Disclaimer: I do not own Kim Possible or any of the characters used in this fiction. They are under copyright of Disney Corp.
Chapter One: The Normality
The warehouse was as dark inside as foreboding out. The lights, long-sense having met their demise, didn't so much as flicker as a hand jittered the switch in the darkness. Even without light, the occupants of the room could feel one another.
All, of course, save for one.
In the middle of the room, a flashlight cut through the air and illuminated stacks of crates. The slender hand holding the torch shifted this way and that, trying to find some evidence of a break-in. The various containers gave up nothing to the sleuth and soon the sole beacon of light was turned elsewhere. Up to the windows to look for a forced entrance.
A sudden sound from behind was all the warning Kim Possible got as a thick green vine wrapped around her waist. She screamed at the sudden confinement and dropped her flashlight. Suddenly, the warehouse was alight with blue and green lights. They darted from side to side, exploding in a sea of colors.
Kim wasn't paying attention, though. She had already started to wiggle out of her situation with the help of a few laser flashes from her handy lipstick. Behind her, somewhere hidden amongst the crates and machinery, Drakken yelped. The plant that he shared his body with lashed out again at the thing that had caused it harm even without the good doctor ordering it to.
This time the vines were not trying to capture the teen hero. Kim was dodging bone-crushing strikes by the barest of margins. All around her was nothing but destruction and shattered packing crates. If she was hit even once by Drakken's green tendrils, it would take her weeks of recovery from the broken bones. Over the months, the blue doctor had gotten very good at using his mutation in physical combat. He wasn't holding a candle to what was going on around him, however, and more than once both he and Kim caught themselves looking upwards towards the clashing powers of the cosmos.
Ron and Shego were leaping from foothold to foothold as they fought for dominance. The Mystical Monkey Aura, as Ron liked to call it, was easily standing up to the low-level plasma Shego was allowing herself to use. A glancing blow from her opponent made the pale thief ratchet up the power and soon the entire warehouse was wreathed in a green hue. The warriors only gave each other the barest of smirks before crashing back together like waves against a rocky shore.
This was Kim Possible's new world. The former hero was still on the ground dodging Drakken's plant appendages and not being able to do much else. She strained to kick her way to the side in an amazing display of athleticism. Her body was toned, ripped even. Below her creamy white skin muscles and sinew strained with each perfectly-measured moment. This was the pinnacle of human achievement. This was perfection.
Drakken's vines whipped out with amazing speed and caught Kim mid-air, holding her firm. Her arms were spread eagle, her legs pulled taught. She was going nowhere.
"You thought you were all that, but you weren't," Drakken taunted as he stepped out from the shadows. The vines that had previously been cut had already started to grow back and the man looked no worse for ware. He was calm, relaxed, collected. With seemingly no exertion, he had captured his arch rival.
Kimberly Ann Possible scowled at the mad scientist but she couldn't bark out any insults of her own. All of her energy was going to sucking in air to her burning lungs. Never...never had she exerted herself this much. Kim knew that she shouldn't have engaged Drakken personally. What a horrible mistake. She was only human, after all, and even a perfect human could not overcome this man. Not anymore.
A crack of air meeting energy distracted Drakken and the doctor looked skywards. Ron was now hovering mid-air and looking decidedly pissed at seeing his girlfriend strung up like a hunting trophy. The man turned to his sidekick who was warily watching the display from atop a mountain of boxes.
"Shego," he called out, "why haven't you cut loose yet?! Get rid of the buffoon so we can get the dimension inducer!" Whenever he would stomp his feet, which was fairly often to accent his childish demands, the vines constricting Kim would only constrict tighter, making the young woman wince in pain.
In response to her employer, Shego rolled her eyes. She had never liked being bossed around, but she would allow the moron to puff himself up just this once. After all, he had managed to catch Possible and keep her from getting in the way. "Time to really cut loose, Cherry," the woman purred.
Ron turned in time to see his opponent literally burst into flame. This was the full extent of Shego's powers when her comet was mid-ways from Earth. All of the Go siblings would likely get a boost in power, more so when the main comet body passed closer to the planet. Right now the air around Shego's body had to be several hundred degrees. The supervillain had already engaged the small jet pack she was wearing and now floated silently in the air a few feet from Ron. Their conflicting powers swirled around in the air causing small sparks of energy to flare up.
On the ground, Dr. Drakken and Kim were transfixed on the sight. The building itself started to shake and wane under the power of the two super-charged combatants, it seemed. Their blows were nearly faster than human eyes could follow and their combat was highly mobile. Soon they had both left the confines of the warehouse and could be seen clashing in the night sky through the large windows ringing the complex.
