Authors Note: Believe it or not, I am back. It's been a lot longer than originally planned, thanks to a couple of fairly major illnesses that have dragged on the better part of nine months now, through the end of last year and on to this one. That said, thanks to GerbilHunter for the encouragement that helped me get back up on this crazy horse and start again.
Updates probably won't be quite as frequent as last time (unless of course, inspiration strikes), as I'm still working through illness and work, but I do have a solid foundation pre-written and 80% ready to go. I hope you'll join me on the journey, though.
Like the last story, this is rated M. It includes mature themes, violence, character death(s), and sexual content.
Standard Disclaimer: The various characters from the Kim Possible series are all owned by Disney. All registered trade names property of their respective owners. Cheap shots at celebrities constitute fair usage.
Previously, in Kim Possible: Shadow Plays:
Gotta… find… Kim… Shego thought unsteadily a few moments later, pulling herself upright, and looking into the car, seeing no sign of the redhead, but noticing that the windshield had been smashed - outwards, she realised with a nauseous ball forming in her stomach at the implication.
"KIM!" she screamed.
A faint groan floated back to her, through the ringing in her ears, from further up the road, and Shego blinked in surprise as Kim slowly sat up from where she had been lying on the verge, and she was beyond thankful that she'd insisted Kim keep her battlesuit on underneath her street clothes. The black suit looked torn and scratched, and though it seemed to have activated quickly enough to protect her from catastrophic injury, she guessed Kim was stunned from the impact of hitting the roadside signpost that had folded around her head.
Shego took a desperate half step towards her, forgetting for a moment her broken leg, and she went down screaming again, as the ringing in her ears finally cleared enough for the sound of the helicopter hovering over them to finally penetrate. As she rolled onto her back and looked up, a pair of soldiers in black body armor descended from the helicopter, their guns trained in her direction, but rather than drop on her, they landed on either side of Kim. One bent to pick the unresisting form up into his arms, and suddenly they were lifted back into the sky again.
"NO!" Shego screamed, but she couldn't force herself up anymore, all her strength was gone and and her vision was fading to black again. She only had breath for one final scream. "KIMMIE! NOOOOO!"
KP KP KP
In a dark cavern half the world away a pair of eyes that were normally hazel but were now flaring a bright blue behind the closed lids suddenly snapped open, pouring blue-white light out into the cave.
"Stoppable-san?" a confused man's voice asked.
There was no response for a moment, then a newer blinding flare of brilliant blue light suddenly lit the cave, revealing a beautiful grotto with crystalline stalagmites and stalactites, each outcropping reflecting the new light in a thousand different directions, turning the entire cavern blue with rippling light that flickered and danced.
The source of the new light was a sword which had appeared from out of nowhere, and as it settled slowly into an open hand, blue flames ran joyfully up the sword like waves unleashed from the simple hilt.
"Ron-kun?" a soft, feminine voice asked, then without warning there was a thunderous roaring sound that was vaguely like the cry of a thousand monkeys, and then man holding the sword uttered a single word.
"Kim."
Then he promptly disappeared in another burst of the blinding blue light, and the cave fell back into darkness.
KP KP KP
And now, the continuation..
Kim Possible: Shadow Wars.
The beach was perfect in every way. Peaceful. Idyllic. Serene.
As the girl on the beach woke up and shielded her eyes from the sun, she looked around her.
Blazing white sand met cool azure blue water, the sand stretching for miles in both directions. Little rolls of water were slowly marching up and back down the beach, the rustling of their charge and retreat merging with the noise of the island that lay behind her. The surf, the wind in the leaves of the trees, the cries of the birds circling above, the shuffling of the animals at the edge of the forest, it all formed a veil of distracting white noise that drowned out the occasional momentary flickers of disruption that threatened to break through the peace that surrounded the beach.
Everything was perfect, just like it was supposed to be.
Just like it was every day she woke here on the sand, and every night she went to sleep on it... and so every day she stayed. Sometimes alone… sometimes not. For reasons she couldn't put her finger on, she knew she wasn't alone right now.
"Everything okay, Princess?" a voice came, and she looked to her right.
Her occasional companion had returned from wherever she sometimes vanished to.
A woman strode slowly towards her, swaying her hips side to side, the hypnotic movements sucking in the attention of the girl lying on the sand again, just like they did every time the woman appeared. Her long black hair fluttered lazily in the slight wind as she closed, and the contrast between her alabaster white skin and the the black bikini she wore was highlighted by the sun beating down-
- it should be green her skin should be green this is wrong -
The girl who had woken looked around again as a tingle went through her, a tingle that said wrong, but that she could not understand. She.. she didn't remember her name, and she didn't know the name of her companion.. she knew that should have scared her, but she felt an overwhelming tiredness settle upon her as she tried to think about it.
