Chapter 2
The year was twenty thirty four. Professora Vinchenza Gomez was celebrating her two hundredth birthday. Well no one on Mars knew it was her two hundredth birthday, but it was a birthday and she was celebrating it withsome very expensive home-grown drink, along with her friends on the faculty of Mars University
Which was a huge misnomer, MU was a university in name only. It offered masters courses only in two fields, geology and in astrophysics, and was smaller than most community colleges on Earth. But, since it was the ONLY institute of higher education on the red planet; it was generously talked up as a University, and Gomez as professor even though she lacked a more than a bachelors' degree.
Then again, considering just about every "teacher" at the three elementary schools on Mars had learned from her, she'd probably earned the title if not the sheep skin.
At this point the well-preserved teacher had to stop, and consider the drink she had been served. Not because of who had served it, but because she was dead certain she was seeing things. No, no pink elephants or blue Lorwardians; no she was certain that Kim Possible was sitting, drinking a Martian Microbrew on the other side of the modest bar.
Sixteen year old Kim Possible.
Who in another life she had hung out over a lagoon full of sharks.
A quarter century before.
Which meant that Kimmie should be at least in her forties.
Vinchenza shook her head, hard. Then she looked at the Martian Scotch she was drinking for her birthday and wondered if the fact that it was distilled in 1/3 gravity had something to do with it. Or perhaps the genetically altered rye grown in the iron-rich Martian soil.
Whatever it was, Vinchenza slammed the shot back and turned the glass upside down over the bottle, signaling she was done with the rare, potent, and expensive drink. She was obviously seeing things. The last time she'd seen someone wearing that face, its previous owner had been sixty years dead, and she was pretty well certain that Kim Possible was still alive. Mars wasn't that remote that news of the first woman to break the light barrier being dead wouldn't make it all the way out here pretty quickly.
So yes, obviously she was seeing things. And feeling the effects of irradiated Martian alcohol. Vinchenza excused herself for some fresh air; fresh being a relative term considering it was all pressurized and regulated by computer and genetically modified plants… but it was "outside" of the bar, in the larger underground lava tube which the township of Burroughs inhabited.
"Professora Gomez?"
Vinchenza almost leapt out of her skin when she turned to see who had called and found Kim Possible looking up at her. Catching her breath, she looked hard at the redheaded apparition before her, willing away the alcohol.
No, the eyes were wrong… a bit too almond shaped, and the skin was too dark, less peach than olive tan.
"Yes?" She finally took a more calming breath, combing a hand over her undoubtedly red face.
Whatever the girl was about to say was interrupted by someone behind Vinchenza, "Sim, what are you… Oh. My. God."
Now that was a voice Vinchenza knew on the first syllable. She turned slowly and looked.
At first she saw nothing. Then she looked a bit lower…
In a wheel chair in front of her sat Kim Possible. And she was indeed the mature woman Vinchenza had expected when she had seen the other, younger girl inside the bar.
Apparently Kim was just as gobsmacked on looking up at the older, but younger-looking, woman. After a long moment, the elder redhead shook herself, "Sim. Go back into the bar. No more beer… for either of us."
"Huh? Why?" the younger version scowled.
"Because you're sixteen and don't know how to handle it, and because it's obviously going to my head too" Kim frowned at her daughter, knowing all too well how the younger woman could react to being told no. "Besides, your grandmother expects us both to be in there when she gets back from her buggy ride, and I need to have a conversation with… the professor."
Vinchenza watched a typical petulant teenage expression pass over "Sim's" face, but the adolescent eventually complied and left.
"Of all the gin joints, on all the planets, you had to walk into this one…" the Martian professor rolled her eyes in a way she had not done in a quarter century, "Well, roll into. And with a mini-possi to boot."
Kim flicked a few switches, and her chair metamorphosed into an upright standing rig, bringing her closer to eye level with her former nemesis and friend, "Yeah, well count me as shocked too. I roll out here to find my daughter talking to an older woman, and it turns out to be you?"
