so sorry!” The smaller girl practically jumped at Shego and held her close. “I didn’t mean to do it…”

“I know, Princess, I know.” Had she given Ron enough time?

“… I … seem to be doing a lot of weird things, lately.” Not raving and not manic, a new tone had entered Kim’s voice. It was new by virtue of not having been heard in a few days. It was her own Kim, the real Kim, speaking to her now.

“Princess?” Shego cradled the small body against her; her wife’s tiny form was almost weightless.

“Oh, Shego, what is wrong with me?” Bleary eyes looked about in utter confusion. “Where are we? Why do I feel so sick?”

“Sick?” A quick inspection of just what she could see did not reveal any signs of pitch.

“Sick… dead, all numb inside…” The tears were still there, but seemed more natural now. “Why do I feel like this?”

“Kimmie, I’ll take you home. We’ll take care of you.”

“Are my Mom and Dad here?”

“No, but I’ll take you to them. They’ll…”

“I’m so tired… I just want to close my eyes for a minute…” Kim sagged and folded like an empty coat. “Just for a minute… please?”

“Rest, Princess.” Shego kept the younger woman from falling and gently lowered to the floor, still holding the redhead tight to her chest as they sat together. She watched the fire smoldering in the barrel and thought about Hell again.

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Contrary to popular belief, Wade Load did sleep. The boy did little to exert himself physically and this was why he required so little rest. His mother would often use that point to argue that he also shouldn’t to eat much either but the young genius suspected that the dear woman’s logic was flawed, somehow. His mother would also have been angry to know he was till awake at this hour, but how could he sleep? It had been so long since the rapid calls back and forth between Ron Stoppable and himself while they searched for Kim and laid plans for her return.

To have said ‘capture’ was sick and wrong. And then there was the matter of Bonnie’s involvement. Of this, Wade was not entirely enthusiastic; he nearly choked on his soda when he realized that Ron had handed a Kimmunicator to Kim’s oldest rival from her school days. Again, sick and wrong!

Right now, every single one of his computer screens was glowing with information; there was a schematic of the ‘GJ’ facility to his right and a live feed from the satellite scan of Middleton to his left. Directly in front of him was all of the data that he’d compiled on Havok, scrolling in a perpetual slideshow, starting from what few documented facts there were to every myth, legend and allegory that could be surmised. Wade was desperate to learn all that he could and the one clear piece of data that was a certainty was that Havok was a true nightmare.

It was the ‘boogeyman’ of biotech science gone wrong, but at the same time it was like Bigfoot; too many reputable sources claimed to ‘know things’ about it but no one could provide more than a shred of actual proof. Using all of his skills, he had cadged a scant few bits of arcane lore from cyberspace, but none of it overtly helpful. It did give a reason why Kim’s subcutaneous tracking implant wasn’t functioning properly, however. Turning to the slideshow, Wade paused the presentation and brought forward the relevant data for yet another review.

Havok apparently had trouble dealing with inorganic implants; being able to copy the form and function of living tissue left the black tar high and dry against something like a pacemaker or artificial hip. It would try… and fail… to infiltrate the implant and, ultimately, treat it like a wound or invading bacteria; Kim’s implant was likely being coated by layers and layers of thick, viscous pitch, interfering with the strength of the transmitter’s signal and keeping them from tracking her easily.

Now he was studying and waiting for an update of the sitch. For the first time in his young life, Wade didn’t feel as if his world-spanning technology was powerful enough. A flash of lightning from his bedroom window through the trees outside signaled the onset of a coming storm and a chubby little boy sat alone in his room.

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Bonnie Rockwaller waited at the base of a chain link fence; she had been sitting there for almost an hour and was starting to get worried. The fencing was to serve as a barricade against anyone who might want to break in. Stretching from the floor where it had been anchored into the concrete with lag bolts, all the way up to where it was welded to the solid metal walls above the door, it was a perfect way to keep people out.

Fortunately, it would also serve to keep people in while allowing egress for anything as small as an infant. Bonnie had used the wheel jack from Ron’s car to raise a good eight inches of fence up from the floor between the lag bolts in a gap that was also about eight inches wide. It would hopefully be enough to allow two small toddlers to squeeze through.

She wasn’t alone, however. No sooner had she positioned herself to wait for Ron to bring his precious bundle to her, when Rufus scampered out of the shadows. The young man had parked his car and guided her to this spot after a few minutes of careful inspection, apparently finding the barricaded bay suitable for their purposes. He and his rodent partner had disappeared but Rufus had returned.

“Is he in there?” The former cheerleader and one-time alpha-female of the Middleton High School food chain hadn’t even hesitated to pose her question to the lower mammal.

“a’yuh”

“How’s he doing?” She set her hand down on the dirty foundation and the tiny creature climbed on, still catching his breath from his run around the outside of the depot to this other door. He could take no chances that Kim might hear or smell him after leaving Ron and returning to Bonnie.

“fyv bi fyv” Rufus let the young woman warm him in the folds of her jacket. They remained like that, lost in their own thoughts for a time.

“Psst…”

She jumped up from the cold floor at the sound of the harsh whisper and even Rufus had been caught unawares. A figure appeared from the darkness, skidding to a halt just short of running into the fence; it was Ron. He had been moving at speed but with a grace that had masked any sound.

“Hey, there, Bon-Bon…” He got right to business. “You’d better take them.”

The lanky young man kept his voice down and his movements economical; there was little about his nature to alert Kim of their presence here in this dark corner of the depot. He gingerly unwrapped the sash from around his shoulder and chest, jostling the infants as little as possible. Motherly instincts never having faded since the death of her son, Bonnie removed Rufus from her jacket while she lay down on the floor beside the gap she had made under the fencing.

Ron gently pulled one child from the woven fabric; it was Kasy and she was rubbing at her eyes with her tiny hands, having just been woken from sleep. Passing the child through the gap, Rufus carefully guided the infant around the jagged links and rusty debris and into the eager hands of Bonnie. Kasy was quickly settled into a clean blanket and a light scarf was wrapped around her head, as much to keep her quiet as it was for protection from the cold wind outside.

Rufus had to untangle Sheki from the chain links as she was being passed through; her clothing had snagged and she had started to fuss. Bonnie lifted the little girl on the safe side and quickly swaddled her in another scarf and blanket. Her first mission was going well so far.

“Rufus, you go out there and start the car… but do not try to drive it this time!” The little beast had sidled up to his friend and master, watching him closely. The animal might never fully understand what was wrong with his ‘beloved KP’ but he had all the faith in the world that the lanky young man could set things right. The naked mole rat had more faith than all of the humans in the entire building combined.

“You take care of them, boy. All three of them.” Ron’s muttered command was firm and Rufus gave a quick salute before scampering away. Bonnie settled the squirming infants beside her on the dirty concrete and looked through the fencing.

“What’ll you do now?”

“Huh? Well, first I’ll send a signal on a wavelength that’s constantly monitored by both Wade and ‘GJ’ and then I’ll do my best to help Shego ‘til the cavalry arrives.” Ron shrugged. “Pretty simple, really.”

She had been appraising the blond youth in a new light ever since yesterday. The few intervening years since high school hadn’t changed him much; still thin for his age, Ron had managed to add a few inches to his frame, giving him a height that signaled the end of his boyhood. That, and his greater control of whatever mystical energies he carried within him, had given him a controlled grace when he moved. Bonnie acknowledged bitterly that no, she never would have given Ron Stoppable a chance with her in school, but then she wasn’t that stupid girl anymore.

“Can you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Can you really fight her?”

“I… don’t know.” His eyes were a million miles away. “Maybe I’ll just keep them from killing each other until ‘GJ’ gets here.” They looked into each other’s faces for a few seconds and saw the same fears. Ron roused himself first.

“You’d better get going.”

“Ron, I…” She brought her hands up to the fencing and silently gripped the links.

“Take the girls and drive to… no, you’d better pick the safest place you can think of and go there. Think family, security, stuff like that.” He grinned without humor.

“What’s the joke?” Bonnie didn’t want to leave him alone.

“I was thinking that it’s better if I didn’t know where you were going, you know, in case she, um… in case… she makes me tell her.”

“Ron…” She swallowed hard. No more innocent deaths. “When this is over…” She stopped when his hands touched her clenched fingers from the other side. There was just no time to even form the words for all of the thoughts in her head.

“You know what?” There was humor in the smile this time. “Let’s have a nice quiet sit down at Bueno Nacho when this is over, Ok? All of us.” His fingers were just as cold as hers through the fencing but the contact made her feel warmer. “But Team Rockwaller has a mission to finish and some important parcels to deliver first.”

“Good luck.” She grinned at his determination, even under these dire circumstances.

“Who needs luck when you have the power of imagination?” Bonnie started to argue with that logic but then he winked at her and brandished his Kimmunicator. “But it also helps to have one of these.”

He thumbed the switch.

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From deep within the vaulted foundations of the Global Justice facility and clear up to it’s storefront façade, all Hell was breaking loose.

“Great day in the morning!” John bounced almost a foot off the floor when the klaxons sounded. “What the devil…?”

“Oh, John! Do you think…?” Anne’s question was cut short as dozens of ‘GJ’ agents and operatives began to enter the hallway from various doors and side passages, forcing the Possibles to press tightly against the wall lest they be run down. “It’s just like the running of the bulls at Pamplona!”

“Quite so.” One of the uniformed figures broke away from the mass, stopping and moving to the wall. Dr. Betty Director seemed flushed and Anne Possible noticed the smell of chili on the executive agent’s breath. “I have often made that observation myself.”

“Yo, Johnny! S’game time! Seriously!” Bereft of any uniform, Motor Ed had little trouble standing out in the crowd. “You and me got to get to mission control, like now! Seriously!” He glanced at Anne and gave her a quick nod. “Hey, Big Red!” The man was standing beside Dr. Director with deference and she in turn was acknowledging his presence in a way that was not evident that first time they’d all met around the conference table.

“Anne, John… this is the moment that we have been waiting for. Your daughter has been located, and…”

“Shego’s contacted you?”

“No, we believe the signal to have come from a Kimmunicator, which suggests that Ron is on the scene.”

“And the children?”

“Nothing on them either, sir.” She cleared her throat and straightened. “John, please accompany Edward and me to Central Command to oversee the rescue operation from there.” Dr. Director turned to Anne. “You’ll want to return to the medical bay and remain on stand-by with DNAmy and the Drs. H.”

“Anne, I…”

“Scoot, dear.” The redhead gave him a tender shove. “You heard the man; it’s game time.” With firm resolve and a final kiss, the couple parted and moved off to play their separate roles in the drama that was unfolding. John gave her a smile as he let Motor Ed drag him down the corridor.

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“That’s it, then…”

They stood and moved away from the chain link. Ron bent back down to lift the fencing a little to take the pressure off the jack; Bonnie lowered the gap she had made and quietly set the jack aside.

“That was your signal to Global Justice?”

“Yep.” Sighing, Ron returned the device to his pocket. “It probably sounds like Las Vegas at ‘GJ’ right now. You’d better get going.” He seemed to deflate a little. “It’s going to get awful busy around here.”

She gave him a resolute nod and moved away without another word. Ron watched her collect the infants in their blankets and quietly walk towards the open bay door. He knew that just beyond was his vehicle, its engine idling, ready for Bonnie to drive it away and take her and the little girls to safety.

As the brunette stepped outside, she was struck by the harsh wind; the invisible element seemed to have grown stronger over the past hour. She wondered if a storm was brewing and this prompted her to move to the car with greater speed. It was just a few years away from the door, and she could just barely see the top of Rufus’ head from where he as standing on the dashboard, waiting for her.

Keeping both bundles held securely to her chest, Bonnie was briefly forced to shift the two children to open the car door. One corner of a blanket slipped back and the cold wind stung little Kasy’s nose. Startled into wakefulness, she looked around in the noisy darkness and saw a shape that might have been her Mommy.

“… mama…”

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On a quiet street in a nondescript area of residential Middleton, Wade Load feverishly accessed every system that he could to monitor the progress of ‘GJ’. The same signal that had set the cherries ringing at Global Justice had jarred him from his continuous review of data and forced the boy back into the here and now.

Opening the cyber-dams, he sent out inquiries to see who and what was out there in the form of ‘GJ’ reconnaissance or operative forces; he had even hacked into a small part of their Central Command. All thoughts of sleep gone from his mind, he sat back and watched as a truly impressive infrastructure grew before him, outlining the complete plan to collect Kim and return to the ‘GJ’ facility for containment and, hopefully, a restorative cure. There was little for him to do now but watch and wait to see how the drama played out. Outside, the storm was growing in strength.