This. Isn't. Real.
The thought coalesced in her mind just as the other woman flopped down to an oversized beach towel - black and white -
it should be black and green this is wrong.. how do I know it should be black and green?
"Not thinking about leaving me, are you, Princess?" the woman asked with a smile, reaching over and putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. "You're safer here, you know. I won't ever hurt you like she will. I'm the perfect version that only exists in here."
In here?
"That's right, in here. The safe place." The other woman laid back on the towel and stretched out, her flexing proving an immense distraction, but as her words finally registered, the girl understood.
Something was wrong. This wasn't a dream.. this was something else. She was sure of it.
"You're getting so close, Pumpkin. Just a little bit further."
She couldn't even remember her name. But she did suddenly remember the other woman's.
"Sh… Shego?"
The other woman nodded, and sat up slowly.
"I'm sorry about what comes next, Princess. It's not something we - either version of us - wanted for you. But there's something only you can do... and to do it right, you need to see this."
"Shego, what's going on? Why aren't you.."
"Me?" she finished the question with a wry smile. "It's complicated. Ask me about it sometime later.. it's not a pretty subject."
"I don't understand."
"You will, Princess. You will soon, and wish you didn't. Now.. stand back a bit. Like I said, I wish you didn't have to see this, but…"
Before she'd even finished speaking, the instantly familiar green plasma had lit around her hands, but instead of not having any affect on her own skin as usual, the girl watched in horror as the perfect pale skin slowly darkened and eventually cracked open, luminescent green blood oozing from the cracks until the flesh underneath burnt too and started to fall off, slowly dripping to the sand, where it sizzled.
She screamed, but the burning figure of Shego only laughed maniacally as the green grew stronger, racing up her arms and burning more of her away, before it flared brilliantly and encompassed her whole body. In seconds, what had been a beautiful woman was a skeleton surrounded in dancing green flame, with two green orbs for eyes and a rictus grin from the skull.
"What's your name, kid?" the skeleton shouted over the rush of its plasma and the sizzling sound of the burning flesh spread on the ground around it. "You gotta remember that if you wanna wake up."
The overpowering smell of the burning flesh forced its way up her nostrils and triggered her gag reflex, and she took a half dozen steps back from the green pyre in fear as it seemed to rise even higher.
"C'mon, Princess, time's a-wastin! Tell me your name!"
She tried as hard as she could to remember her name, reaching out through every memory she had, but none of them seemed to fit properly, and in a fit of panic, she turned and ran up the beach.
Around her, the day turned to night, and then flickering green raced ahead of her on either side. In the trees it set fire to everything in its path, and the panicked cries of birds and animals alike were cut off by the thunderous explosions of tree trunks exploding as their sap was superheated. Over the ocean, it flash boiled the water and then the steam was itself consumed by the plasma. The close patches of coral on the ground were scorched to carbon, and the sand where water was no longer present was melted into glass.
And yet she ran, as behind her maniacal laughter rang out, followed by a mocking shout.
"It doesn't matter where you run, Red… this is going to happen now. You can't escape this!"
Ahead of her, in the distance, a massive flare of green stopped her in her tracks, shielding her eyes. With growing horror, the green pillar of fire in the distance took a familiar shape - a mushroom cloud - and then she fell to her knees and flash after flash on the horizon sucked all will to run from her and she sank to her knees.
What power was this? What could do this?
"I could, Princess. That's what I'm trying to tell you. You always guessed what I was capable of.. it's going to happen now. I told you, you can't stop this. It's impossible."
A hand landed on her shoulder, skeletal and lit with green plasma, but for some reason it didn't hurt her, didn't do anything to her.
The girl on her knees snapped her head up to stare at the green-shrouded skeleton, and the defiant glare in her eyes actually forced it to take a step backwards.
"No, no it's not. Because I'm Kim Possible."
The moment she said the words, the beach wavered, then snapped back into focus, it's normal pristine self, and she was lying back on the sand on her side, staring at Shego - green again Shego! - who was lying on her back. As Kim reached a hand out to touch her, Shego's head rolled over to her, and Kim fought the instinctive flinch as she saw the twin green burning orbs that filled the sockets where her eyes should have been.
"Help me, Kimmie. Please! Make them stop hurting me… Please help me!"
KP KP KP
A/N: Soo, a shortish chapter to get back into the swing of things. I hope you enjoyed it.