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"Curse you, Kim Possible!"
Dr. Drakken's voice echoed angrily through the lair as his teenaged nemesis emerged from the rubble of the demolished Hyper-Entropho-Diffusulator Ray. Kim smirked.
"You're slipping, Drakken - this latest plan was sloppy even by your standards. Stealing twenty-year old, obsolete military technology from a government recycling center? They probably would have sold it to you for pennies a ton."
"I don't buy." Drakken said disdainfully. "It's the evil principal of the thing."
"Whatever." Kim kicked a hunk of shrapnel out of her path. "They don't even care about pressing charges, as long as the machine is destroyed and recycled."
"Fine, I'll recycle it."
"Not into another doomsday device." Kim said threateningly.
"N-no, of course not!" Drakken stammered concilatorily as she advanced on him. "Into a-a playground for the henchman day-care! So many families have both parents henching full-time nowadays, you know."
"I guess that's okay." Kim said doubtfully.
"Of course! We must think of the tots... ahem..." Drakken laughed nervously. "Shego! I could really use some backup in here!"
There was movement from the darkened corridor on the other side of the lair's main chamber. Kim braced herself for an attack-but it wasn't Shego who emerged from the shadows.
"Ron!" Kim said in relief. The last time she's seen her sidekick-slash-boyfriend, he'd been fleeing at top speed while Shego slung energy blasts at him.
"You can relax-I defeated Shego for you." Ron said causually.
"You. Defeated Shego?" Kim replied in a voice laden with skepticism, still scanning the dark corners of the room for the telltale glow of green plasma.
"I guess that one's not very believable, is it?" Ron shrugged. "Okay, I hid in a cupboard. Eventually she got tired of looking for me. I sneaked out while she was taking a coffee break."
"She just gave up? That...doesn't sound like her." Kim said warily.
"Yeah, I know! You know, maybe she'd have been more persistant if Drakken paid her a little better," Ron suggested cheerfully.
Drakken shot Ron a poisonous look. "Maybe if she were able to keep track of one buffoon without requiring backup, she'd get that raise she's always whining about."
"Well, I'd love to stick around and kick the coffee out of her, but we've done what we came for, and I've got three pages due on Kafka's Metamorphosis tomorrow. Come on, let's get out of here," Kim said with a smile, taking Ron's hand.
Drakken grumbled loudly as the two teenagers left his lair. The grumbling faded as the roar of distant jetpacks kicked in, and by the time the sound had faded, he was grinning broadly and even chuckling to himself in a rather mellow remix of his usual maniacal laugh.
You think you're all that, Kim Possible, he chortled to himself, but you fell for it!
"Bwa..uh... ohhh, mooooom!" Ron mumbled blearily. "I don't feel good... I'm gonna stay home today..."
He tried to piece together last night's events. Another routine foiling of Dr. Drakken- another routine retreat from searing plasma on his part-followed by escape and a moonlit flight home. Or had he just dreamed that last part? His head was pounding too hard to remember.
"Mom! Check if I have a fever! I promise I'm not gonna do that lightbulb trick again. I don't have to go to school, do I?"
"You're not going anywhere."
"Aw, thanks Mom, you're the best," Ron said. Wait, had his mother always had such a deep, villainous voice? He woke the rest of the way up in a hurry, to find himself face to face with a Drakken who looked far too cheerful.
"Oh, great." From the feel of it, he was strapped down securely in a spreadeagled position. "I had to get knocked out and made to sleep on a metal grille again. I'm gonna have major grille face all day now. KIM!"
His cry bounced off the walls of the confinement chamber, distorted by the echo. No windows. A pair of stainless steel, double-reinforced doors that were probably thicker than he was tall. A dozen heavily-armed henchman stationed around the room.
Kim might even have to break a sweat for this one.
"Your friend can't help you now, uh... you." Drakken said with a smirk. "As far as she knows, her insipid little... Robert? Roger? As far as she knows, her insipid little sidekick is on the way back to Middleton with her."
"My name is Ron Stoppable!" Ron countered angrily.
Drakken seemed to find this especially amusing. "Is it really?" he sneered, holding a mirror up in Ron's face. Ron gaped in shock-and in the mirror, a familiar pale-green face gaped back at him.
"I'm... Shego? Wait, why am I Shego?" Ron exclaimed. "Okay, I really think I would remember something like that!"
Drakken chuckled. "I've perfected the mind-switching device. I even fixed that little issue with the voices, so the exchange is perfect!" He scratched his head thoughtfully. "Never understood why the last machine bothered to include that larynx-exchange plugin..."
"I have her voice too? 'La la la. I'm going to get you. Your plan stinks, Dr. D.' " Ron said experimentally. "I dunno, sounds a little off to me."