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“… mama…”

Emerald eyes snapped open. Right on the edge of sleep and across the vast expanse of the abandoned fuel depot, she heard it. Not that Kim would have been permitted sleep, it had been denied her for over a week now but at last she had felt the urge to stop, to slow down and rest. Here in this mysterious place with more questions floating around in her addled mind than there were answers, Shego was there to protect her, to let her close her eyes.

But there would be no sleep for Kim Possible. The little voice called out and what responded were images and impressions from a deep layer of Kim’s mind.

Life, life within her, two lives, moving, kicking, making her sick, making her tired, making her happier than she had ever been in her own blessed life. Being coddled by her love just as she was coddling the two lives within her belly. They were daughters, girls, little twin miracles that were perfect and green and the ultimate result of her love with Shego.

Shego…

“Shego?”

“Mm? What?” The tall thief had been using Kim’s meager weight in her arms as a counter-balance to rest against on the floor of the cold, empty depot. Kim had been silent for several minutes and Shego had prayed that the redhead had been asleep; Shego might have dropped into a doze herself if she hadn’t been eagerly waiting for whatever else Ron Stoppable might have planned. “Kimmie? Please, Princess, go to sleep.”

“I can’t, sweetheart… not while our babies are out there somewhere.”

Shego’s blood ran cold. Shit.

“Where are they, Shego?”

“Kim… they’re safe. Please sleep if you can and we’ll …”

“But they’re here, baby, I heard them!” Kim pushed herself up and looked around them into the darkness. Her chest hurt and she had a pain building in her head and in her lower back but her heart was beating faster and her breathing was stronger.

“You heard them? I didn’t hear anything.”

“It was… Kasy’s voice, I think.”

That meant that Ron was still in the depot, or at least hadn’t left immediately when he’d run off. Shego had heard nothing but she was fully aware of Kim’s newfound capabilities, even if they were gained at the cost of her life. The older woman was startled when Kim drew away from her and stood up on her own shaky legs.

“We should go and find them.” Weak, obviously, and exhausted beyond all human limitations, and infested throughout with a biological nightmare, the ‘girl who could do anything’ would not stop.

“Kimmie, they’re safe.” Please let that be true and please let Kim believe that it’s true no matter what. “That’s all that matters!”

“Shego, we really should… ow!” The pain in her head made her wince. “We need them to be with us. I… I want them!”

“Kim, what wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just my…” The pain again, in the back of her head, making bright lights flash and pop in her eyes. “I have a headache, that’s all.”

“Princess, listen to me.” Headache? It was possible, but it was also possible that it was something happening in Kim’s brain. “What we really need to do right now is…”

Shego never got the chance to finish as Kim’s head reared up and she thrust out her tiny hand to keep Shego away. Kim had caught a scent.

“Was Ron here?”

“N… Yes, yes he was. He was here to help us.” Anything to kill time, anything to keep her wife calm. “You trust Ron; he’s your best friend, right?”

“Right. Yeah, right!” Kim smiled around the pain in her head. She lifted her hand to rub behind her ear. The pain in her lower back also made itself known again. “I do wish you’d leave Ron alone… he does try his best!”

“That’s right, he does, doesn’t he.”

“He was here, and the girls were here… does he have the girls?”

“Yes, he does.” It was time to take a chance. “He loves our girls, you know? They couldn’t be anywhere safer than with him, right?” Please, please God; make something happen, Shego prayed.

“You’re right, of course. Good old Ron! He’s my best friend, you know?” Kim breathed easier; the pain in her back was still there but the one in her head had subsided. She shook the lethargy from her limbs and looked past her anxious partner into the shadows. Why in the world had they come here, of all places?

The huge depot was dirty and smelled of a thousand odors, hardly any of them pleasant. She took another breath, this time smelling the musk of Shego’s fear. Her wife really should relax more. Another intake of air and through the rank stench of old fuel oil was the smell she knew so well from years of missions; the only man that she would ever share her innermost secrets with. Ron was too close to her, so much like a brother to her that it took the sting of a failed romance between them to bring her enlightenment.

Well, she would always love Ron and her girls could be nowhere safer. She coughed to clear her throat and took another breath. There was another scent on the air.

“Bonnie was here?”

“What? Who?” Had Ron involved Bonnie Rockwaller in this? “Um, Kimmie, I don’t…”

“You gave our girls to Ron and then Bonnie was here?” Kim coughed. “Why was Bonnie here?”

“She wasn’t, I…”

“Why was Bonnie here, Shego?” The pain was totally gone from her head but her ear still itched. Kim stared at Shego and raised her hand to brush the sensation away and her fingers came away wet.

“Oh, Kim, you’re bleeding!”

Kim never even looked to the redness on her fingertips; it was not important. There was no pain, so there was no drama. All that Shego could think of was how the Havok might take advantage of a cerebral hemorrhage. Dear Lord, if it’s in her brain, what’s left for us to save?

“Damn it Shego!” The pain in her back moved lower and created fullness in her bladder. This discomfort fueled her growing fury as she advanced on her spouse. “I’ve always trusted you but now you’ve given our children to Bonnie? Is she the one you want watching over them?”

“Kim, it’s not like that, it isn’t!”

“Is it she what you want?” She felt the ridiculous urge to urinate; she ignored the feeling. “Watching over them? Or laying under you?”

“What? No!”

“You want her, that she-bitch? You want her rutting for you? TAKE her! If she’s your ideal woman, FINE!” She coughed, retching deeply. “You can NOT have my babies!” The slender redhead coughed again, a burning in her throat to match the burning in her lower abdomen. “Give them back to me, Shego!”

“I can’t.” No more lies, Shego forced the thought across her mind. I’m just not good enough at it anymore, at least not with her. “I won’t.”

“Give them BACK!” Kim’s entire body seemed to ripple and, without seeming to make any overt motions, was suddenly in a fighting stance. “There’s no way in Hell that you’ll keep my babies from me! I’ll find them!” The itch was back at her ear; Kim broke her stance to wipe it away again. Shego saw what came away in Kim’s fingers this time; her pale green skin blanched a shade or two paler. “I’ll hunt them down and save them from her and then get rid of them and we can be together!”

“Stop it, Kim… please, just… stop it!” The sounds of Kim’s madness cut Shego deeper than any blade and the tarry discharge on Kim’s hand glistened in the red glow from the barrel. “Please let us… let me help you!”

With no further intent to make the pain in her bladder go away, Kim released herself where she stood. The relief was instantaneous but, from Shego’s horrified expression, the former villain had witnessed nothing so simple as an embarrassing biological function.

Oh, Lord, Shego thought as she stared down at the greasy pool of tar in the dust at Kim’s feet. It’s black. Shego watch in horror as Havok started to flow from everywhere.

“One last time… give me my children or get the Hell out of my way!” Disgusted at her wife for having such utter disregard for their life together, the petite redhead was prepared to make further demands, but a sour taste in her mouth replaced any words that she might have spoken. She spit, and the black flecks that filled the air had a far greater effect on her wife than any possible taunt or curse.

“Their lives are MINE.”

“They are our children, Kim.” Shego imagined a wall forming around the love she felt for her valiant little hero and slowly raised her arms to mirror Kim’s stance. “And you wouldn’t want me to do that.”

Kim leapt. Shego moved to block and realized that if she ever decided to make a prayer again she would have to be much more specific.

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Dr. Mayers ran into the testing chamber with his patient in tow. He was supposed to be on stand-by with the other members of ‘Team Possible’ camped out in the primary medical research bay and, having finished his current business with his patient, needed to get over there immediately and be prepared for anything. The entire ‘GJ’ engagement team had been called into action; every agent that was trained as a field operative had reported to the bay and scrambled aboard their assigned hover sleds to follow the signal to its source.

“You, there!” Mayers saw that a junior agent was still in the act of securing the empty hover sled cradles. “I need someone to supervise Dr. Lipsky and escort him back to his quarters after he’s finished here.” The young agent looked puzzled.

“What is the patient to be doing here, sir?” The young man, just recently assigned to the research and development branch of Global Justice’s technical division, looked over Dr. Mayer’s shoulder at a blue man wearing a day-glow yellow jumpsuit and shackled with wrist and ankle restraints. “Shouldn’t Dr. Drakken be restricted from this area?”

The elderly physician shook his head.

“Drew Lipsky has been assisting us in the preparations necessary to locate and return Ms. Possible for several days now.” The man gestured at the empty chamber; there were signs everywhere of projects and machinery abandoned in light of the recent alert. “It’s his genius that allowed us to build the new hover sleds, among other things.”

“Yes, sir. And what do I do with him, sir?” Drakken stood a few paces behind and never moved or made a sound, clutching at a battered leather portfolio with both hands.

“You can let him inspect the work that’s being done but under no circumstances is he to be allowed access to a computer terminal or to have his bindings removed.” Mayers was impatient to be going. “Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Good, very good.” Without a backward glance, Mayers hurried away.

The agent was a good man and well trained, so to say that Dr. Drakken gave him the ‘creeps’ might sound juvenile, but it was true. The blue man’s presence bothered everyone, from the security teams to the cleaning staff. Whatever treatment Drakken had been given to restore his sanity had apparently stripped him of any resemblance to being human. He was more like an autistic or catatonic unless he could be encouraged to speak, and when he spoke, or worse, looked you directly in the eyes, it was like being with a zombie. Whatever motivated the man was buried so deep that almost nothing made it out to the surface.

The agent watched Drakken loiter around the nearest workstation and paused in his previous task to ensure that all nearby computers were set to emergency lockout. Noting that the shackles would not allow the man free range of motion for a physical attack, the agent resumed his duties. Within a few short minutes the last cradle was secured and the agent swept his gaze across the vast chamber.

“How is the work coming along?”

The young man almost jumped right out of his skin. With his right hand lifted to his holster and fingering his stunner, he swung around to see Drakken standing directly behind him. The black hair was clean and glossy, the blue skin a little fuller from several days of proper nutrition but the eyes were dead. They were like the eyes of a squid, always seeing but unexpressive.

“Um… fine… sir.” Lord, the man was weird. “Just fine.”

Drakken nodded absently and leaned away, glancing down as if to inspect the tops of his ‘GJ’ issue footwear. As the agent watched him for any more interjections, Drakken slowly craned his neck and looked straight up.

“I don’t see everything.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“It’s not all here. Didn’t they build everything?”

The agent looked upwards, following the blue man’s gaze and the two of them stared at the vaulted ceiling for a few seconds before the agent realized that Drakken wasn’t actually looking at anything. He sighed and regarded the patient.

“Sir, what do you mean?” He wasn’t really expecting an answer but he soon got one.

“There were several enhancements integrated into the basic design of both your equipment and my own. Most of them seem to have utilized. Some of them have not.”

“I see, sir.” The agent did not see.

“Unless my designs are followed to the letter and all of the proper equipment made ready, there will be no hope whatsoever for saving your precious Kim Possible.”

“Sir, I’m certain that Dr. Possible and Mr. Lipsky have done all that they were assigned to do.” The agent had rankled at the word ‘precious’ and didn’t care for the man’s tone. The young man started back when Drakken actually turned and looked at him.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure that they did, but… you see, John can be so pedantic at times and Eddie, well, Eddie does try his best, but…” The sentence tapered off with a sad shaking of Drakken’s head.

“Sir, when the team returns, I can discuss this with them…” The man paused when Drakken’s head began to shake again, this time in earnest.

“No, no. They’ll be much too busy, even if they are successful. And if they’ve failed to capture the girl, well, what will they think if they start looking for the rest of the equipment… and don’t find it?” Drakken’s gaze never wavered. “Because it wasn’t considered important enough, because someone assumed that everything was already completed, because someone didn’t take the initiative!”

“Now hold on, sir! I never said that…”

“Young man, I’m not accusing you of anything. I just know how these brainy types think.” Drakken looked at the agent with sympathy. “They only accept the rewards of success and never the rot of failure; they tend to blame others.” He became silent and continued to stare at the agent. The uniformed man felt a cold sweat on the back of his neck.

“… sir, maybe if you could specify what incomplete projects you’re referring to, I can reassign a detail of technicians to oversee them when a stand-down is announced.”

“Good lad!” Since his retrained arms were barely able to open and close the clasps of his portfolio, Drakken pointed to the nearby workstation with his chin. “I believe that Cousin Eddie usually keeps his schematics in a red folder.”

The agent looked and, indeed, there was the edge of a bright red folder, ever so faintly visible peeking out from under a random stack of other documents and blueprints.

“It’s really quite simple, quite simple!” Drakken’s body never moved as he spoke, never shifted or turned to give emphasis or empathy for his words. The agent felt that it was like conversing with a mannequin. “It’s little more than a consolidation of projects that are already completed; just a simple merging of hardware!”

