-- they all belong to the Mouse! c disney an all that.
Fire, Air and Steel.
Prologue.
"KP! Watch out!" Kim ducked under a piece of flying debris that another explosion had sent in her direction. Usually it took some time for Dr. Drakken's machinery to blow up after Ron or Rufus had hit the self destruction button that the mad scientist invariably placed on all his inventions. Not this time though, the secret lair was rapidly crumbling around them while a series of explosions thundered through it.
"Ron! I'm ok, where are you?" Cursing to her self while trying to make her way through the piles of shattered concrete and twisted steel she called out to Ron and hoped for an answer to help her find him faster. "Ron! We need to get out of here!" Another explosion shook the lair. This sitch was going south, fast.
"KP! Over here, Shego is with me! We're trapped" A ball of green plasma came rolling across the ceiling over Kim's head, obviously aimed in her general direction as a flare to show her the direction.
Spotting the two through a grid of steel girders in the pile of rubble that was blocking her way Kim quickly convinced her self there was no obvious way around it and dug out her lipstick laser from a pocket. She knew it would be too slow cutting the steel to make her way to them in time, but there were no other options left to her.
Frantically setting to work cutting enough girders out of the barrier between then to get through Kim had time to get an overview over the room ahead of her.
Shego was spectacular of course, even if she did have the look of a cat trapped in a empty oil drum that someone where hammering on, while she was blasting the larger pieces of concrete that were raining down from the ceiling out of the air. Spotting Dr. Drakken who was covering under a console she dismissed him for now as being out of immediate danger and instead directed her attention to Ron who seemed uncharacteristically calm considering the situation. Ducking and weaving around the flying debris, his trademark clumsiness gone.
Kim realised that Ron had been able to call on his mystical monkey powers and that they were now guiding him as he almost danced around the flying debris. She sighed imagining how much of a boost to the team her partner would be if only he had full control of those. Not that he wasn't valuable to her as he was, being able to trust him to always have her back no matter how scared of a situation he was, was worth more to her that any amount of fighting prowess in the world, even if he did screw up now and then.
Satisfied that none of them were in immediate danger, well not more than they could handle at least, Kim returned her attention to her work.
"Shego!"
"Princess?" Shego gritted her teeth blasting another chunk of roof out of the air while trying to catch Kim's words.
"This is too slow, I won't get through fast enough! Can you help me cut it!"
Shego winced as she considered the distance between her and Kim, the ceiling looked even more unstable over there than it did out here where they were and she was hesitant to venture into that area. But Kim had shown again and again a knack for escaping even the worst death traps the combined minds of her enemies could come up with and as much as Shego hated to admit it, she was probably their best bet for making it out of this stupid situation intact "I'm so going to have a little chat with Dr. D. when we get out of here!"
Still blasting Shego started to make her way towards Kim with Ron close on her heels. "Coming Princess!" She winched when a length of steel pipe came into view deflecting one of the smaller pieces of debris before it could make a real mess out of her face. "I'm definitely starting to see why Kim keeps this one around."
Shego had been genuinely surprised, fully expecting Ron to do his usual headless chicken number as the lair started to cave in on itself, panic, lose his pants and run off to get himself killed somehow. Ok, maybe not killed, for all the clumsiness he usually showed he had the survivability of a cockroach. Drop a tower on his head and he would crawl out of the ruins a bit later, end of the world, and you'd find him last man standing. After all she had seen him get out of impossible situations before, but she hadn't actually expected him to be helpful in doing so. Instead he had just gotten this really calm look to his face, almost like he was meditating or in a trance and had relaxed into an obviously martial arts inspired defensive stance.
Shego had quickly realised the benefit of working together rather than against each other as she started blasting the largest chunks of falling ceiling into dust while Ron protected her from the smaller, but no less lethal projectiles that were the results of her own blasts and minor explosions that were still sending shockwaves through the remains of the lair.
Not one to look a given horse in the mouth Shego filed her thoughts away for later and refocused on the situation. Kim had kicked one girder out of the way and started to cut into the next one. Still mainly concentrating on the ceiling Shego was just about to ask where Kim needed the first cut as the opposite wall bellowed out in one last huge explosion.
Shego felt Ron's hand push her out of the way a fraction of a second before a razor sharp serrated piece of bloody metal embedded itself into one of the steel girders in front of her and she felt Ron's body collapsing onto hers. The shockwave that followed close behind picked them up and forcefully threw them into the pile of concrete and steel that Kim had been trying to get through.
Dazed the last thing Shego heard before passing out briefly was the impact when one of the larger construction beams in the pile came down on the trapped form of Kim Possible with a sickening crunch.
"Shego! Shego!" Shego came back to consciousness to the sound of Drakken's high pitched voice calling out her name. Groaning she rolled the warm body off her back and prioritising her situation ignored Drakken's steadily more desperate sounding voice while scanning the room.
The lair seemed stable although the groaning of overstressed construction beams and sharp cracks of concrete off in the distance convinced her that this was only temporary. At least the remainder of the ceiling and the mountain above it seemed to have come to a tentative agreement with gravity and seemed happy to stay put for the moment.
That sorted Shego did a quick pad down of herself ensuring there were no major broken bones or serious bleeders before turning to the unconscious body next to her. Checking Ron's pulse she allowed her self small sigh of relief when she found it beating slow but strong.
"Kimmie? Princess?" Shego called out while she checked Ron's backside for any major wounds before carefully turning him over to repeat the investigation on his front.
"Kim! Are you ok in there? Answer me dammit!" Shego ripped Ron's shirt open to do a quick but thorough examination of his stomach, looking for signs of inner bleeding when she didn't see any critical external wounds.