"Oh, everyone says that when they've been mind-switched into someone else's body and hear their voice in first-person." Drakken snapped. "Trust me, it's a perfect switch, all right."
"But...why do you want me in Shego's body?" Ron asked. There was really nowhere his mind could go with this that didn't end in sick-and-wrong territory.
"I don't, you buffoon, you're just going to stay there while I keep you chained up so you don't scratch the paint job, so to speak. It's Shego in your body that's the important thing." Drakken chuckled maliciously. "What better way to destroy Kim Possible than to replace her trusted sidekick with a viper in her bosom?"
"Hey, sidekick-slash-boyfriend, there's been an upgrade you know, try to stay in the loop here!-wait, what? What are you going to do to Kim?"
"Something...horrible! I'll give you more details when I've decided what it is. Don't worry... I assure you that'll you'll get full credit for all of Shego's hard work. Just think of it as copying off someone else's test paper. In a test of villainy!" He chortled with evil glee. "But now that you mention it, there IS something I've always wanted to do to Shego... something that won't leave a permanent mark! It's simply a matter of fetching, the, a-hem, proper equipment."
Drakken scuttled off gleefully, leaving Ron hanging.
Oh great, he thought. How am I going to get out of this one?
The noise of the jet engines was reduced to the distant roar of a faraway waterfall by the soundproofed walls of the cabin. Shego had expected this to be the most challenging part of the mission-getting used to her hijacked body, having to bluff her way through conversation with Kim on the ride home without tipping her off. Instead, Kim had dropped off into a nap almost as soon as they'd boarded.
Should've realized Kimmy would sleep on the plane, Shego chided herself. It's probably the only spot in Little Miss Perfect's busy schedule open for her to squeeze some Zs in between bathing the elderly and helping disabled puppies to recycle.
She petted Ron's gross little...naked rat thing. She didn't want to, but it was what Ron would have done, and she didn't want to blow her cover. Rufus was a pretty clever animal, and he'd actually witnessed the mind-switching device Version 2.0 in action. It was more subtle than the first one, involving two discrete chambers - all she'd had to do was chase Ron into one, quickly make for the other and hit both the 'transfer' and 'knockout gas release' buttons simultaneously. Presto-unconscious Ron-in-Shego in one chamber, Shego-in-Ron in the other ready to 'escape' by 'luckily' happening on the keycode that would open the door. She doubted that it would have been clear to the naked eye what had happened, let along to the naked mole rat's eye.
Still, he was clever...
She considered quickly opening the door a crack and just popping him out over the ocean. She decided against it. Odds were Kimmy was a light sleeper.
Drakken returned to the prison cell, cheerfully wielding a washable magic marker. "I am going to draw such a mustache on -"
He looked around at the plasma-scarred walls of the room, the groaning henchmen nursing their burns, the melted remains of the confinement rack... and the equally twisted wreckage of the door opposite him.
His face fell. "Ahhhh, that's right, the powers stay with the body. Oh, drat, I think I made a boo boo."
Shego landed lightly on the front lawn, removing her jump helmet and instinctively shaking her head to straighten a mane of black hair that was no longer there.
"Wow. Nice landing, Ron!" Kim said cheerfully as she alit.
"Uh... right. Thanks!" Shego responded. It hadn't taken her long to get used to Ron's body, and while he wasn't nearly as strong as she was, he wasn't in bad shape either, Naco addiction notwithstanding. She'd landed gracefully. Too gracefully for Ron.
Maybe I should pretend to get tangled in my 'chute, she told herself. Just to be on the safe side.
"Uh, so, Kim." she started. "Y'know, I haven't even started on that Kafka paper. Maybe I could hang out here for a while, you could, uh, write me up a little somethin' somethin'... yo?" She must do all his homework. It's the only way he's still in school, Shego thought.
"'Kafka paper'?" Kim said, rolling her eyes. "Oh, honestly Ron, you'd think you'd at least pay enough attention in class to know what the homework is even if you're not going to do it."
"Yeah, I just, uh ... huh?"
"There's no paper, silly. You think I wanted to tell Drakken all about our plans for tonight? So not!"
Shego stopped herself from asking 'what plans?' just in time. "Right, just got a little mixed up, yo."
Kim took Shego's hand. The redhead's hand felt tiny in Shego's unfamiliarly big and pink one. "It's not often that Mom, Dad and the tweebs are all away overnight. Come on!"
Shego tried not to let her increasing anxiety crack through the carefully-planned facade of vapid Ron-ness. What plans!?
This is so wrong, Ron told himself. I can't believe I'm catching a ride back to Middleton with... with...