“Do you mean this, sir?” The agent pulled a particular schematic from the red folder and held it up dubiously.

“Exactly! Clever man! You’ll go far with this organization!” The agent could see that Drakken was right about it being a ‘simple merging of hardware’; it risked being a redundant allocation of resources, but here it was with the other important documents. Surely he could find a few men to take care of this without any fuss.

“I’ll get right on it, sir.”

There was no reply.

“Sir?”

Drakken had leaned away and was propped against the worktable, his eyes glazed and his lips parted. The uniformed agent hoped that the patient didn’t start to drool as he moved away. The young man reassessed his appraisal of Drakken, however. The man wasn’t like a mannequin; he was more like a scarecrow. The agent returned to his duties.

Back at the worktable, a certain ‘scarecrow’ was dreaming of escape.

88888888

Geez, thought Ron, the more things change the more they stay the same. He had left Bonnie and slow made his way back towards the center of the fuel depot. There were enough pipes and conduits to keep his return secretive as he slipped around the defunct refining machinery, and he eventually saw the flickering red glow of the fire in the empty fuel drum. As he drew closer, he also heard something so familiar that it gave him pause. With the red glow illuminating the scene, Ron peered from around a pipe.

Kim’s initial leap had been sudden and unplanned; Shego dodged to one side and the redhead landed on her own feet, still a little shaky but recovering quickly. Kim spun and kicked, her foot targeting a green and black stomach. Lowering her hand to block, the tall warrior pushed the foot aside and found that she had to repeat her defending action when the foot withdrew and kicked out a second time.

Balanced evenly, the younger fighter continued to kick faster and faster. Shego blocked every strike, feeling the strength of each blow growing more and more forceful than the last. Her gauntleted hands had to move more quickly with each kick and she just had enough time to wonder why Kim wasn’t changing her attack when that’s exactly what happened. Coming at her from a new direction, Shego half-turned to meet the threat and reassessed her strategy.

The kicking foot swung upwards this time, not out, and the redhead flipped back. The foot upon which she had been balancing came up and knocked aside the defense; with toes extended, Kim caught Shego on the chin as the younger woman competed her flip. Shego knew that her chimes had been rung and quickly took a half step back. The strike had stung but she had fared far worse in the old days at the hands, or feet, of her former nemesis. The pain was momentary and it served to remind Shego that this was no sparing match between marital partners. This was timely because Kim was back on terra firma and was already charging. Using only her martial arts training and not daring to risk her plasma against her mate, Shego braced herself for the next round.

Ron remained in the wings, resolve shaken. He watched as the petite redhead moved and fought with s much skill and determination as he had ever seen. This was the little girl who had befriended him in the schoolyard, the girl that had shared his awkward life with him while growing up, and the young woman that would always love him even after they both discovered that their lives could not merge beyond a certain point. He held on to the pipe that hid him and watched as if observing a nightmare.

Kim was as fast as ever and timing would be counted in milliseconds. For all of the internal trauma that her bodily systems had suffered, the Havok substance was certainly doing what it had been designed to do; Kim was fast, indomitable, immune to pain and totally focused on bringing down her ‘enemy’. Shego waited until the slender girl was almost upon her before feinting to the left, not a normal move from the repertoire of the former thief, and strafing Kim’s legs with her own right leg as the taller woman pulled herself down.

The ruse worked in as far as contact was made. Kim was successfully tripped and she was moving too fast to bring her stumbling feet back underneath her. Shego pushed aside the errant thought that, when they were still enemies, he would have chosen this moment for a snarky comment. There was no time for that even if she had been so inclined; Kim had barely skidded to a stop before she was climbing to her feet.

Kim stood and paused to wipe pitch from her face before turning back to her opponent. The dust and filth had caked in her eyes and mouth as she had slid across the cold floor. When finished, she simply walked towards Shego in a measured pace, not running blindly or charging in a way that would let the other woman use Kim’s speed against her. Pitch ringed her eyes, making them appear sunken and her upper face look skull-like, and the inky blackness made her mouth a void as it coated her teeth.

Shego shuddered as the ghastly visage walked right up to her and let fly with a simple jab. The punch was followed by another kick; both blocked with no room for error. Yet another kick, then a roundhouse punch and then two more jabs, then two kicks in quick succession that came so fast at Shego that one slipped through her defenses and struck her upper arm. Her fingers tingled briefly and she thought about possible nerve damage.

“Careful, baby… don’t let your guard down!” Kim’s voice shrieked between greasy black teeth. “You’re not getting old, are you?”

Her mate had not planned to reply, but the same thought had crossed her mind. With an audible snarl, Kim resumed her attack. More punches than the redhead normally threw in a week of battles were getting to within bare inches of the pale green face before being blocked or dodged. In the back of her mind, the analytical side of Shego’s intellect guessed that, if Kim was no longer able to feel pain anymore, she petite girl could have punched at a brick wall all night and never felt a thing.

It was a punch that slipped through this time, hitting the same general area of Shego’s upper right arm that already had a fine bruise forming under her outfit. The taller, stronger woman had just deflected a potentially debilitating kick to her solar plexus when she felt the follow-through blow. If that arm took too many more hits, she wouldn’t be able to lift it as high or as quickly, accelerated healing or not.

“Ooh, sorry about the ‘old’ barb! I guess that was just a little to close to the mark, huh?” Kim didn’t even slow down her attacks. “Don’t worry… I won’t say anything about you getting fat!” Emerald eyes glinted through tears of pitch and a wad of tar ran down from the corner of her feral grin “That would just be rude!”

Another punch thrust outward and Shego was shocked to realize that it had become a talon when Kim opened her bare hand and clawed at the pale woman’s own green eyes. Her standard defense broken, Shego raised her left arm to ward off the small hand as jagged nails attempted to blind her. The move prevented her from being blinded but Kim made due by clamping her grip around a uniformed forearm and shredding through the weave to draw blood from the pale green flesh beneath. With the strength of both arms compromised, the former villain was forced to take a few steps back before she resumed her stance.

Kim inspected her hand, sniffing at her spouse’s blood and even extending the pink tip of her tongue to sample on drop. She frowned and spit out the blood, along with yet another mouthful of the black tarry pitch.

“It never tastes as good as you’d think.”

Several yards away, Ron awoke to the sitch; Kim had never draw blood like that before. She hardly ever drew blood at all except for the occasional nosebleed and in her entire life she had sure as Hell never… Ron shook himself in disgust; at a level that lay deep below the surface, his psyche began to accept that this was not the girl he knew and loved. He released his death grip on the greasy pipe and took one step forward.

Kim grinned wider. She gathered herself and started to run right at Shego before she jumped and flipped over the head of the startled woman.

A dervish of motion, Kim’s petite form didn’t stay on the concrete floor for more than a second or two at a time; she leapt and flipped and practically flew over her opponent. There were no attacks, neither fist nor foot struck out or down at Shego, but the girl had taken her scope of battle to a third dimension.

“Speaking of fat…”

In an effort to follow the incredible motions of her mate, Shego has lost all pretense of fighting. It was all that she could do to simply keep the slender redhead in view. Truth be told, only Kim was fighting; Shego was just trying to stay alive.

“Bonnie’s fat… have you seen her?” Kim landed nimbly and paused, letting Shego turn and focus on her before moving again. “A real porker!”

Forcing herself to keep silent, Shego made a grab for Kim as she passed by and immediately regretted the action. Kim was taunting her, making her react emotionally instead of with logic and control. As ineffectual as the grab had been, it had been Shego’s first offensive move since the bear hug to keep her mate from chasing after Ron. It earned her a hard slap across the cheek when Kim flew by again.

“But that’s what you like, isn’t it?” Judging proximity from the sound of Kim’s voice, Shego ducked in time to avoid another blow. “A little more jiggle in the wiggle?”

A plan was forming in Shego’s mind. She continued to weave and dodge but kept her hands low and down at her sides. Kim just continued to dance and leap all around her, making a few idle connections but mostly keeping the pale green warrior disoriented.

“She gets knocked up, and then she blows up and then you come running to smother yourself in it…” Kim flipped and caught her wife behind the ear with her heel. “Sorry that I couldn’t accommodate you, baby, but Kim Possible is no one’s sow!”

The kick at her ear made Shego see stars; now was the time to act.

Feeling the familiar heat of her plasma fields building strength around her hands, she formed twin bubbles of energy that she kept hidden in each palm. The lifespan of each bubble was to be counted in seconds if she was to release them, but there in her hands they remained stable. While nowhere near as powerful as one of her blasts, one bubble could be used to create a dazzling lightshow that would usually distract of confuse an opponent. When two were used in conjunction, she was hoping for a more dramatic effect.

Shego risked holding still long enough to gauge Kim’s next move; this was rewarded by a very hard kick to her cheekbone that would definitely blacken her eye. The gamble paid off when Kim acted, allowing Shego to reach her arms upwards and slam her hands together right in front of Kim’s face. The green blaze flashed like a strobe, briefly illuminating the whole interior of the depot and making the redhead cry out in surprise.

No longer hiding behind the pipe, Ron covered his face against the sudden glare. He was much closer now and found himself ready to run to Kim’s side when she fell to the concrete floor, apparently stunned from the shockwave. The redhead had hit the floor hard enough to bounce, her current pounce interrupted mid-leap by the small explosion. Shego herself had been knocked to the floor by the concussion, speaking more towards her failing resources than the power of the plasma bubbles. The pale woman winced as she straightened her legs and rolled over to find her wife. She was sore and bleeding and knew that this was a pace that she could not maintain.

“KP?” Eyes wide, Shego whipped her head around to see Ron standing a few feet from away.

“Stoppable, get back!” She was still forcing her knees to bend and let her stand up. “If she’s even hurt, it won’t be for long.” Shego finally stood with difficulty. “You picked a fine time to show up… I could have used some help!”

“Shego, I… ” He looked at her but didn’t seem to know where he was, looking more like a lost boy than a young man. “It’s just that… it’s Kim.”

“No, Sto... Ron, no it’s not! Not in any way that counts!”

They heard a cough at their feet and they looked down to see tiny clouds of dust floating near Kim’s open mouth as she lay facedown in the filth. Except for the shallow movements of her chest she was otherwise motionless. Seeing that no more attacks were forthcoming at the moment, the tall woman returned her attention to the boy.

“Please tell me that you got our girls to safety!” This roused him and he turned to focus on her.

“Yeah, yeah we did.”

“So you did bring Bonnie here? She wasn’t hurt back at the Possible’s house?”

“Uh, yeah... I mean, no. No, she wasn’t hurt, at least not to badly. And yes, I did bring her here to help me with the girls.” He frowned. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t.” Shego pointed downwards. “She did. She… she acted like she could smell Bonnie in the building.” There was an enormous weight lifted from Shego’s heart; even though her Princess was still in dire straits, their girls were out of danger. “So she has them? The girls, I mean?” A faint moan from the prostrate body interrupted both their thoughts and she had to regain his attention. “Ron?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah.” The young blond man knelt down but kept well back. He was emotionally torn but far from stupid; he’d seen what his best friend… or this strange visage that looked like her… could do in close quarters. “They’re probably far from here by now.”

“So where’d you send them?” Shego groaned and bent down as she asked the question; she quickly searched her ankle pouch for lock-ties or anything that might bind Kim’s hands with. She found nothing and vowed to never be without restraints again.

“I left that up to her.” His eyes were fixed on Kim. She was still breathing but might have been asleep. The slender body was limp and resting partly on its side, Kim’s legs tangled from when she’d dropped to the floor after the plasma concussion and her one arm pinned underneath her stomach. The other hand was laying, fingers still and open, near a circular metal lid from a fuel drum; it might have been from the very drum that was giving them light. “I didn’t want to accidentally give their location away.”

Despite herself, Shego nodded at his judgment.

“Did you contact anyone, ‘GJ’ or the Possibles?”

“’GJ’… They should be here any minute.” Ron stood and backed away from his friend, shifting his gaze elsewhere for the first time in several moments to look up towards the distant ceiling. He might have been looking for imaginary helicopters.

“How are the ‘Tweebs’, Kim’s brothers?”

“Well, I only know what Bonnie could tell me on the way over here; Jim’s leg was in pretty bad shape but Tim was doing Ok.”

“How did Bonnie know this?”

“She stuck around the hospital to keep an eye on them after the doctors made sure she was alright.”

Shego felt her trust and affection for the brunette deepen. If… not if, but when…when they all got through this, she and Kim would have to make it clear to Bonnie how much they appreciated her. Just beside her, Ron was also making a reassessment of a certain female that had once been an enemy and was now his ally. He looked back at this tattered and filthy woman, bleeding from her temple and her arm and with crusted blood on her upper lip. With his best friend since forever lying unconscious at their feet, the sitch could not have been more reversed.