An uncomfortable moment passed between the two. Finally, Vinchenza broke it, "Sixteen and beer? That SOOOO does not sound like any daughter of Kim Possible I'd expect."
Kim shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest, "Well, it's legal here... and her father denies her nothing. There's no way I could have stopped her. That, I'm sure, you understand."
"Yeah believe me, if there's one thing I know, it's stubborn redheads," the teacher smirked and mimicked Possible's pose, "So…'Sim'?"
"Short for Simara. A variation of Samara." Kim smiled a bit, "It means Protected by God. Ron gave it to her."
"Funny I don't see a bit of him in her," Vinchenza shook her head a bit, looking at the door she had passed through. "Granted I only saw her for about thirty seconds up close…"
"Because Ron is not her father," Kim frowned firmly, chewing her lip. "God parent, yes... father, no."
"Oh?" the ageless teacher inclined her head at that.
"And I am not telling you who is… not now at least. Shego, why the hell are you here? On Mars?!"
"It's Vinchenza…" the woman corrected, "Shego died a long time ago. Just like Vivetty, and Victoria and all the others. I left that trunk with you for a reason."
"To explain to me why you left, I get that…" Kim scowled, "That really hurt, you know."
The brunette sighed and frowned, "No, not to explain to you… well not JUST to explain to you… to cut ties with Shego. Kimmie, that catsuit, that identity, that lifestyle… It was the most addictive and fun thing I've done in a long time… I did Shego for over thirty years, and if I hadn't stopped there, I would have continued to do it. And it would have put me in danger… and Drakken, and even you."
"How!?" Kim barked at her former friend, "How could staying have been any more dangerous than you already were?"
"Because people would have figured out my secret… they would have come after me. After all my friends, just to learn it." The former Shego held herself self-consciously. "And there were other reasons…"
Kim scowled, looking hard at the former villainess and waiting for an explanation. Finally she huffed, angrily, "Fine… keep your secrets."
The chair slowly began to pivot to take Kim away, when Vinchenza reached out, stopping her, "Wait."
"What, Shego?"
"Grrr… damned stubbourn redheads…" the professor growled, "First, it's Vinchenza. It really is. I know you don't exactly understand why, but I am Vinchenza Maria Gomez."
"And?" Kim fixed the woman with a look.
"And I… I want to talk." She sighed reluctantly. "There's… there's things I need to get off my chest. Things I should have said twenty five years ago, but was too chicken shit to do. Things I need to say to finally say goodbye to Shego for good."
Kim gave her former foe a long, hard look, "I'm not sure I can get rid of Sim for that long. It's not like Mars has an over-abundance of public amenities to keep her occupied."
"Oh Kimmie kimme kimmie…" Vinchenza smirked, adopting a rather cocky pose, "You're talking to a pillar of Burroughs Township and Mars University. "If she's anything like you, all I have to do is ask her to do me a favour and ask some people to stand in her way…"
"God… twenty five years and you're still evil," Kim sighed, rubbing a hand over her face.
"Like I said," Vinchenza smirked, already falling back into old habits of taunting the redhead, "It was a very hard life to give up."
-Shego-
Just as Vinchenza had told Kim, it was relatively easy to arrange a series of distractions for "Sim" Possible. First was a tour of the modest facilities of MU, including a "stress test" from her own faculty and the Psych department. She had no doubt that a daughter of Kim Possible would pass it with flying colors… so much so in fact, that if she didn't have something far more important to do she'd set it up herself just to really test the kid's outer limits.
After that, Sim would be given the old prop wash treatment. She'd be asked by Professora Gomez's assistant to go and find some imaginary product for the teacher, a bucket of prop wash, a bottle of blinker fluid, a box of LaGrange points… It was a test the teachers liked to use to instill the importance of independent research, and pretty much everyone in Burroughs knew not to tell someone who came in asking for prop wash that there was no such thing but encourage them to look somewhere else.