"Uugh... Shego?"
Shego breathed an even larger sigh of relief hearing Kim's voice coming out of the rubble. It seemed someone had just removed a medium sized mountain from her heart.
"Hi Princess, how're you doing in there? Hang on I'll get you out in a minute." Finishing up examining Ron's stomach Shego lifted her eyes to his face to check for head injuries and froze with an audible gasp.
"Not too good, I'm pinned down and I think my legs are broken Shego." A whisper of movement followed immediately by a subdued cry of pain filtered through the rubble. "Yeah, definitely broken-- Shego-- is Ron out there? Is he ok?"
Shego swallowed trying to get her voice under control still it broke as she answered "Yeah, he'll live Princess." She looked to the bloodstained piece of debris that had been flung by the last explosion with enough force to embed itself into steel. If the sidekick hadn't pushed her out of the way, that sliver would have gone right through her skull. Shego lowered her eyes looking back to Ron and the price he had paid for her life.
Shego didn't really consider her self soft or emotional vulnerable, but tears flowed freely from her green eyes as she took in the damage the explosion powered projectile had done. It was a clean cut, but that was little comfort when it started at the upper left cheekbone cutting deeply before exiting shallower at the upper right side of his right eye; a neat clean cut that would leave him in the dark forever.
"Stoppable." Shego whispered her fists clenched and her cheeks wet. "I owe you; I owe you so big that I don't think I will ever be able to make it up to you."
"Dr. D! Over here now!" Shego bellowed from the top of her lungs.
"But Shego..." The blue man whimpered from his position of relative safety under the console.
"If I have to come over there and get you; I will kill you! It will hurt! Lots!"
Scrambling out of his bolthole the mad scientist hurried over to Shego. Mad? Maybe, stupid? Not so much and Drakken had long ago learned to recognise Shego's 'not open for debate' voice. Sometimes he wondered who was the boss and who was the henchwoman in this little business of theirs, but never while she was using that voice, avoid dying now, grumble about her lack of respect later.
Shego dragged him down next to her and he gulped seeing the laceration to Ron's face. "Help him Dr. D." Shego's voice was still in 'ready to inflict a lot of pain' mode so Drakken decided to let his 'but I'm not that kind of doctor' argument drop unspoken. She lowered her voice so she was sure Kim wouldn't hear her. "Make sure to have it covered up, so she doesn't see that when I get her out." Drakken just nodded.
Shego stood and lit her fists. "Kimmie! Ron is going to be ok, I'm coming for you now." Then she tore into the pile of steel and concrete with far more force than was probably wise.
Kim found herself in a rather awkward situation, normally having your arc nemesis yell your name in combination with 'I'm coming for you' would be considered bad. When you were also pinned down, wounded and unable to fight 'bad' could probably safely be elevated to 'oh shit'.
Right now, as she heard plasma cutting into steel and concrete, metal and stone being forcefully ripped out and thrown to the floor Kim wasn't really worried about that part though. There had always been a certain -honesty- in her fights with Shego and Kim couldn't really imagine Shego taking advantage of the situation, it would just seem... cheap somehow.
No, Kim was far more worried about Ron; Shego might have told her he was going to be ok but her tone of voice suggested otherwise and she called him Ron. Shego never used his first name; it was always 'sidekick', 'stoppable' or 'buffoon', never Ron. Yes, Ron might be alive, but he was definitely not 'ok' in any sense of the word, of that much she was sure.
Kim grasped again at the beam that held her legs pinned, she made a very conscious effort to not think about how small the gap between the beam and the floor was, certainly much less than it should have been considering her legs were somehow fitting through that same gap. Her desperate need to get out of there and get to Ron lend her strength as she struggled to lift the beam off her legs. The beam however was totally unimpressed.
Hammering her fist against the steel keeping her trapped Kim let out a wordless scream of frustration. "I am Kim Possible! I do not –do- helpless!"
Outside Kim's scream spurred Shego to up her pace even more "It's ok princess I'm coming for you, almost there now! It won't be long!" She had never heard Kim scream like that and she wasn't sure if it was in pain or anger. She did know that she had to get -her- princess out of there now and it could only take too long!
"Shegooo? Could you please fill me in on what part of the plan saving Kim Possible and erh--"
"Stoppable! Ron Stoppable!" both women shouted as one.
"Yeah... that, fits in?" Dr. Drakken had finished tending to Ron's wound, rinsing out blood, dirt and grit as well as he could hoping to lessen the risk for infections and had carefully wrapped a bandage around his head. Both Shego's order, the risk of further contamination and the future wrath of Kim Possible if he didn't do his very best to help-- Ronald was it?-- made it prudent.
"And that comes from a man whose last doomsday device was pretty much a fancied up cardboard box with some junk electronics thrown in, just so he could test his latest strategies against Team Possible." Shego's voice regained some of its sarcasm as she answered her employer.
"That was research!" Drakken whined. "And I thank you for not discussing our evil motivation in front of our mortal enemies!"
"Yeah, well Dr. D." Shego couldn't help letting a little smile into her voice this time, her hand had just touched Kim's leg. "You and I both have a lot of reasons for being in this line of business." She managed to slide a little further into the pile this time grasping on tightly to a hand that came forward to meet hers. "But coldblooded killing was never one of them." Keeping her hand firmly clasped to Kim's she dragged her self forward. "And let's face it Dr. D. Without these two." Shifting her weight Shego lifted her free hand and lit it up to look down at Kim's tear streaked face and smiled. "This gig wouldn't be half as fun!"
"Hey there Kimmie--" -Pumpkin- "lets get you out of here shall we?"