“Shego, I’m sorry.”

“Ron…”

“No, I mean it. I’m really sorry.” He gathered his wits. “I watched you two fighting and couldn’t move. She cut you and kicked you and I just couldn’t do anything.”

“Ron, this wasn’t any easier for me. Kimmie and I have fought or sparred for so long that it was easy to fall right into that pattern, but she was too much for me one on one.” Shego raised her palms and looked at them; she had extinguished the plasma fields immediately after creating the concussion blast but she could almost feel the familiar tingle. “I’ve used my plasma against her before. You’ve seen me.”

He could only nod.

“If I’d not used it just now, she’d have worn me down in no time. She’s too fast now, too hard to hit and… “ Shego felt her composure melting. “And I just can’t fight her like I used to… like we did that day at her evaluation.”

“What do you mean? Do did great. It’s just what KP needed, what she wanted you to do for her.”

“That’s just it…” Shego kept her eyes on her angel at all times; there was still no movement beyond shallow breathing. “I had to dig deep within myself for an entire day in advance in order to find that part of me still left over from the time before I loved her, from when I hated her, deeply and passionately hated her because of how she’d come to represent everything that I used to want to be… and had failed at.”

Down at their feet and as quiet as a mouse, Kim Possible listened. She had been fully awake and conscious within seconds of having struck the floor. Shego’s attack had been executed perfectly but it would take far more than that to take her out of commission. Kim feigned unconsciousness and bided her time.

“I gave it my all that day and she won. She won fair and square.”

“I don’t get you.” Ron brushed at his ear; he wasn’t certain if he was hearing something or if he were being watched. The feeling had all of the telltales of when his Mystical Monkey Powers would kick in and alert him of danger, but there was nothing going on at the moment. “What’s the problem this time? You sure looked like you were ‘giving it your all’.” The feeling came again and he attributed it to the whole sitch.

“Stoppable, do you have any idea of how much damage these plasma fields of mine can do to?”

“Sh’yah! KP and I have seen you blast holes through walls and… oh.” His eyes widened; why hadn’t he ever given it this much thought before?

Thank you for talking so much, Kim thought. It allowed her to gauge both distance and direction.

“I could have cut her in half the first day we met.” Shego grimaced and then smirked. “See? I can’t even think about it anymore. She’s too special to me.” The tall woman made a quarter turn to face the young man he’d so often thought of solely as ‘the buffoon’. “She’s my Kryptonite and my magic feather; she weakens me and gives me the strength to do anything, all at the same time.”

“Yeah, tell me about it…” Ron felt no pangs of jealousy or envy as he said this. He had come to terms with his love for Kim and its limits. Limits that were starting to become more bearable ever since he had become reacquainted with a certain brunette; it was odd that he didn’t feel the least bit bad about this, either. Shego was struck by his comment and had to remind herself of the years of history her angel shared with Ron.

She was about to say more to the boy when a scuff of fabric against concrete and a slight gasp for air reached her ears.

From her prone facedown position, Kim slowly wrapped her fingers around the edge of the metal lid and swept her arm out and forward, letting the lid take flight. It canted in midair but continued on a path straight and true. It was aimed directly at Shego’s head and the green and black clad woman was not going to be able to do anything to avoid the impact.

Not all boundless endurance and painlessness come from biological nightmares. Not all powers and abilities come from cosmic radiation leaking out of stray comets. Some feats of strength and energy come from ‘dumb skills’, the power of imagination and a healthy dose of Mystical Monkey Power.

“No!” Ron was in motion.

He had felt what Kim had done the moment that she had done it, and he could never have explained how in a million years. The lid weighed only a few pounds and would not be traveling far, but its speed and the rate of its rotation made it a deadly missile. Faster than Shego could move or even react he was between her and certain death, his leap bringing him up from the floor a few inches.

The flying metal lid struck Ron squarely in the chest and he fell back against Shego. The woman, shocked beyond words, caught him as the lid spun away into the darkness. She watched him suck desperately for the air that had been so horribly forced from his lungs and she felt the sting of tears as his eyes rolled back and he became limp in her arms.

“Ron!” Was he breathing? She couldn’t tell, her own body so numb that all external sensation was denied her. She sank to the floor from his weight against her. “Ron!”

Motion from the periphery caught Shego’s awareness like a fishhook. Kim was standing there, looking even worse than before, if that were possible, from the filth she had gained from her time on the floor. It caked against her secretions like glue.

“I guess that’s one for the Ron Factor, huh? He always was good for a distraction.”

“Kimmie… what have you done?” Shego felt as if she wanted to vomit until she turned inside out. She was already weak from her earlier bout and there was no way that she could defend herself for long. Now that she had the additional responsibility of seeing that Ron was taken to safety… if he would even survive, if he were even still alive now. Where the HELL was ‘GJ’?

“It’s just us, now, baby. We don’t need him.”

“He’s your best friend…”

“Some friend! He stinks of Bonnie Rockwaller!” Black tears ran down the sides of her face. “He’s just another dead end in my life that needs cleaning away!”

Kim had turned fully away and had taken several steps before Shego realized that no one was going anywhere; Kim had taken hold of the rim of the blazing drum and was dragging it back.

“Dead ends… dead friends… old dead life going to rise again…”

“Kim, what…” Her angel bent slightly at her tiny waist and was firmly clasping her hands to the metal sides of the drum. “Hey! That’s hot, you’ll…”

Burn yourself. Oh, my sweet Lord.

Kim was lifting blazing drum, picking it up from the floor and moving closer to where Shego cradled Ron’s body. Shego clearly heard the skin sizzling on those perfect little hands and was just glad that she wasn’t close enough to smell anything. There were tiny shreds of burning fabric floating in the air as the remnants of Kim’s mission gloves crisped and sloughed away. The skin beneath the burning gloves was clearly smoldering but was being replaced just as quickly by something that looked like skin.

“Kim, put it down!”

“First Bonnie and now Ron… what is this? You prefer my friends over me?” She took another step towards the fallen boy. Kim gagged, but nothing came from her mouth this time; gouts of blackness spilled from her nose and struck the concrete where the black settled into the filth and quickly turned gray. “I’m just trying to clean up the loose ends in our lives!”

“Put it down NOW!” Shego ignited her plasma fields. Ron’s face shone green from the glow.

“Your wish is my command, my bride!” Kim heaved the barrel at her intended target.

Thought making the plasma flare and arc, Shego managed to project a blast that dented the rusty metal as she knocked the drum from Kim’s hands, making it spin away and crash to the floor several yards beyond. Too damaged to rotate smoothly, the barrel limped as it rolled, illuminating the void, divesting itself of its burning contents, the rags and bits of old pallet wood creating tiny bonfires to mark its trail.

Shego’s breath caught and she forced herself to ignore her Princess for a moment; there were flames growing and spreading from several points now, the fire tasting the old grease and oil residue and finding it delicious. Shit, she wondered, how many more times can I screw up tonight?

“Kim… listen to me… we have to get out of here.”

“Why?” The redhead had been knocked back off her feet when the barrel was blasted away, but that had been a trifling. She was looking back at her lover now and the expression on Kim’s face was openly puzzled. “We have our freedom here. Why would we want to leave?” Flames licked up the sides of the pipe and conduits, climbing slowly but surely towards the ceiling.

“Kim… Kimmie, it’s not safe anymore, we…” Shego flinched as somewhere over their heads an old beam squealed as the heat from the flames started to buckle the structural supports of the depot. Hopefully nothing would come crashing down around them just yet. “We have to take Ron and get as far away from here as we can.”

“As far away as Bonnie?” There was no more puzzlement, just anger; Kim knew the sitch. Why did her wife not understand? Was Kim the only one to grasp the sitch? All must die and all would live and… and it made sense! Didn’t it?

“No, as far as getting help for you and Ron!”

“I’m fine and Ron’s dead! It’s you that wants to get away!” Kim advanced. “You want to get away from me and take her all for yourself!”

“You know that isn’t true!” Something exploded in the far reaches of the depot and crashed to the floor. “And Ron isn’t dead!” She wanted that to be true but there was no way to tell his condition with so much happening at once. Shego pulled herself out from underneath Ron as gently as she could and regained her feet, moving away from the fallen boy for his protection.

“’A friend we could share’, that was what she was… for both of us!” More of the depot was becoming visible over Kim’s shoulder as the flames grew and pushed back the darkness. “But you just had to have her all for yourself, you selfish green bitch!”

“No!”

“You just want to take her home, right?”

“Kim, stop it!” This is not my Kimmie.

“Your new whore!”

“She’s not that! She’s our friend!” This is not my Princess.

“Her skin slick and her flesh hot against you!”

“Stop it! Damn it, you stop saying those things!” Fire burned in her chest. “What I want… Kimmie, what I want is to fix you dinner… to watch some stupid comedy that you like or watch ‘Night Of The Living Dead’ for the millionth time and hold you when you scream… I want to sit in the tub with you and wash your back while you complain about being too skinny! I want us to be dancing or sparring or watching television or even sharing a mission together as Team Possible!” Shego wept openly. “God help me, I can’t take this anymore!”

This was not her Pumpkin.

“You don’t fool me for a second with those crocodile tears!” The slim form circled, drawing closer. “You just want our daughters in the hands of that buffoon while you let Bonnie wrap her legs around your head and you clamp your mouth around her…”

“STOP IT! YOU’RE NOT HER! YOU’RE NOT!” Shego had not even noticed her hand rising, nor did she properly aim her swing. She was not even remotely aware of the motion until she saw her own gloved hand come into view and strike Kim across her beloved angel’s perfect face, and felt the impact resonate up her arm.

Kim was rocked back on her feet and both of her hands flew to cover her face. It had not been a combative blow, it had been a simple roundhouse slap; Shego had not struck anyone in that manner since some boy pinched her on the ass way back in grade school.

Nor did she have her powers way back then. She had just slapped Kim across the face with her hand fully encased in a full-strength plasma field.

The slender form, the source of Shego’s love and hopes for over two years and the source of her fear and horror for the past several days, fell back from the blow, Kim howled and brought her hands up defensively to cover her face. There was even a little residual glow from the plasma shining between Kim’s fingers as it dissipated away into the air.

“No… oh, no. No, no, no, Kimmie, I…” Shego moved forward.

The hands parted and the tall woman received a quick glimpse of Hell. A feral grin, a set of large emerald eyes staring out at her from an expression that many would have categorized as being bestial in nature, if not evil in its intent. There was no damage, at least nothing that the Havok hadn’t repaired within seconds. A blur of motion from the side barely registered across Shego’s visual cortex when Kim’s small fist lashed out and caught her wife on the chin with a horrific crunch.

“Gotcha.”

Shego knew that her jaw had just been broken.

To Be Continued...

Author's Notes: Yep, gotta love that good old DA file size limitation!

Description
The Stubborn Beast Flesh

Author: The Humbug

Disclaimer: “Kim Possible” and all characters within © The Walt Disney Company and its related entities. Kim Possible created by Mark McCorkle & Bob Schooley. All rights reserved. No profit is being collected from the fiction contained within. You can blame the rest of this on me.
Rating: PG-13 for combat violence and intimations of a physical relationship and intimate contact between consenting adult females. This should also cover a little harsh language now and then. If this will offend you, please read something else, and then seek professional help.
Summary: This is a Kim/Shego pairing fan fiction; there is love and romance between Kim & Shego, as well as plenty of action and adventure, and hopefully some humor and horror. Set in my ‘Who’s Writing This Crap’ Kigo-verse, this is a tale of what happens when something goes horribly wrong. Kasy Ann and Sheki Go Possible are the sole creations of NoDrogs (it is with great respect that I make mention of them). Special Note: Yes, I am still using the wrong first name of ‘John’ for Dr. Mr. P.

Chapter X.b / Convergence – part 2

Give me strength, Shego prayed, to do what I have to do now.

“Go, Ron!”

She lunged forward and threw her arms around Kim in a bear hug, grappling with her from behind as tight as she could. Shego immediately felt the impact and saw stars as Kim brought her head back and clocked Shego across the bridge of her nose, the red hair doing nothing to cushion the blow from the skull beneath. Ron saw none of this as he took full advantage of the warning, running for all he was worth into the darkness.

“Shego, he has our babies!” Kim’s forgotten that I’m the one holding her, Shego realized as the pain washed over her face. Another attack lent credence to this thought.

“OW!” Kim’s head reared back again, this time connecting with a pale green cheekbone. Shego had been anticipating the move this time, for whatever it was worth. “Kimmie, stop it!”

“Get off of me!” Kim pushed outwards, desperate to free her arms from the hold. “Shego, please make them let me go!”