Then there were other more minor things to occupy her; and obviously the young people on Mars rarely got to meet their kin from Earth, so answering questions would undoubtedly keep her unavailable as well. All in all, Vinchenza could have kept Simara busy the full twenty four point six hour Martian day if need be.
Taking a deep breath, she looked at the item in her hands. It was one of only two things she had brought with her from Earth that weren't the clothes on her back. And since she'd let her hair grow out a few years ago, she now needed it in the low Martian gravity.
She wondered what Kim would think; to see her long black hair once more held back by Miss Go's teal headband, as she pulled it on and slipped inside the Asimov hotel to look around.
She didn't need to look long, because the redhead was sitting in the modest lobby, looking for her in return.
Before Kim could say anything, Vinchenza held up a hand, smiling, "Miss Possible! A pleasure to see you after so long! Shall we dine in the bar, or would you prefer to take in the air of Burroughs?"
The once-teen heroine was stood up verbally by the uncharacteristic greeting, until she took note of the old teal headband. She considered the tall, bronze woman a moment. Finally, nodding, she sighed, "I'd like to go for a walk… or rather a roll."
One they were outside and relatively away from prying ears inside the pressurized volcanic cave system, Kim sighed again, looking up at the woman walking beside her, "I wasn't going to call you Shego. You didn't need to put on a show to keep me quiet."
"And how was I to know that?" Vinchenza smirked at her.
"You know me. And you know I can keep a secret when I need to."
"I knew you twenty five years ago. And given how you didn't seem happy to see me last night, I had my reasons to doubt your verisimilitude."
Kim sighed again and paused her powered chair's progress, "Okay, so I was a bit shocked… but look at it from my perspective… pretty much the entire human race believes you died in a fiery explosion twenty five years ago. I know the truth and even for me the old story is pretty deeply engrained… so to see you here… alive and well and hitting on my daughter?"
"Whoa whoa whoa whoa!" Vinchenza held up her hands defensively, "So not what happened. She got one word out of her mouth before you wheeled up and I was a bit dumb to even respond to that considering how much she freaking looks like you."
The redhead rubbed the bridge of her nose, sighing darkly, "Okay… that's… fair. I'm a bit over protective I guess."
"Like father like daughter huh?" The brunette smirked and shook her head, "I remember your daddy being more than a little concerned about you being around certain tall dark and handsome parties too…"
"Oh my god, you know?!" Kim paled noticeably in the sunlight piped into the cave from the surface.
"I know?" Vinchenza frowned, pursing her lips, "Kimmie, I was just joking about the time Junior showed up at your college and your father thought he was looking for you instead of m… waitaminute…"
Kim wouldn't meet the alien teacher's eyes now, and sighed deeply, "Yes. Junior is… is Sim's father."
"How in the hell…?"
"The same old way, Professora…" Kim rolled her eyes as she looked up at the former Shego, "Believe me… it's a… touchy subject. I had a wild drunken night with a Latin stud when I was twenty eight, and nine months later, I had a daughter."
"You… had a wild, drunken night…" the brunette openly disbelieved of the redhead seated next to her.
"Yes I did… it only takes one you know… or in my case four or five rounds…" Kim chuckled a bit darkly. "I was lonely, Ron was on a mission, Junior bought me dinner, and several glasses of some fancy red wine… He was… surprisingly charming."
"and you took Mister Toad's wild ride…" Vinchenza completed the thought, "Damn…"
"Well, it's not easy. Ron was not happy about who I had been with and what had become of it, even if we weren't together. And Sim's father, Junior… well… he and I have very different ideas about how to raise her. He's only slightly more mature now than back when you knew him. And he spoils her rotten, and it shows some in her personality."
"And you being the girl you are... excuse me, the woman you are, couldn't justify cutting him out of your life."
"Bingo." Kim sighed, leaning on the chair a bit, "Plus it's very difficult to say no to the Senior family fortune when you have a daughter to raise and can't hold down a regular job. And… I'll admit… the life style has its perks. It paid for this trip after all."