Kim eased her fingers into her shirt sleeve while Drakken wasn't paying attention. Her laser lipstick was still right where she had left it. The beam sliced through the green appendages for the second time tonight and Drakken yelped in pain. Over time, the vines had become further integrated into his body so he shared both a higher reflex rate and pain with his symbiote. Rolling as she hit the ground, the young woman hid among the darkness now gripping the interior of the warehouse.
The blackness was comforting, in a way. It hid her fear, her desperation, her emotions from the world just as it was physically hiding her from the raving Dr. Drakken. Green tendrils of all shapes and sizes slithered through the warehouse and Kim was thankful they had not developed senses other than their ability to feel. For now, at least.
Quietly, the teen hero slipped out of the open warehouse door and into the open parking lot. She could see Shego and Ron still fighting it out high above her and, for what must have been the hundredth time in as many seconds, felt utterly helpless. Her hands fell to her mission backpack where, with the push of a button, she could join them in the air...but to go up there now meant certain death. Either she would get caught by a flurry of punches from Ron that would separate parts of her body or Kim would get burnt to a crisp by Shego.
How long had the pale villainess had this kind of power? Had all of their battles over five long years been nothing but a diversion? Now that she had a worthy opponent, Shego had never once held back. Her power leaked from her entire body with a fiery rage. When Kim had first seen it, she had been struck speechless. Now, given how often Ron and her fought, Kim figured the glamor had worn off a bit. Still, though, it was a sight to behold. Terrible and breathtaking, all at the same time.
A sudden movement brought Kim's attention closer to earth. The warehouse door she had snuck out of had just been torn from its hinges and now laid only a few feet from her. She stared at the maw of thorny vines slithering out of the doorway with an impassive stare. Drakken had finally figured out she had escaped, huh? The doctor was getting quicker on the uptake these days.
Quicker on the uptake than even Kim would have imagined, it seemed. The pavement beneath the hero's feet cracked and split as two long vines burst from the asphalt and latched onto her legs. Another thick vine wrapped around Kim's arm before a third salvo of laser could get her free.
"Not this time, Possible," Drakken growled. His voice had grown cold. Annoyed. That was what Kim Possible was now, an annoyance. He pulled the vines tighter and giggled like a schoolgirl when he heard the teen hero grunt in pain. Years of simply sending Shego after the redhead did no justice to the feeling of dealing with Kim Possible himself.
Sadly, for Drakken, it was at that moment Ron noticed what was going on. He surged his power and sent Shego flying back through the air and into a nearby construction crane, the impact doubling it over. Swooping down on the blue scientist, Ron easily ripped the vines holding his girlfriend in half. Drakken gulped and started to back away, but the blond monkey master already had the flailing plants in an iron grip. All it took was a few twirls through the air and Drakken was soon joining Shego on the rubble pile.
Kim, who had hit the ground, pushed the tangled vines off of her legs and arms and stood on shaky feet. "Thanks for the save, Ron," she said with a lopsided smile.
Her boyfriend put an arm on her shoulder for stability. "No problem, KP! Rufus can clean things up from here." Indeed, the naked mole rat was standing atop Shego and Drakken having tied them both up in Drakken's vines. Even the little rat had mystical monkey power.
The police soon arrived to take the supervillain duo into custody. Fortunately, Shego was still unconscious and the Global Justice-developed grown inhibitor was keeping Drakken's powers subdued. Kim was getting some oxygen from a nearby ambulance as Ron was giving the local Global Justice agent a rundown of what had happened. The redhead sighed into the plastic breathing apparatus as she watched her boyfriend make wild gestures and point at the destruction behind him. There were even a few camera crews trying to set up before Shego and Drakken were taken off.
'What a media circus,' Kim thought. Everyone was eager to get a glimpse of a real superhero. Why not? Ron could fly, had super speed, super strength; why shouldn't he get attention? Still, when a reporter actually pushed past her to get a better shot of Shego being loaded into a police car, drugged of course, Kim had to find a different place to catch her breath.
It had been like this for over a year now. Ever since the Warmonga Incident, as the world called it, the unlikely blond hero had been placed upon a pedestal by his fans. Suddenly, the world couldn't get enough of Ron. TV spots, newspapers, even internet fansites.
At first, Kim had been ecstatic. In the past she had always been modest when it came to her own fame but when Ron was suddenly just as popular, Kim had allowed herself a bit more exposure. Their relationship was also everything American; two super crime fighters that grew up together and now fought crime. What wasn't to love?
Even Shego had gotten a booster shot from the publicity. As one of the most famous thieves in the world, Shego had a cult following ranging from the anarchists and anti-authority to the more sophisticated upper-crusts of society. Everyone loved a good villain, after all. She had also been set up as Ron's arch enemy.
That was one of the more annoying things to have come out of this entire affair, in Kim's opinion.
Of course, now that she could really bare the brunt of her power out in the open, was it any surprise? It had all come out a few months after the scientific awards ceremony and a few weeks after Drakken had gotten bored and went back to villainy.