“Kim! It’s me! Please…” Her words were cut off as her petite bride raised both feet from the ground. The sudden change in their combined center of gravity pulled Shego forward, and so as not to lose her footing or wrench her back, Shego leaned backward to compensate. Kim kicked her heels into the well-muscled shins beneath the green and black uniformed legs.

“OW! Damn it…” Shego’s grip around Kim’s arms and chest loosened just enough and the slender redhead thrust out her arms, spun around to face her wife and caught the attention of Shego’s startled eyes. Even in the dance of firelight and shadows, Kim looked angelic but Shego prepared to ward of a blow. No attack came.

“Baby, you’re bleeding!” A tiny hand was raised and the taller woman pulled back from it in confusion before she understood what had happened. Kim’s disability had again shifted her awareness of the sitch and had muddied her mental waters. Much like the time Kim had spent locked inside the medical cell deep within ‘GJ’, she was no longer fully cognizant of what was going on.

“You’re hurt!”

“I’m Ok, ba… Kimmie. I’m Ok.” Keep her distracted, nothing to remind her of the children. What was Ron’s plan? Was he clear of the danger? The former villain was eager to keep Kim with her as long as possible, letting Ron gain as much ground and time as he could and, if yet another facet of Kim’s condition was to be the distraction, so be it.

“Who did this to you? Oh, sweetheart!” Kim wiped at the blood that dripped from her wife’s nose. The touch was so tender and gentle and it sickened Shego to know that her baby was dying a piece at a time. Kim Possible was meant for better things than this.

“Um… it was an accident. You… we, uh, were sparing and…”

“I did this?” Kim looked incredulous, and then stated to cry. “Oh, Shego, I’m so sorry!” The smaller girl practically jumped at Shego and held her close. “I didn’t mean to do it…”

“I know, Princess, I know.” Had she given Ron enough time?

“… I … seem to be doing a lot of weird things, lately.” Not raving and not manic, a new tone had entered Kim’s voice. It was new by virtue of not having been heard in a few days. It was her own Kim, the real Kim, speaking to her now.

“Princess?” Shego cradled the small body against her; her wife’s tiny form was almost weightless.

“Oh, Shego, what is wrong with me?” Bleary eyes looked about in utter confusion. “Where are we? Why do I feel so sick?”

“Sick?” A quick inspection of just what she could see did not reveal any signs of pitch.

“Sick… dead, all numb inside…” The tears were still there, but seemed more natural now. “Why do I feel like this?”

“Kimmie, I’ll take you home. We’ll take care of you.”

“Are my Mom and Dad here?”

“No, but I’ll take you to them. They’ll…”

“I’m so tired… I just want to close my eyes for a minute…” Kim sagged and folded like an empty coat. “Just for a minute… please?”

“Rest, Princess.” Shego kept the younger woman from falling and gently lowered to the floor, still holding the redhead tight to her chest as they sat together. She watched the fire smoldering in the barrel and thought about Hell again.

88888888

Contrary to popular belief, Wade Load did sleep. The boy did little to exert himself physically and this was why he required so little rest. His mother would often use that point to argue that he also shouldn’t to eat much either but the young genius suspected that the dear woman’s logic was flawed, somehow. His mother would also have been angry to know he was till awake at this hour, but how could he sleep? It had been so long since the rapid calls back and forth between Ron Stoppable and himself while they searched for Kim and laid plans for her return.

To have said ‘capture’ was sick and wrong. And then there was the matter of Bonnie’s involvement. Of this, Wade was not entirely enthusiastic; he nearly choked on his soda when he realized that Ron had handed a Kimmunicator to Kim’s oldest rival from her school days. Again, sick and wrong!

Right now, every single one of his computer screens was glowing with information; there was a schematic of the ‘GJ’ facility to his right and a live feed from the satellite scan of Middleton to his left. Directly in front of him was all of the data that he’d compiled on Havok, scrolling in a perpetual slideshow, starting from what few documented facts there were to every myth, legend and allegory that could be surmised. Wade was desperate to learn all that he could and the one clear piece of data that was a certainty was that Havok was a true nightmare.

It was the ‘boogeyman’ of biotech science gone wrong, but at the same time it was like Bigfoot; too many reputable sources claimed to ‘know things’ about it but no one could provide more than a shred of actual proof. Using all of his skills, he had cadged a scant few bits of arcane lore from cyberspace, but none of it overtly helpful. It did give a reason why Kim’s subcutaneous tracking implant wasn’t functioning properly, however. Turning to the slideshow, Wade paused the presentation and brought forward the relevant data for yet another review.

Havok apparently had trouble dealing with inorganic implants; being able to copy the form and function of living tissue left the black tar high and dry against something like a pacemaker or artificial hip. It would try… and fail… to infiltrate the implant and, ultimately, treat it like a wound or invading bacteria; Kim’s implant was likely being coated by layers and layers of thick, viscous pitch, interfering with the strength of the transmitter’s signal and keeping them from tracking her easily.

Now he was studying and waiting for an update of the sitch. For the first time in his young life, Wade didn’t feel as if his world-spanning technology was powerful enough. A flash of lightning from his bedroom window through the trees outside signaled the onset of a coming storm and a chubby little boy sat alone in his room.

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Bonnie Rockwaller waited at the base of a chain link fence; she had been sitting there for almost an hour and was starting to get worried. The fencing was to serve as a barricade against anyone who might want to break in. Stretching from the floor where it had been anchored into the concrete with lag bolts, all the way up to where it was welded to the solid metal walls above the door, it was a perfect way to keep people out.

Fortunately, it would also serve to keep people in while allowing egress for anything as small as an infant. Bonnie had used the wheel jack from Ron’s car to raise a good eight inches of fence up from the floor between the lag bolts in a gap that was also about eight inches wide. It would hopefully be enough to allow two small toddlers to squeeze through.

She wasn’t alone, however. No sooner had she positioned herself to wait for Ron to bring his precious bundle to her, when Rufus scampered out of the shadows. The young man had parked his car and guided her to this spot after a few minutes of careful inspection, apparently finding the barricaded bay suitable for their purposes. He and his rodent partner had disappeared but Rufus had returned.

“Is he in there?” The former cheerleader and one-time alpha-female of the Middleton High School food chain hadn’t even hesitated to pose her question to the lower mammal.

“a’yuh”

“How’s he doing?” She set her hand down on the dirty foundation and the tiny creature climbed on, still catching his breath from his run around the outside of the depot to this other door. He could take no chances that Kim might hear or smell him after leaving Ron and returning to Bonnie.

“fyv bi fyv” Rufus let the young woman warm him in the folds of her jacket. They remained like that, lost in their own thoughts for a time.

“Psst…”

She jumped up from the cold floor at the sound of the harsh whisper and even Rufus had been caught unawares. A figure appeared from the darkness, skidding to a halt just short of running into the fence; it was Ron. He had been moving at speed but with a grace that had masked any sound.

“Hey, there, Bon-Bon…” He got right to business. “You’d better take them.”

The lanky young man kept his voice down and his movements economical; there was little about his nature to alert Kim of their presence here in this dark corner of the depot. He gingerly unwrapped the sash from around his shoulder and chest, jostling the infants as little as possible. Motherly instincts never having faded since the death of her son, Bonnie removed Rufus from her jacket while she lay down on the floor beside the gap she had made under the fencing.

Ron gently pulled one child from the woven fabric; it was Kasy and she was rubbing at her eyes with her tiny hands, having just been woken from sleep. Passing the child through the gap, Rufus carefully guided the infant around the jagged links and rusty debris and into the eager hands of Bonnie. Kasy was quickly settled into a clean blanket and a light scarf was wrapped around her head, as much to keep her quiet as it was for protection from the cold wind outside.

Rufus had to untangle Sheki from the chain links as she was being passed through; her clothing had snagged and she had started to fuss. Bonnie lifted the little girl on the safe side and quickly swaddled her in another scarf and blanket. Her first mission was going well so far.

“Rufus, you go out there and start the car… but do not try to drive it this time!” The little beast had sidled up to his friend and master, watching him closely. The animal might never fully understand what was wrong with his ‘beloved KP’ but he had all the faith in the world that the lanky young man could set things right. The naked mole rat had more faith than all of the humans in the entire building combined.

“You take care of them, boy. All three of them.” Ron’s muttered command was firm and Rufus gave a quick salute before scampering away. Bonnie settled the squirming infants beside her on the dirty concrete and looked through the fencing.

“What’ll you do now?”

“Huh? Well, first I’ll send a signal on a wavelength that’s constantly monitored by both Wade and ‘GJ’ and then I’ll do my best to help Shego ‘til the cavalry arrives.” Ron shrugged. “Pretty simple, really.”

She had been appraising the blond youth in a new light ever since yesterday. The few intervening years since high school hadn’t changed him much; still thin for his age, Ron had managed to add a few inches to his frame, giving him a height that signaled the end of his boyhood. That, and his greater control of whatever mystical energies he carried within him, had given him a controlled grace when he moved. Bonnie acknowledged bitterly that no, she never would have given Ron Stoppable a chance with her in school, but then she wasn’t that stupid girl anymore.

“Can you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Can you really fight her?”

“I… don’t know.” His eyes were a million miles away. “Maybe I’ll just keep them from killing each other until ‘GJ’ gets here.” They looked into each other’s faces for a few seconds and saw the same fears. Ron roused himself first.

“You’d better get going.”

“Ron, I…” She brought her hands up to the fencing and silently gripped the links.

“Take the girls and drive to… no, you’d better pick the safest place you can think of and go there. Think family, security, stuff like that.” He grinned without humor.

“What’s the joke?” Bonnie didn’t want to leave him alone.

“I was thinking that it’s better if I didn’t know where you were going, you know, in case she, um… in case… she makes me tell her.”

“Ron…” She swallowed hard. No more innocent deaths. “When this is over…” She stopped when his hands touched her clenched fingers from the other side. There was just no time to even form the words for all of the thoughts in her head.

“You know what?” There was humor in the smile this time. “Let’s have a nice quiet sit down at Bueno Nacho when this is over, Ok? All of us.” His fingers were just as cold as hers through the fencing but the contact made her feel warmer. “But Team Rockwaller has a mission to finish and some important parcels to deliver first.”

“Good luck.” She grinned at his determination, even under these dire circumstances.

“Who needs luck when you have the power of imagination?” Bonnie started to argue with that logic but then he winked at her and brandished his Kimmunicator. “But it also helps to have one of these.”

He thumbed the switch.

88888888

From deep within the vaulted foundations of the Global Justice facility and clear up to it’s storefront façade, all Hell was breaking loose.

“Great day in the morning!” John bounced almost a foot off the floor when the klaxons sounded. “What the devil…?”

“Oh, John! Do you think…?” Anne’s question was cut short as dozens of ‘GJ’ agents and operatives began to enter the hallway from various doors and side passages, forcing the Possibles to press tightly against the wall lest they be run down. “It’s just like the running of the bulls at Pamplona!”

“Quite so.” One of the uniformed figures broke away from the mass, stopping and moving to the wall. Dr. Betty Director seemed flushed and Anne Possible noticed the smell of chili on the executive agent’s breath. “I have often made that observation myself.”

“Yo, Johnny! S’game time! Seriously!” Bereft of any uniform, Motor Ed had little trouble standing out in the crowd. “You and me got to get to mission control, like now! Seriously!” He glanced at Anne and gave her a quick nod. “Hey, Big Red!” The man was standing beside Dr. Director with deference and she in turn was acknowledging his presence in a way that was not evident that first time they’d all met around the conference table.

“Anne, John… this is the moment that we have been waiting for. Your daughter has been located, and…”

“Shego’s contacted you?”

“No, we believe the signal to have come from a Kimmunicator, which suggests that Ron is on the scene.”

“And the children?”

“Nothing on them either, sir.” She cleared her throat and straightened. “John, please accompany Edward and me to Central Command to oversee the rescue operation from there.” Dr. Director turned to Anne. “You’ll want to return to the medical bay and remain on stand-by with DNAmy and the Drs. H.”

“Anne, I…”

“Scoot, dear.” The redhead gave him a tender shove. “You heard the man; it’s game time.” With firm resolve and a final kiss, the couple parted and moved off to play their separate roles in the drama that was unfolding. John gave her a smile as he let Motor Ed drag him down the corridor.

88888888

“That’s it, then…”

They stood and moved away from the chain link. Ron bent back down to lift the fencing a little to take the pressure off the jack; Bonnie lowered the gap she had made and quietly set the jack aside.

“That was your signal to Global Justice?”