"And how did old man Senior feel about his precious boy consorting with his hero nemesis?" Vinchenza arched a brow at her old counterpart.
"Sim's Grandpa Senior passed away when she was two." Kim supplied after a moment, "Snow-boarding accident in the Alps, you know how he was. But I think having a granddaughter pretty much made him stop being a super-villain."
Vinchenza gave a dark shego'esque chuckle at thoughts of the old gentleman supervillain. "Hmmm… so, Kim Possible, the trophy wife…"
"Oh god no…" Kim shook her head hard slowly elevating the chair to its upright pose, "Never. There's a reason Sim is a Possible and not a Senior. Believe me, never try to tell a redhead who's just come through seventeen hours of labour that her daughter is going to have someone else's name. The police were called."
"On who?" the Professora chuckled and smirked, arching a brow.
"On both of us I think… I threatened to have all his felonies reinstated, he threatened to bring in his lawyers and take Sim… death rays were involved on both sides…" Kim shook her head in embarrassment. "Honestly… I'm hard on him, but he tries… hard. And the child support checks have never been late, even when I was on the moon ."
"He still a good lay?"
Kim went wide eyed at the question. After a long moment, she gave a small bark of laughter and shook her head, "I was drunk that night… but I remember being… satisfied. Beyond that, I couldn't tell you. Not that he hasn't tried."
Vinchenza smirked wickedly, "Yeah… I was surprised by him. We never did it… but he once told me… il suono di una donna in calore mi suscita."
Kim laughed instantly, "Yeah that sounds about right."
Vinchenza chuckled along with her old foe and friend for a moment. Then she considered her in whole, "Now… what about this?"
"This?" Kim looked down at the chair holding her up. "This is a… a reminder that I can do anything, but I'm not indestructible."
She began rolling forward again through the surprisingly well-lit cave beneath the Martian mountain, "A few months after Sim was born, I was back to work with Ron. Incidentally, he's as bad about spoiling Simara as Junior is. I swear if she wasn't my daughter she'd weight two hundred pounds with all the food Ron shows her and all the toys Junior buys her. Anyway…"
As they moved along, Kim related the tale, "A burning building, a bunch of kids who are crying and trapped by fire in the corner… Me with my battle suit and feeling twenty nine and invincible and righteous, I held up a collapsing beam until Ron came to help get them out with that goofey manner of his and some monkey magic."
The redhead looked up, considering the large fiber optics that brought light into Burroughs from the weak sun on the surface, "Well, My luck ran out that day… a flaming four by four wooden beam slipped out of my hands, knocked me over, and snapped both femurs through my suit."
Vinchenza hissed and winced. She'd had that experience herself, and it was decidedly… unpleasant. "So… if you were in the battlesuit?"
"That's the reason I have legs at all, most people don't get to keep their lower extremities when a three hundred pound flaming timber drops on them." Kim sighed as they traveled through the edges of the modest Martian town named for a long dead author, "I suppose I should clarify. I can walk… months of surgery and rehabilitation saw to that… but the nerve damage and the muscle damage are still there. I can't just run up the side of a building the way I used to, or pull off a triple backflip from thirty feet in the air. The suit does most of that work now. Here on Mars, well with the difference in the gravity, my legs just aren't quite up to the challenge of adjusting."
Vinchenza sighed darkly, feeling torn. She wanted to hold and to comfort the redhead… but she also wanted to do nothing of the sort for all the problems it would bring her. And then she realized this was all over a decade past.
"Okay… wow. I never heard about that."
"Not surprised… Wade and SSS worked hard to keep it quiet. If people knew that I was a gimp without the battlesuit I'd have twice the fight on my hands."
Again the brunette considered the redhead, shaking her head. This was the first time one of her old lives had come back… to know that people she associated with had moved on, had momentous occurrences in their lives… Before it had been a matter of lifetimes, and generations; between Lipskys and Possibles. Now it was much more personal.