"Thanks again for the lift, Killigan."
"Don' mention it, lassie!" Duff Killigan replied. " 'Twas the least I could do for ye after that time ye, er, 'acquired' history's first golf ball from the tomb of Lord Angus Titleist for me!"
"Er, it was just a little grave robbing. No big," Ron improvised, scooting as far over in his seat as he could. As long as he was in this body, he just didn't trust a middle-aged man in a kilt.
The golf-ball shaped helicopter broke through the clouds and emerged into the clear, cold night sky. Ron wrapped his arms around himself and shivered, trying to keep warm without putting a hand on anything he shouldn't. Would it be cheating if they're mine?, he wondered.
"But ye still haven't explained why ye needed an emergency pickup from your own lair." Killigan asked.
"Uh, that. Yes. Hahaha!" The laugh was unusually high-pitched and girlish, and quite unlike anything he'd ever heard from the real Shego. "Our hovercar broke down, see, and so I'm on the way to Middleton to jack that new top-secret prototype Kim's d... Dr. James Possible has been working on."
"I have'na hairrd of any top-secret prototype," Killigan said suspisciously.
"Well, duh! Top secret, hello?" Ron said sarcastically.
"And I suppose tha's why ye put out your little distress call t' every villain in a five-hundred-mile radius? Because it's a secret?" Killigan clucked his tongue. "I hate t' say it t' a lass with a complexion lovely as the linka of bonnie Scotland hairrself, but I think your employer's brains are rubbin' off on ye."
"Well...but...I'm in a hurry! We need that prototype to... rob...some orphans. Tomorrow. Drakken was very insistant. And you were the first ride to come along!"
Actually, Killigan had been the second villain to arrive. Motor Ed was still lying unconscious on Drakken's roof, under his own jet-powered motorcycle. Ron shuddered. Some lifts just weren't worth the cost.
"Take the controls for a moment, would ye?" Killigan asked. "I've got ta make a wee trip ta the Nineteenth Hole."
He headed towards the little room in the back of the copter. Ron looked at blinking panels of light, each with its own mysterious meaning.
"So, Mom's at this big neurology conference-the biggest brains in brains will be there, she said. She won't be back until Wednesday."
"Uh... huh."
"And Dad's practically been living at the office lately. Seriously. Sleeping bag and everything. I think he's finishing up some big new top-secret prototype or something."
"Riiight."
"And the tweebs are at Space Camp. I know, I remember what happened last time too, but Mom made them swear they wouldn't 'improve' any NASA property before she'd even consider letting them go back. So they're out of my hair for the week."
"So, it's just us then," Shego said, gulping uncomfortably. "Got it."
It felt strange to be between a poofy blanket and a comfy couch in the Possible living room. It was even stranger that Kim was bustling about in the kitchen and chatting casually with her arch-nemesis.
"That's right, just you and me alone tonight!" Kim said brightly, emerging with a tray of lemonade and snack cookies. "Finally we'll get the chance to do what we've been waiting to do all this time."
"Right! That...thing!" Shego said desperately. She could feel a blush beginning to creep across Ron's freckled cheeks.
"I mean, I guess we could have done it in my room whenever, but then we'd have to worry about someone walking in on us," Kim continued, taking a spot next to Shego on the couch. "Major humiliation!"
"Oh, uh, yeah, definitely." Shego tried to scoot away without making it too obvious.
Kim nodded. "Especially since, you know, it's totally not on the list of approved activities for our age group!"
"Well, you'd be surprised..." Shego was running out of scooting room, and those big green eyes kept staring at her.
"I mean, it was cute when we were five, but now..."
"When we were huh what now?" Shego yelped. "Wait, what were we talking about again?"
"Ron, you can't have forgotten," Kim said with a smile. She produced a remote and expertly brought the TV and its attendant media systems to life. "Come on! This screening of Cuddlebuddies: The Movie is officially on."
"Oh, of course! Haaa, I ...love... the Cuddlebuddies movie." Shego said in relief. Situation green.
"I know, right? Everyone thinks it's completely dorky, and I guess it is, but when Pandaroo uses the power of love to melt the evil Floog, it just gets me, right here, you know?" Kim grinned. "You're the only one who ever enjoyed it on the same level I do. If the tweebs or ... or Bonnie ever found out we're fans..."
"No problem." Shego put her arms behind her head and relaxed. "It's all 'gravy' for the Ron-ster monster, yo. My lips are sealed like superglue, diggity dog."
At least until you fall asleep and I've got free reign to dig up all your dirty little secrets, Kimmy. It wasn't hard to return Kim's smile. A week from now you'll be wishing that your embarassing taste in movies was the worst thing the world knew about you.