“Yep.” Sighing, Ron returned the device to his pocket. “It probably sounds like Las Vegas at ‘GJ’ right now. You’d better get going.” He seemed to deflate a little. “It’s going to get awful busy around here.”

She gave him a resolute nod and moved away without another word. Ron watched her collect the infants in their blankets and quietly walk towards the open bay door. He knew that just beyond was his vehicle, its engine idling, ready for Bonnie to drive it away and take her and the little girls to safety.

As the brunette stepped outside, she was struck by the harsh wind; the invisible element seemed to have grown stronger over the past hour. She wondered if a storm was brewing and this prompted her to move to the car with greater speed. It was just a few years away from the door, and she could just barely see the top of Rufus’ head from where he as standing on the dashboard, waiting for her.

Keeping both bundles held securely to her chest, Bonnie was briefly forced to shift the two children to open the car door. One corner of a blanket slipped back and the cold wind stung little Kasy’s nose. Startled into wakefulness, she looked around in the noisy darkness and saw a shape that might have been her Mommy.

“… mama…”

88888888

On a quiet street in a nondescript area of residential Middleton, Wade Load feverishly accessed every system that he could to monitor the progress of ‘GJ’. The same signal that had set the cherries ringing at Global Justice had jarred him from his continuous review of data and forced the boy back into the here and now.

Opening the cyber-dams, he sent out inquiries to see who and what was out there in the form of ‘GJ’ reconnaissance or operative forces; he had even hacked into a small part of their Central Command. All thoughts of sleep gone from his mind, he sat back and watched as a truly impressive infrastructure grew before him, outlining the complete plan to collect Kim and return to the ‘GJ’ facility for containment and, hopefully, a restorative cure. There was little for him to do now but watch and wait to see how the drama played out. Outside, the storm was growing in strength.

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“… mama…”

Emerald eyes snapped open. Right on the edge of sleep and across the vast expanse of the abandoned fuel depot, she heard it. Not that Kim would have been permitted sleep, it had been denied her for over a week now but at last she had felt the urge to stop, to slow down and rest. Here in this mysterious place with more questions floating around in her addled mind than there were answers, Shego was there to protect her, to let her close her eyes.

But there would be no sleep for Kim Possible. The little voice called out and what responded were images and impressions from a deep layer of Kim’s mind.

Life, life within her, two lives, moving, kicking, making her sick, making her tired, making her happier than she had ever been in her own blessed life. Being coddled by her love just as she was coddling the two lives within her belly. They were daughters, girls, little twin miracles that were perfect and green and the ultimate result of her love with Shego.

Shego…

“Shego?”

“Mm? What?” The tall thief had been using Kim’s meager weight in her arms as a counter-balance to rest against on the floor of the cold, empty depot. Kim had been silent for several minutes and Shego had prayed that the redhead had been asleep; Shego might have dropped into a doze herself if she hadn’t been eagerly waiting for whatever else Ron Stoppable might have planned. “Kimmie? Please, Princess, go to sleep.”

“I can’t, sweetheart… not while our babies are out there somewhere.”

Shego’s blood ran cold. Shit.

“Where are they, Shego?”

“Kim… they’re safe. Please sleep if you can and we’ll …”

“But they’re here, baby, I heard them!” Kim pushed herself up and looked around them into the darkness. Her chest hurt and she had a pain building in her head and in her lower back but her heart was beating faster and her breathing was stronger.

“You heard them? I didn’t hear anything.”

“It was… Kasy’s voice, I think.”

That meant that Ron was still in the depot, or at least hadn’t left immediately when he’d run off. Shego had heard nothing but she was fully aware of Kim’s newfound capabilities, even if they were gained at the cost of her life. The older woman was startled when Kim drew away from her and stood up on her own shaky legs.

“We should go and find them.” Weak, obviously, and exhausted beyond all human limitations, and infested throughout with a biological nightmare, the ‘girl who could do anything’ would not stop.

“Kimmie, they’re safe.” Please let that be true and please let Kim believe that it’s true no matter what. “That’s all that matters!”

“Shego, we really should… ow!” The pain in her head made her wince. “We need them to be with us. I… I want them!”

“Kim, what wrong?”

“Nothing, it’s just my…” The pain again, in the back of her head, making bright lights flash and pop in her eyes. “I have a headache, that’s all.”

“Princess, listen to me.” Headache? It was possible, but it was also possible that it was something happening in Kim’s brain. “What we really need to do right now is…”

Shego never got the chance to finish as Kim’s head reared up and she thrust out her tiny hand to keep Shego away. Kim had caught a scent.

“Was Ron here?”

“N… Yes, yes he was. He was here to help us.” Anything to kill time, anything to keep her wife calm. “You trust Ron; he’s your best friend, right?”

“Right. Yeah, right!” Kim smiled around the pain in her head. She lifted her hand to rub behind her ear. The pain in her lower back also made itself known again. “I do wish you’d leave Ron alone… he does try his best!”

“That’s right, he does, doesn’t he.”

“He was here, and the girls were here… does he have the girls?”

“Yes, he does.” It was time to take a chance. “He loves our girls, you know? They couldn’t be anywhere safer than with him, right?” Please, please God; make something happen, Shego prayed.

“You’re right, of course. Good old Ron! He’s my best friend, you know?” Kim breathed easier; the pain in her back was still there but the one in her head had subsided. She shook the lethargy from her limbs and looked past her anxious partner into the shadows. Why in the world had they come here, of all places?

The huge depot was dirty and smelled of a thousand odors, hardly any of them pleasant. She took another breath, this time smelling the musk of Shego’s fear. Her wife really should relax more. Another intake of air and through the rank stench of old fuel oil was the smell she knew so well from years of missions; the only man that she would ever share her innermost secrets with. Ron was too close to her, so much like a brother to her that it took the sting of a failed romance between them to bring her enlightenment.

Well, she would always love Ron and her girls could be nowhere safer. She coughed to clear her throat and took another breath. There was another scent on the air.

“Bonnie was here?”

“What? Who?” Had Ron involved Bonnie Rockwaller in this? “Um, Kimmie, I don’t…”

“You gave our girls to Ron and then Bonnie was here?” Kim coughed. “Why was Bonnie here?”

“She wasn’t, I…”

“Why was Bonnie here, Shego?” The pain was totally gone from her head but her ear still itched. Kim stared at Shego and raised her hand to brush the sensation away and her fingers came away wet.

“Oh, Kim, you’re bleeding!”

Kim never even looked to the redness on her fingertips; it was not important. There was no pain, so there was no drama. All that Shego could think of was how the Havok might take advantage of a cerebral hemorrhage. Dear Lord, if it’s in her brain, what’s left for us to save?

“Damn it Shego!” The pain in her back moved lower and created fullness in her bladder. This discomfort fueled her growing fury as she advanced on her spouse. “I’ve always trusted you but now you’ve given our children to Bonnie? Is she the one you want watching over them?”

“Kim, it’s not like that, it isn’t!”

“Is it she what you want?” She felt the ridiculous urge to urinate; she ignored the feeling. “Watching over them? Or laying under you?”

“What? No!”

“You want her, that she-bitch? You want her rutting for you? TAKE her! If she’s your ideal woman, FINE!” She coughed, retching deeply. “You can NOT have my babies!” The slender redhead coughed again, a burning in her throat to match the burning in her lower abdomen. “Give them back to me, Shego!”

“I can’t.” No more lies, Shego forced the thought across her mind. I’m just not good enough at it anymore, at least not with her. “I won’t.”

“Give them BACK!” Kim’s entire body seemed to ripple and, without seeming to make any overt motions, was suddenly in a fighting stance. “There’s no way in Hell that you’ll keep my babies from me! I’ll find them!” The itch was back at her ear; Kim broke her stance to wipe it away again. Shego saw what came away in Kim’s fingers this time; her pale green skin blanched a shade or two paler. “I’ll hunt them down and save them from her and then get rid of them and we can be together!”

“Stop it, Kim… please, just… stop it!” The sounds of Kim’s madness cut Shego deeper than any blade and the tarry discharge on Kim’s hand glistened in the red glow from the barrel. “Please let us… let me help you!”

With no further intent to make the pain in her bladder go away, Kim released herself where she stood. The relief was instantaneous but, from Shego’s horrified expression, the former villain had witnessed nothing so simple as an embarrassing biological function.

Oh, Lord, Shego thought as she stared down at the greasy pool of tar in the dust at Kim’s feet. It’s black. Shego watch in horror as Havok started to flow from everywhere.

“One last time… give me my children or get the Hell out of my way!” Disgusted at her wife for having such utter disregard for their life together, the petite redhead was prepared to make further demands, but a sour taste in her mouth replaced any words that she might have spoken. She spit, and the black flecks that filled the air had a far greater effect on her wife than any possible taunt or curse.

“Their lives are MINE.”

“They are our children, Kim.” Shego imagined a wall forming around the love she felt for her valiant little hero and slowly raised her arms to mirror Kim’s stance. “And you wouldn’t want me to do that.”

Kim leapt. Shego moved to block and realized that if she ever decided to make a prayer again she would have to be much more specific.

88888888

Dr. Mayers ran into the testing chamber with his patient in tow. He was supposed to be on stand-by with the other members of ‘Team Possible’ camped out in the primary medical research bay and, having finished his current business with his patient, needed to get over there immediately and be prepared for anything. The entire ‘GJ’ engagement team had been called into action; every agent that was trained as a field operative had reported to the bay and scrambled aboard their assigned hover sleds to follow the signal to its source.

“You, there!” Mayers saw that a junior agent was still in the act of securing the empty hover sled cradles. “I need someone to supervise Dr. Lipsky and escort him back to his quarters after he’s finished here.” The young agent looked puzzled.

“What is the patient to be doing here, sir?” The young man, just recently assigned to the research and development branch of Global Justice’s technical division, looked over Dr. Mayer’s shoulder at a blue man wearing a day-glow yellow jumpsuit and shackled with wrist and ankle restraints. “Shouldn’t Dr. Drakken be restricted from this area?”

The elderly physician shook his head.

“Drew Lipsky has been assisting us in the preparations necessary to locate and return Ms. Possible for several days now.” The man gestured at the empty chamber; there were signs everywhere of projects and machinery abandoned in light of the recent alert. “It’s his genius that allowed us to build the new hover sleds, among other things.”

“Yes, sir. And what do I do with him, sir?” Drakken stood a few paces behind and never moved or made a sound, clutching at a battered leather portfolio with both hands.

“You can let him inspect the work that’s being done but under no circumstances is he to be allowed access to a computer terminal or to have his bindings removed.” Mayers was impatient to be going. “Is that understood?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Good, very good.” Without a backward glance, Mayers hurried away.

The agent was a good man and well trained, so to say that Dr. Drakken gave him the ‘creeps’ might sound juvenile, but it was true. The blue man’s presence bothered everyone, from the security teams to the cleaning staff. Whatever treatment Drakken had been given to restore his sanity had apparently stripped him of any resemblance to being human. He was more like an autistic or catatonic unless he could be encouraged to speak, and when he spoke, or worse, looked you directly in the eyes, it was like being with a zombie. Whatever motivated the man was buried so deep that almost nothing made it out to the surface.

The agent watched Drakken loiter around the nearest workstation and paused in his previous task to ensure that all nearby computers were set to emergency lockout. Noting that the shackles would not allow the man free range of motion for a physical attack, the agent resumed his duties. Within a few short minutes the last cradle was secured and the agent swept his gaze across the vast chamber.

“How is the work coming along?”

The young man almost jumped right out of his skin. With his right hand lifted to his holster and fingering his stunner, he swung around to see Drakken standing directly behind him. The black hair was clean and glossy, the blue skin a little fuller from several days of proper nutrition but the eyes were dead. They were like the eyes of a squid, always seeing but unexpressive.

“Um… fine… sir.” Lord, the man was weird. “Just fine.”

Drakken nodded absently and leaned away, glancing down as if to inspect the tops of his ‘GJ’ issue footwear. As the agent watched him for any more interjections, Drakken slowly craned his neck and looked straight up.

“I don’t see everything.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“It’s not all here. Didn’t they build everything?”

The agent looked upwards, following the blue man’s gaze and the two of them stared at the vaulted ceiling for a few seconds before the agent realized that Drakken wasn’t actually looking at anything. He sighed and regarded the patient.

“Sir, what do you mean?” He wasn’t really expecting an answer but he soon got one.

“There were several enhancements integrated into the basic design of both your equipment and my own. Most of them seem to have utilized. Some of them have not.”

“I see, sir.” The agent did not see.

“Unless my designs are followed to the letter and all of the proper equipment made ready, there will be no hope whatsoever for saving your precious Kim Possible.”