"Damnit…"
"What?"
Vinchenza sighed darkly as they walked, "It's… a weird sensation… the thoughts… that I… that Shego could have been there. I could have held a burning beam up for hours and gotten nothing more than a suntan."
"Shego, we all have choices to make…" Kim reached out to the taller, darker woman.
"Not like me…" She sighed bitterly, "Kimmie… I know it's stupid to talk to you about this because it's outside of anything you've ever heard of."
"Oh, you mean like being turned into a small orange monkey, or having purple goo in every orifice to travel faster than the speed of sound… or spending seven hours on an alien warship with a man who had a pansy growing out of his ass?"
"Okay okay," Vinchenza held up her hands, breathing out, "Maybe it's not TOTALLY outside of your experience. I'm just… it's… weird… when I fell in love for the first time; there were books I could read to see that other people had felt the same way and I wasn't alone in the things I was experiencing. But this?"
"Well Everyone falls in love, She- Erm, Vinchenza…" Kim nodded as they continued again along the lava tube, "But I guess you're right, you're situation is kind of unique."
"Only four people like me… and they all have dicks," the brunette shook her head and smirked. "God, listen to me… I don't talk like this anymore, don't act like this anymore…"
"So what do you sound like and act like?" Kim inclined her head, making sure to stay on the paved path with the wheels of her chair. "I notice you're not green anymore."
"Yeah, well mostly it's makeup. Being here on Mars, the sun isn't so strong so I am not so powerful or as… green. Kind of like Ultra Guy that way. I'm a teacher, and I'm a deputy for the Sheriff's department… I'm a bit of a sop when you get a few Copernicus Coppers in me… and I've won the Karoke contest three years running with These Boots." The Professora commented as they traveled down the lava tube towards the large dome sealing the entrance to the cave system.
"You? Back to being a hero?" the elder Possible disbelieved. "A cop even?"
"Hey, Two hundred years is a lot of life experience…" the brunette supplied as they came to the large sideways-mounted dome, looking out of its several windows at the afternoon sky and the Martian summer beyond. "And a lot of skills to call on. Some I don't even remember I have till I use them. And here on Mars we all have to do multiple jobs… you'd have got on here just fine Miss-I-can-do-Anything. And incidentally, you didn't say happy birthday yesterday…"
"That was your birthday?"
"Yup, the big two oh oh… In Earth time at least," She smirked, "Since years are twice as long out here, it's hard to keep track. Eh… the joys of interplanetary living."
Kim shook her head as she too looked out at the desolate but colorful landscape beyond the dome, "You're right… no one ever wrote about those kinds of life problems…"
Vinchenza was about to respond, but then stopped, looking over her shoulder, "She even runs the same way you do… did… and I can't believe I can still hear that coming without looking."
"Mom, Miss Gomez? Do you two know each other?" the younger redhead approached them from behind a bit uncertainly, "I mean, this is the second time you two have been talking alone."
"Oh, she's good," Vinchenza imparted to her counterpart as they continued to look out at the view of Mars, "You didn't teach her that, did you?"
Kim simply shook her head at the vague question.
"What are you two talking about?"
"Oh, you can drop the act now, Spunky," the brunette sighed and turned to face the teen, "I know that you know who I am."
"Wha-?"
"Wow, that's really convincing… you could teach the kids around here a thing or two about shitting their parents…" the Professor rolled her eyes, her smile degenerating into a much more cutting smirk, "But like I said, the jig is up. I'll bet you even had mommy sold that this was just a college visit, didn't you?"
Beside her, Kim shook her head sadly, rotating her chair around, "Yes, she did… but now that you mention it, it really doesn't add up why my daughter would want to come all the way out to Mars to a small town school with no amenities and no athletics."
"I guess she was working reverse psychology on you. She knew you feared her going to a party school and wasting her college years away, so what better school to suggest than the one school in the human system where partying is all but impossible?" the Professora sized up the apparently cunning teen as she adjusted her teal headband.