Really, it shouldn't have come as any surprise.
Kim had faced-off with Shego, like normal, during a heist. It had been only one shot, one lucky shot, and it had lit a fuse. Even as Kim was leaping back to her feet, a blue blur was rocketing past her. Shego hadn't had time to even blink before Ron pinned her to the wall. At the time, the Go Meteor was very close to the planet and Shego let out just a little too much plasma which Ron had simply batted away...
Things went downhill from there.
It was a blur, all the things that had happened. Shego and Ron had gotten into such a huge fight that whatever it was Drakken was trying to steal got destroyed. Even Kim had been forced to flee the building when those two had really started fighting. Shego's powers weren't so much about strength, but about destructive power. Plasma bolts that could topple buildings were casually being tossed around and just as casually being deflected. With the ability to fly, or "fall gracefully" as Ron called it, he made a more appetizing target to the villainess than a certain spunky ex-cheerleader.
Gallingly, the redhead had been slated to Drakken duty and even that was becoming a moot point. Drakken's own powers were far from normal; his vines could rip apart cars and move with such speed that, unless Kim was having a very good day, were unable to be followed by the human eye. The only reason Kim could still deal with the doctor was his being green when fighting. Even that was vanishing, however. Drakken was getting pretty good at brawling.
A sudden mass of flashbulbs blinded Kim and shook her out of her musing. Ron had managed to escape from all the reporters and was coming over to her. He had matured a bit and was less accident-prone around the press, something Kim was very thankful for. He was even starting to develop something of a swagger; saving the world was a real confidence-booster.
"I'll rip out your spine next time, Stoppable!" Shego snarled from the police car. This successfully diverted half of the cameras and Kim could have sworn her old enemy was putting on a show for her fans. At least, when Kim had been fighting her Shego had never made public threats of revenge.
Ron rolled his eyes and the reporters chuckled, like all of this was just an inside joke. "You'll have to find it first! I've never had much of a backbone!" Wait, did Ron just make a joke that didn't make him look like a dork? Kim wouldn't put it past the realm of possibility given what had taken place over the last year.
Yes, many things had changed. Kim Possible was now, basically, the sidekick. It was still Team Possible, Ron wouldn't even entertain anyone who said it was otherwise, but all knew that was just a name. When people posted problems, they were asking for Ron.
Nuclear reactor that needed to be fixed? Monkey mojo protected Ron from just about anything other than blunt-force trauma and, in rare cases, the upper limits of heat from Shego's plasma. How about an out of control airplane? Ron can fly up there and practically catch the thing. Hell, he didn't even need favors for transportation.
'Do I not have a function anymore?' Kim asked herself with some annoyance as she was led through the throng of people. She was smiling to keep the reporters happy and she managed to sneak a smirk to Shego as the villian was being "chauffeured" away for old time's sake. Unfortunately, the older woman either did see or didn't care enough to return it.
Being the sidekick really did suck. Kim now understood how Ron must have felt all those years.
After answering a few questions, most of which were about her life being Ron Stoppable's girlfriend, the couple managed to appease the journalists enough that they eased up and let the team through. Now that she had a reason, Kim found she didn't mind talking to them all too much. The confidence booster of just being on television and knowing about it, paying attention to it...well, it was filling the gap left by not being in the hero spotlight anymore. All the questions about Ron were a put-off, though.
Thus ended yet another typical Team Possible mission. Kim saved her journal file and turned off her computer. Her dorm was fairly quiet and Kim was glad she had gotten a single. Ron had left several hours ago and was instantly swarmed by various college-goers who wanted to chat or get an autograph. Somewhere deep down, Kim was happy Ron was gone.
The redhead stretched out her sore muscles and grabbed a change of clothes before heading to the shower. She had an American Government class early tomorrow and Kim was eager to work out any kinks and go to sleep.
As her head hit her pillow, Kim sighed long and softly, content now that the day was over. Truth be told, her missions weren't usually this physical anymore. Shego and Ron would usually fight and put on a show for the cameras then either Shego would escape with Drakken or Ron would catch them. Today, though, Drakken had decided he was going to be a bastard.
It had happened several times in the past. For a few months after he had gotten superpowers he had really rubbed that fact in. Eventually though he had slacked off and would only be tough on Kim when Shego made him feel particularly small before a robbery. That's probably what had happened tonight.
All-in-all, it wasn't that bad. Shego had went to prison along with Drakken, not like they'd stay in there, and Ron shook-off the reporters a lot faster than usual. He even took Kim to Bueno Nacho without getting mobbed. They couldn't stay very long, but it was better than most nights.
Yup, it was a good day. Not like Kim had wanted to be the one to talk to the reporters or get asked for autographs. Nope, those days were long behind her and she had a bright, stable future to look forward to...
...and for yet another night, Kim quietly curled up in bed and blankly stared at the wall...