“Sir, I’m certain that Dr. Possible and Mr. Lipsky have done all that they were assigned to do.” The agent had rankled at the word ‘precious’ and didn’t care for the man’s tone. The young man started back when Drakken actually turned and looked at him.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure that they did, but… you see, John can be so pedantic at times and Eddie, well, Eddie does try his best, but…” The sentence tapered off with a sad shaking of Drakken’s head.

“Sir, when the team returns, I can discuss this with them…” The man paused when Drakken’s head began to shake again, this time in earnest.

“No, no. They’ll be much too busy, even if they are successful. And if they’ve failed to capture the girl, well, what will they think if they start looking for the rest of the equipment… and don’t find it?” Drakken’s gaze never wavered. “Because it wasn’t considered important enough, because someone assumed that everything was already completed, because someone didn’t take the initiative!”

“Now hold on, sir! I never said that…”

“Young man, I’m not accusing you of anything. I just know how these brainy types think.” Drakken looked at the agent with sympathy. “They only accept the rewards of success and never the rot of failure; they tend to blame others.” He became silent and continued to stare at the agent. The uniformed man felt a cold sweat on the back of his neck.

“… sir, maybe if you could specify what incomplete projects you’re referring to, I can reassign a detail of technicians to oversee them when a stand-down is announced.”

“Good lad!” Since his retrained arms were barely able to open and close the clasps of his portfolio, Drakken pointed to the nearby workstation with his chin. “I believe that Cousin Eddie usually keeps his schematics in a red folder.”

The agent looked and, indeed, there was the edge of a bright red folder, ever so faintly visible peeking out from under a random stack of other documents and blueprints.

“It’s really quite simple, quite simple!” Drakken’s body never moved as he spoke, never shifted or turned to give emphasis or empathy for his words. The agent felt that it was like conversing with a mannequin. “It’s little more than a consolidation of projects that are already completed; just a simple merging of hardware!”

“Do you mean this, sir?” The agent pulled a particular schematic from the red folder and held it up dubiously.

“Exactly! Clever man! You’ll go far with this organization!” The agent could see that Drakken was right about it being a ‘simple merging of hardware’; it risked being a redundant allocation of resources, but here it was with the other important documents. Surely he could find a few men to take care of this without any fuss.

“I’ll get right on it, sir.”

There was no reply.

“Sir?”

Drakken had leaned away and was propped against the worktable, his eyes glazed and his lips parted. The uniformed agent hoped that the patient didn’t start to drool as he moved away. The young man reassessed his appraisal of Drakken, however. The man wasn’t like a mannequin; he was more like a scarecrow. The agent returned to his duties.

Back at the worktable, a certain ‘scarecrow’ was dreaming of escape.

88888888

Geez, thought Ron, the more things change the more they stay the same. He had left Bonnie and slow made his way back towards the center of the fuel depot. There were enough pipes and conduits to keep his return secretive as he slipped around the defunct refining machinery, and he eventually saw the flickering red glow of the fire in the empty fuel drum. As he drew closer, he also heard something so familiar that it gave him pause. With the red glow illuminating the scene, Ron peered from around a pipe.

Kim’s initial leap had been sudden and unplanned; Shego dodged to one side and the redhead landed on her own feet, still a little shaky but recovering quickly. Kim spun and kicked, her foot targeting a green and black stomach. Lowering her hand to block, the tall warrior pushed the foot aside and found that she had to repeat her defending action when the foot withdrew and kicked out a second time.

Balanced evenly, the younger fighter continued to kick faster and faster. Shego blocked every strike, feeling the strength of each blow growing more and more forceful than the last. Her gauntleted hands had to move more quickly with each kick and she just had enough time to wonder why Kim wasn’t changing her attack when that’s exactly what happened. Coming at her from a new direction, Shego half-turned to meet the threat and reassessed her strategy.

The kicking foot swung upwards this time, not out, and the redhead flipped back. The foot upon which she had been balancing came up and knocked aside the defense; with toes extended, Kim caught Shego on the chin as the younger woman competed her flip. Shego knew that her chimes had been rung and quickly took a half step back. The strike had stung but she had fared far worse in the old days at the hands, or feet, of her former nemesis. The pain was momentary and it served to remind Shego that this was no sparing match between marital partners. This was timely because Kim was back on terra firma and was already charging. Using only her martial arts training and not daring to risk her plasma against her mate, Shego braced herself for the next round.

Ron remained in the wings, resolve shaken. He watched as the petite redhead moved and fought with s much skill and determination as he had ever seen. This was the little girl who had befriended him in the schoolyard, the girl that had shared his awkward life with him while growing up, and the young woman that would always love him even after they both discovered that their lives could not merge beyond a certain point. He held on to the pipe that hid him and watched as if observing a nightmare.

Kim was as fast as ever and timing would be counted in milliseconds. For all of the internal trauma that her bodily systems had suffered, the Havok substance was certainly doing what it had been designed to do; Kim was fast, indomitable, immune to pain and totally focused on bringing down her ‘enemy’. Shego waited until the slender girl was almost upon her before feinting to the left, not a normal move from the repertoire of the former thief, and strafing Kim’s legs with her own right leg as the taller woman pulled herself down.

The ruse worked in as far as contact was made. Kim was successfully tripped and she was moving too fast to bring her stumbling feet back underneath her. Shego pushed aside the errant thought that, when they were still enemies, he would have chosen this moment for a snarky comment. There was no time for that even if she had been so inclined; Kim had barely skidded to a stop before she was climbing to her feet.

Kim stood and paused to wipe pitch from her face before turning back to her opponent. The dust and filth had caked in her eyes and mouth as she had slid across the cold floor. When finished, she simply walked towards Shego in a measured pace, not running blindly or charging in a way that would let the other woman use Kim’s speed against her. Pitch ringed her eyes, making them appear sunken and her upper face look skull-like, and the inky blackness made her mouth a void as it coated her teeth.

Shego shuddered as the ghastly visage walked right up to her and let fly with a simple jab. The punch was followed by another kick; both blocked with no room for error. Yet another kick, then a roundhouse punch and then two more jabs, then two kicks in quick succession that came so fast at Shego that one slipped through her defenses and struck her upper arm. Her fingers tingled briefly and she thought about possible nerve damage.

“Careful, baby… don’t let your guard down!” Kim’s voice shrieked between greasy black teeth. “You’re not getting old, are you?”

Her mate had not planned to reply, but the same thought had crossed her mind. With an audible snarl, Kim resumed her attack. More punches than the redhead normally threw in a week of battles were getting to within bare inches of the pale green face before being blocked or dodged. In the back of her mind, the analytical side of Shego’s intellect guessed that, if Kim was no longer able to feel pain anymore, she petite girl could have punched at a brick wall all night and never felt a thing.

It was a punch that slipped through this time, hitting the same general area of Shego’s upper right arm that already had a fine bruise forming under her outfit. The taller, stronger woman had just deflected a potentially debilitating kick to her solar plexus when she felt the follow-through blow. If that arm took too many more hits, she wouldn’t be able to lift it as high or as quickly, accelerated healing or not.

“Ooh, sorry about the ‘old’ barb! I guess that was just a little to close to the mark, huh?” Kim didn’t even slow down her attacks. “Don’t worry… I won’t say anything about you getting fat!” Emerald eyes glinted through tears of pitch and a wad of tar ran down from the corner of her feral grin “That would just be rude!”

Another punch thrust outward and Shego was shocked to realize that it had become a talon when Kim opened her bare hand and clawed at the pale woman’s own green eyes. Her standard defense broken, Shego raised her left arm to ward off the small hand as jagged nails attempted to blind her. The move prevented her from being blinded but Kim made due by clamping her grip around a uniformed forearm and shredding through the weave to draw blood from the pale green flesh beneath. With the strength of both arms compromised, the former villain was forced to take a few steps back before she resumed her stance.

Kim inspected her hand, sniffing at her spouse’s blood and even extending the pink tip of her tongue to sample on drop. She frowned and spit out the blood, along with yet another mouthful of the black tarry pitch.

“It never tastes as good as you’d think.”

Several yards away, Ron awoke to the sitch; Kim had never draw blood like that before. She hardly ever drew blood at all except for the occasional nosebleed and in her entire life she had sure as Hell never… Ron shook himself in disgust; at a level that lay deep below the surface, his psyche began to accept that this was not the girl he knew and loved. He released his death grip on the greasy pipe and took one step forward.

Kim grinned wider. She gathered herself and started to run right at Shego before she jumped and flipped over the head of the startled woman.

A dervish of motion, Kim’s petite form didn’t stay on the concrete floor for more than a second or two at a time; she leapt and flipped and practically flew over her opponent. There were no attacks, neither fist nor foot struck out or down at Shego, but the girl had taken her scope of battle to a third dimension.

“Speaking of fat…”

In an effort to follow the incredible motions of her mate, Shego has lost all pretense of fighting. It was all that she could do to simply keep the slender redhead in view. Truth be told, only Kim was fighting; Shego was just trying to stay alive.

“Bonnie’s fat… have you seen her?” Kim landed nimbly and paused, letting Shego turn and focus on her before moving again. “A real porker!”

Forcing herself to keep silent, Shego made a grab for Kim as she passed by and immediately regretted the action. Kim was taunting her, making her react emotionally instead of with logic and control. As ineffectual as the grab had been, it had been Shego’s first offensive move since the bear hug to keep her mate from chasing after Ron. It earned her a hard slap across the cheek when Kim flew by again.

“But that’s what you like, isn’t it?” Judging proximity from the sound of Kim’s voice, Shego ducked in time to avoid another blow. “A little more jiggle in the wiggle?”

A plan was forming in Shego’s mind. She continued to weave and dodge but kept her hands low and down at her sides. Kim just continued to dance and leap all around her, making a few idle connections but mostly keeping the pale green warrior disoriented.

“She gets knocked up, and then she blows up and then you come running to smother yourself in it…” Kim flipped and caught her wife behind the ear with her heel. “Sorry that I couldn’t accommodate you, baby, but Kim Possible is no one’s sow!”

The kick at her ear made Shego see stars; now was the time to act.

Feeling the familiar heat of her plasma fields building strength around her hands, she formed twin bubbles of energy that she kept hidden in each palm. The lifespan of each bubble was to be counted in seconds if she was to release them, but there in her hands they remained stable. While nowhere near as powerful as one of her blasts, one bubble could be used to create a dazzling lightshow that would usually distract of confuse an opponent. When two were used in conjunction, she was hoping for a more dramatic effect.

Shego risked holding still long enough to gauge Kim’s next move; this was rewarded by a very hard kick to her cheekbone that would definitely blacken her eye. The gamble paid off when Kim acted, allowing Shego to reach her arms upwards and slam her hands together right in front of Kim’s face. The green blaze flashed like a strobe, briefly illuminating the whole interior of the depot and making the redhead cry out in surprise.

No longer hiding behind the pipe, Ron covered his face against the sudden glare. He was much closer now and found himself ready to run to Kim’s side when she fell to the concrete floor, apparently stunned from the shockwave. The redhead had hit the floor hard enough to bounce, her current pounce interrupted mid-leap by the small explosion. Shego herself had been knocked to the floor by the concussion, speaking more towards her failing resources than the power of the plasma bubbles. The pale woman winced as she straightened her legs and rolled over to find her wife. She was sore and bleeding and knew that this was a pace that she could not maintain.

“KP?” Eyes wide, Shego whipped her head around to see Ron standing a few feet from away.

“Stoppable, get back!” She was still forcing her knees to bend and let her stand up. “If she’s even hurt, it won’t be for long.” Shego finally stood with difficulty. “You picked a fine time to show up… I could have used some help!”

“Shego, I… ” He looked at her but didn’t seem to know where he was, looking more like a lost boy than a young man. “It’s just that… it’s Kim.”

“No, Sto... Ron, no it’s not! Not in any way that counts!”

They heard a cough at their feet and they looked down to see tiny clouds of dust floating near Kim’s open mouth as she lay facedown in the filth. Except for the shallow movements of her chest she was otherwise motionless. Seeing that no more attacks were forthcoming at the moment, the tall woman returned her attention to the boy.

“Please tell me that you got our girls to safety!” This roused him and he turned to focus on her.

“Yeah, yeah we did.”

“So you did bring Bonnie here? She wasn’t hurt back at the Possible’s house?”

“Uh, yeah... I mean, no. No, she wasn’t hurt, at least not to badly. And yes, I did bring her here to help me with the girls.” He frowned. “How did you know?”