"Uuuugh!" the younger redhead huffed in frustration, "What gave me away?"
"You over-played your hand." Vinchenza answered honestly, "You could have come to me at the school just fine as a prospective student, but you didn't; you ran me down at a bar, trying to introduce yourself. That by itself wouldn't have tipped me off, but you knew me by name and by sight. And you followed me out of the bar before introducing yourself, meaning you were waiting for something specific, me to be away from other people. Your mother didn't even know I was on this planet, but you did. And now here you are again, following us when you're supposed to be touring the school."
"Why, Sim?" Kim frowned at her troublesome daughter.
"Incidentally, I like that name," Vinchenza smiled, considering the teen, "Simara… Protected by God, Guardian… will suit you well if you continue into the family business."
"Because… Because only five people have ever fought my mom and won!" the redhead clenched her fists, "Two of them are the Lorwardians, Wormonga and Worhoq, and they're dead. Two more of them are ninjas at Uncle Ron's school, and they make a point of avoiding me."
"And that leaves… Shego," Vinchenza completed, shaking her head slightly, "Forget it, kiddo… she's dead too."
"Uh, no you're not…"
"You really don't know what you're talking about, Spunky…" the brunette shook her head, sighing, "Shego died before you were born."
"No!" Sim stamped her foot against the red paved block floor, "You are her! You're Shego!"
The reaction was instantaneous; Vinchenza reached across the distance and tapped the petulant girl on the forehead with her index finger. The teen crumpled to the ground instantly.
"Shego!"
"Don't. Don't make me do you too, Princess…" the stressed teacher glared at the middle-aged woman. "I can't have mouthy little brats running around screaming things that might raise questions. Besides, it's just a love tap, I've done them to you too. She'll wake up in a few minutes."
A few minutes later found the three women in an abandoned branch of the lava tube system of Burroughs. It was long, and wide, with a flat dirt floor and an overabundance of the fiber optic daylight.
"W- where are we?"
"Oh, you're awake?" Vinchenza looked at the girl as she blearily looked around, "Good. Thank your mother for driving you down here."
The teenaged redhead sheepishly climbed up and off of her mother's lap and stood back as the elder turned her chair around and stood up in it.
"She- Vinchenza, where is here anyway?" Kim looked around at the cave.
"It's called Fools' Gold," the professora looked around the well-lit area as she shook her head, "About ten years ago an investor paid Burroughs government to have this branch of the lava tubes pressurized and leveled and lit. Figured on using the area to farm grains to make whiskey and beer. The investor pulled out and moved his operation down to Asimov when he realized that in order to make enough booze to turn a profit he'd need about five times the area."
She clapped her hands as she returned to the two Possible women, "And since Burroughs population doesn't need any more living space or crop space of their own, here it sits. I figured it was the only place we could go to talk privately that didn't require a space suit and someone noticing us needing those suits."
"Now look, Spunky," She readdressed Kim's daughter with a more firm tone, "I don't know who you think you are… but Shego is dead. I gave up a lot of things to have my privacy and my peace out here, and I'm not about to have you threaten it. So you're going to tell me just what it is you want from me, and I'm going to give it to you so you shut up and go away…"
"…" Kim opened her mouth to redress her old foe, but had to stop and mentally correct herself, "Professora Gomez… that's my daughter you're taking to…"
"Which is the only reason I'm going to give her what she wants instead of putting a needle hole in her space suit and sending her out for a walk." The dark haired woman sighed, tapping a finger on her rigid headband. "Mars is a dangerous place and accidents happen here, and if she were just another college student looking for kicks one would happen to her. But since she's a Possible, One, I can't assume she'd actually succumb to such an accident, and Two, even if she did, more of you would come looking into her fate."
"You're still evil," Kim glared at the woman standing before them.
"No, I'm a pragmatist. Everyone on Mars is. Martian life is a hard life. But it's a life I enjoy. Kimmie… I'm not kidding you… I'm not evil, but I'm not…" The immortal teacher sighed, peeling out her headband and twisting it slowly back and forth, "Eh screw it. Kid, what is it you want from me?"