“I didn’t.” Shego pointed downwards. “She did. She… she acted like she could smell Bonnie in the building.” There was an enormous weight lifted from Shego’s heart; even though her Princess was still in dire straits, their girls were out of danger. “So she has them? The girls, I mean?” A faint moan from the prostrate body interrupted both their thoughts and she had to regain his attention. “Ron?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah.” The young blond man knelt down but kept well back. He was emotionally torn but far from stupid; he’d seen what his best friend… or this strange visage that looked like her… could do in close quarters. “They’re probably far from here by now.”

“So where’d you send them?” Shego groaned and bent down as she asked the question; she quickly searched her ankle pouch for lock-ties or anything that might bind Kim’s hands with. She found nothing and vowed to never be without restraints again.

“I left that up to her.” His eyes were fixed on Kim. She was still breathing but might have been asleep. The slender body was limp and resting partly on its side, Kim’s legs tangled from when she’d dropped to the floor after the plasma concussion and her one arm pinned underneath her stomach. The other hand was laying, fingers still and open, near a circular metal lid from a fuel drum; it might have been from the very drum that was giving them light. “I didn’t want to accidentally give their location away.”

Despite herself, Shego nodded at his judgment.

“Did you contact anyone, ‘GJ’ or the Possibles?”

“’GJ’… They should be here any minute.” Ron stood and backed away from his friend, shifting his gaze elsewhere for the first time in several moments to look up towards the distant ceiling. He might have been looking for imaginary helicopters.

“How are the ‘Tweebs’, Kim’s brothers?”

“Well, I only know what Bonnie could tell me on the way over here; Jim’s leg was in pretty bad shape but Tim was doing Ok.”

“How did Bonnie know this?”

“She stuck around the hospital to keep an eye on them after the doctors made sure she was alright.”

Shego felt her trust and affection for the brunette deepen. If… not if, but when…when they all got through this, she and Kim would have to make it clear to Bonnie how much they appreciated her. Just beside her, Ron was also making a reassessment of a certain female that had once been an enemy and was now his ally. He looked back at this tattered and filthy woman, bleeding from her temple and her arm and with crusted blood on her upper lip. With his best friend since forever lying unconscious at their feet, the sitch could not have been more reversed.

“Shego, I’m sorry.”

“Ron…”

“No, I mean it. I’m really sorry.” He gathered his wits. “I watched you two fighting and couldn’t move. She cut you and kicked you and I just couldn’t do anything.”

“Ron, this wasn’t any easier for me. Kimmie and I have fought or sparred for so long that it was easy to fall right into that pattern, but she was too much for me one on one.” Shego raised her palms and looked at them; she had extinguished the plasma fields immediately after creating the concussion blast but she could almost feel the familiar tingle. “I’ve used my plasma against her before. You’ve seen me.”

He could only nod.

“If I’d not used it just now, she’d have worn me down in no time. She’s too fast now, too hard to hit and… “ Shego felt her composure melting. “And I just can’t fight her like I used to… like we did that day at her evaluation.”

“What do you mean? Do did great. It’s just what KP needed, what she wanted you to do for her.”

“That’s just it…” Shego kept her eyes on her angel at all times; there was still no movement beyond shallow breathing. “I had to dig deep within myself for an entire day in advance in order to find that part of me still left over from the time before I loved her, from when I hated her, deeply and passionately hated her because of how she’d come to represent everything that I used to want to be… and had failed at.”

Down at their feet and as quiet as a mouse, Kim Possible listened. She had been fully awake and conscious within seconds of having struck the floor. Shego’s attack had been executed perfectly but it would take far more than that to take her out of commission. Kim feigned unconsciousness and bided her time.

“I gave it my all that day and she won. She won fair and square.”

“I don’t get you.” Ron brushed at his ear; he wasn’t certain if he was hearing something or if he were being watched. The feeling had all of the telltales of when his Mystical Monkey Powers would kick in and alert him of danger, but there was nothing going on at the moment. “What’s the problem this time? You sure looked like you were ‘giving it your all’.” The feeling came again and he attributed it to the whole sitch.

“Stoppable, do you have any idea of how much damage these plasma fields of mine can do to?”

“Sh’yah! KP and I have seen you blast holes through walls and… oh.” His eyes widened; why hadn’t he ever given it this much thought before?

Thank you for talking so much, Kim thought. It allowed her to gauge both distance and direction.

“I could have cut her in half the first day we met.” Shego grimaced and then smirked. “See? I can’t even think about it anymore. She’s too special to me.” The tall woman made a quarter turn to face the young man he’d so often thought of solely as ‘the buffoon’. “She’s my Kryptonite and my magic feather; she weakens me and gives me the strength to do anything, all at the same time.”

“Yeah, tell me about it…” Ron felt no pangs of jealousy or envy as he said this. He had come to terms with his love for Kim and its limits. Limits that were starting to become more bearable ever since he had become reacquainted with a certain brunette; it was odd that he didn’t feel the least bit bad about this, either. Shego was struck by his comment and had to remind herself of the years of history her angel shared with Ron.

She was about to say more to the boy when a scuff of fabric against concrete and a slight gasp for air reached her ears.

From her prone facedown position, Kim slowly wrapped her fingers around the edge of the metal lid and swept her arm out and forward, letting the lid take flight. It canted in midair but continued on a path straight and true. It was aimed directly at Shego’s head and the green and black clad woman was not going to be able to do anything to avoid the impact.

Not all boundless endurance and painlessness come from biological nightmares. Not all powers and abilities come from cosmic radiation leaking out of stray comets. Some feats of strength and energy come from ‘dumb skills’, the power of imagination and a healthy dose of Mystical Monkey Power.

“No!” Ron was in motion.

He had felt what Kim had done the moment that she had done it, and he could never have explained how in a million years. The lid weighed only a few pounds and would not be traveling far, but its speed and the rate of its rotation made it a deadly missile. Faster than Shego could move or even react he was between her and certain death, his leap bringing him up from the floor a few inches.

The flying metal lid struck Ron squarely in the chest and he fell back against Shego. The woman, shocked beyond words, caught him as the lid spun away into the darkness. She watched him suck desperately for the air that had been so horribly forced from his lungs and she felt the sting of tears as his eyes rolled back and he became limp in her arms.

“Ron!” Was he breathing? She couldn’t tell, her own body so numb that all external sensation was denied her. She sank to the floor from his weight against her. “Ron!”

Motion from the periphery caught Shego’s awareness like a fishhook. Kim was standing there, looking even worse than before, if that were possible, from the filth she had gained from her time on the floor. It caked against her secretions like glue.

“I guess that’s one for the Ron Factor, huh? He always was good for a distraction.”

“Kimmie… what have you done?” Shego felt as if she wanted to vomit until she turned inside out. She was already weak from her earlier bout and there was no way that she could defend herself for long. Now that she had the additional responsibility of seeing that Ron was taken to safety… if he would even survive, if he were even still alive now. Where the HELL was ‘GJ’?

“It’s just us, now, baby. We don’t need him.”

“He’s your best friend…”

“Some friend! He stinks of Bonnie Rockwaller!” Black tears ran down the sides of her face. “He’s just another dead end in my life that needs cleaning away!”

Kim had turned fully away and had taken several steps before Shego realized that no one was going anywhere; Kim had taken hold of the rim of the blazing drum and was dragging it back.

“Dead ends… dead friends… old dead life going to rise again…”

“Kim, what…” Her angel bent slightly at her tiny waist and was firmly clasping her hands to the metal sides of the drum. “Hey! That’s hot, you’ll…”

Burn yourself. Oh, my sweet Lord.

Kim was lifting blazing drum, picking it up from the floor and moving closer to where Shego cradled Ron’s body. Shego clearly heard the skin sizzling on those perfect little hands and was just glad that she wasn’t close enough to smell anything. There were tiny shreds of burning fabric floating in the air as the remnants of Kim’s mission gloves crisped and sloughed away. The skin beneath the burning gloves was clearly smoldering but was being replaced just as quickly by something that looked like skin.

“Kim, put it down!”

“First Bonnie and now Ron… what is this? You prefer my friends over me?” She took another step towards the fallen boy. Kim gagged, but nothing came from her mouth this time; gouts of blackness spilled from her nose and struck the concrete where the black settled into the filth and quickly turned gray. “I’m just trying to clean up the loose ends in our lives!”

“Put it down NOW!” Shego ignited her plasma fields. Ron’s face shone green from the glow.

“Your wish is my command, my bride!” Kim heaved the barrel at her intended target.

Thought making the plasma flare and arc, Shego managed to project a blast that dented the rusty metal as she knocked the drum from Kim’s hands, making it spin away and crash to the floor several yards beyond. Too damaged to rotate smoothly, the barrel limped as it rolled, illuminating the void, divesting itself of its burning contents, the rags and bits of old pallet wood creating tiny bonfires to mark its trail.

Shego’s breath caught and she forced herself to ignore her Princess for a moment; there were flames growing and spreading from several points now, the fire tasting the old grease and oil residue and finding it delicious. Shit, she wondered, how many more times can I screw up tonight?

“Kim… listen to me… we have to get out of here.”

“Why?” The redhead had been knocked back off her feet when the barrel was blasted away, but that had been a trifling. She was looking back at her lover now and the expression on Kim’s face was openly puzzled. “We have our freedom here. Why would we want to leave?” Flames licked up the sides of the pipe and conduits, climbing slowly but surely towards the ceiling.

“Kim… Kimmie, it’s not safe anymore, we…” Shego flinched as somewhere over their heads an old beam squealed as the heat from the flames started to buckle the structural supports of the depot. Hopefully nothing would come crashing down around them just yet. “We have to take Ron and get as far away from here as we can.”

“As far away as Bonnie?” There was no more puzzlement, just anger; Kim knew the sitch. Why did her wife not understand? Was Kim the only one to grasp the sitch? All must die and all would live and… and it made sense! Didn’t it?

“No, as far as getting help for you and Ron!”

“I’m fine and Ron’s dead! It’s you that wants to get away!” Kim advanced. “You want to get away from me and take her all for yourself!”

“You know that isn’t true!” Something exploded in the far reaches of the depot and crashed to the floor. “And Ron isn’t dead!” She wanted that to be true but there was no way to tell his condition with so much happening at once. Shego pulled herself out from underneath Ron as gently as she could and regained her feet, moving away from the fallen boy for his protection.

“’A friend we could share’, that was what she was… for both of us!” More of the depot was becoming visible over Kim’s shoulder as the flames grew and pushed back the darkness. “But you just had to have her all for yourself, you selfish green bitch!”

“No!”

“You just want to take her home, right?”

“Kim, stop it!” This is not my Kimmie.

“Your new whore!”

“She’s not that! She’s our friend!” This is not my Princess.

“Her skin slick and her flesh hot against you!”

“Stop it! Damn it, you stop saying those things!” Fire burned in her chest. “What I want… Kimmie, what I want is to fix you dinner… to watch some stupid comedy that you like or watch ‘Night Of The Living Dead’ for the millionth time and hold you when you scream… I want to sit in the tub with you and wash your back while you complain about being too skinny! I want us to be dancing or sparring or watching television or even sharing a mission together as Team Possible!” Shego wept openly. “God help me, I can’t take this anymore!”

This was not her Pumpkin.

“You don’t fool me for a second with those crocodile tears!” The slim form circled, drawing closer. “You just want our daughters in the hands of that buffoon while you let Bonnie wrap her legs around your head and you clamp your mouth around her…”

“STOP IT! YOU’RE NOT HER! YOU’RE NOT!” Shego had not even noticed her hand rising, nor did she properly aim her swing. She was not even remotely aware of the motion until she saw her own gloved hand come into view and strike Kim across her beloved angel’s perfect face, and felt the impact resonate up her arm.

Kim was rocked back on her feet and both of her hands flew to cover her face. It had not been a combative blow, it had been a simple roundhouse slap; Shego had not struck anyone in that manner since some boy pinched her on the ass way back in grade school.

Nor did she have her powers way back then. She had just slapped Kim across the face with her hand fully encased in a full-strength plasma field.

The slender form, the source of Shego’s love and hopes for over two years and the source of her fear and horror for the past several days, fell back from the blow, Kim howled and brought her hands up defensively to cover her face. There was even a little residual glow from the plasma shining between Kim’s fingers as it dissipated away into the air.

“No… oh, no. No, no, no, Kimmie, I…” Shego moved forward.

The hands parted and the tall woman received a quick glimpse of Hell. A feral grin, a set of large emerald eyes staring out at her from an expression that many would have categorized as being bestial in nature, if not evil in its intent. There was no damage, at least nothing that the Havok hadn’t repaired within seconds. A blur of motion from the side barely registered across Shego’s visual cortex when Kim’s small fist lashed out and caught her wife on the chin with a horrific crunch.

“Gotcha.”

Shego knew that her jaw had just been broken.

To Be Continued...

Author's Notes: Yep, gotta love that good old DA file size limitation!