"Fight me."
"What…? I think the thin air is getting to you…"
"No!" Sim stamped her foot yet again, raising a bit of red martial dust, "I want to fight the woman who fought my mom to a stand-still!"
"Sim…" Kim shook her head, "Is that really what his is all about?"
"Seriously?" Vinchenza looked at the girl and shook her head, easing her fingers through her freed hair, "Your mom was right, you really are spoiled."
"No!" the girl glared at them both tears threatening at the corners of her eyes, "I'm supposed to be the prophesied daughter, the girl who can do anything! I have money, and I have power, and I have skill! What does any of it mean if I can't beat the people who beat my mom? If I can't prove it?!"
"Simara… you don't have to prove anything!" Kim shook her head sadly, "It's not important who I used to face… you have your own life to live and I hope to god you never have to face the things I did!"
"Listen to your mom, Simmy…" Vinchenza shook her head, "You don't want to have someone try to put a sexy exploding android in your bed on prom night like her old foes did… But… if this will make you happy, and I don't think it will… Well, let's see what you got. Just remember, Shego died twenty five years ago; I'm not that woman anymore and I haven't used those moves in a long time…"
The younger redhead sniffed and nodded, moving out into the open space of the cavern and striking a pose.
"Shego… if you hurt my daughter…"
"You'll what, roll over my toes?" Vinchenza snorted irritably as she walked out to face the teen, "And stop calling me Shego!"
The fight began predictably, with the immortal and the teenager circling one another, searching for an opening. The redhead found one first, leading with a series of rapid punches that put the professor quickly back on her heels and bruised her arms.
The brunette countered with some blocks and retook the initiative, hitting back hard. But after five minutes neither of them had really gained or lost any advantage. And Sim's youth and training were starting to tell; the redhead was young and in shape, while Vinchenza was no longer the mercenary soldier she had been.
Then she realized that that was the problem. She wasn't fighting, she was giving a demonstration. She was treating this like a sparring match. She wasn't even teaching Sim the moves Kim might have seen once upon a time.
Shego didn't spar or hold back. Well, if Simara wanted Shego…
"Seriously… this is all you got? Twenty five million miles just to prance around and piss on my shoes?" Vinchenza flattened her hand and slashed out with the tips of her fingers and her hardened nails.
Sim dodged backwards, but not fast enough, and felt her clothes get caught and sliced by the nails. Frowning, she stopped keeping inside with the taller woman. "I'm pretty disappointed if this is all you've are. My mom is the best, and this doesn't even count as a morning workout."
"All I am? Kid, this isn't even a fraction of what I am…. But if this is all you are, you owe your mother an apology, because it's fucking pathetic." The professor drove her fingertips forward, right at Sim's forehead.
The redhead ducked, and then yelped when the immortal's fingertips struck the rock behind her and threw off sparks.
"And another thing, you worthless little cum stain…" Vinchenza growled, slipping back into old roles, feeling old patterns return to her, searching for every weakness, and suddenly seeing them all, "I'm through playing games with you."
Suddenly the tempo of the fight, which had already been impressive, doubled. Punches followed kicks, pirouettes ended in back fists, and every breath came punctuated with an insult. Vinchenza Maria Gomez began to sink away, and Shego climb up and take her place.
"Look at you… the gravity here is one third of Earth's and you're already breathing hard! Stop sucking air!"
"What the hell was that? A punch? Your mother's dildo probably hits harder than that!"
"Oh, are there mosquitos in here, or was that what you call a kick?!"
"Oh come off of it spunky, you haven't landed a hit in thirty seconds… give it up now you little brat."
Sim glared daggers at Professora Gomez as she tried to catch her breath. Then she grinned to herself. She'd seen enough images of Shego fight in mom's archives. She knew what to expect, and what she expected was a lot of strength, clawed gloves, and fire. None of those things were happening.
Simara crouched and then, using the lowered gravity that the professor kept taunting her with, launched herself right at the older woman, feet pumping away hard.
The teacher had been waiting for this. When Sim Possible was just two steps away, she flipped up her hand and ignited it right in the girl's face. The response was exactly as she'd figured from someone who had never faced real plasma heat before. Instinct took over the teenager's body and she back-peddled.
Or she tried to. She had been in the middle of a full speed charge when her hindbrain took over, and combined with the alien gravity, the girl began falling backwards as her legs went one way and her momentum another. Vinchenza helped her along by flicking her in the forehead with one flaming finger.
When Sim regained her footing and tried to get out of the way, Vinchenza cackled evilly, making a game of hurling fireballs at her each time she tried to move. She kept getting closer and closer with each shot until the girl realized she couldn't move at all, her arms and the sides of her face pink from the heat of the fireballs, her sleeves browned in a few places.
She glared hatefully at the woman standing over her, "Well… finish it!"
"Gladly," the former Shego drew her hand back and ignited her fist before pouncing upon the teenager, intending to shatter her face with one enhanced punch.
Until she didn't. She flicked the teen on the nose and snorted derisively, "You lose, kiddo."
Sighing, and pulling her hair back, straightening it and putting back in the antique headband, she shook her head, "Do you understand why?"
"You have superpowers."
"That I do… but it's not why I won."
"You're adjusted to the thin air and the low gravity and I'm not."
"You have a point, but again not why I won."
"You fought my mother and knew all her moves!"
"Kid, until an hour ago I hadn't done more than pull the trigger on a tazer in fifteen years. You should have the advantage on knowing moves."
"Then why?!" the redhead barked with frustration.
Vinchenza shook her head and took a deep breath. "Your mother is one of the greatest hand to hand fighters in the human world because she fights to win. Every time she throws a punch, her objective is to put down her opponent as fast as possible and move on to the bigger, more important goal of saving the world. She's fast, she's accurate, and she is brutally efficient. The same with Shego. When I was Shego; I fought to win. Take down the intruder as hard as possible, using any technique, object, or dirty trick available, so I could get back to doing what I was doing. The fight was just means to an end, a way to deal with a roadblock."
She straightened her collar, sighing as the adrenaline slowly began to leave her system, "You weren't fighting to win. You had no goal beyond 'beat Shego,' so you were just fighting to fight me. Truth is… if I really was still Shego? You'd be crippled or dead, and it would have happened a lot sooner. Ask your mom."
"And speaking of your mom…" Vinchenza turned to face the mature redhead, who had an unreadable expression in her jade eyes, "I am in a deal making mood. Kimmie… you up to it?"
Kim frowned, looking at the un-aging woman, who looked so much more like Shego now than she had just ten minutes ago, "Depends on what it is?"
"You want something from me, just like your daughter. Difference is, unlike with her, with you I know exactly what it is." The brunette grinned darkly.
"I didn't come to Mars to play headgames, Shego." The redhead glared.
"No, you're daughter did. Buuuuut," She grinned, stepping closer to the redhead and her power chair, "I know you want to play this one. And I know you don't back down from a challenge."
"Fine, what's your game, Shego?" the redhead glared.
"I'm not…"
"No…" Kim interrupted, holding up her hand, "You're Shego. At least right this minute you are. Maybe an hour ago you were Vinchenza Gomez and I can tell the difference… but this? Fighting? Calling my daughter names? That's Shego. You didn't even correct me a minute ago when I called you that."
"Okay fair enough," the professora shrugged, turning to Simara, "See kid? This is why she's Kim Possible."
Sim rolled her eyes at the interplay. Still, it was strange. She'd seen her mom banter with people before, but never like this. Never as an equal. It scared her, for both of them.
"Alright Shego. Name your game."
"No game…" the dark woman shook her head, smiling gamely, "See, this one here got me all warmed up… but I still ain't fought a real Possible. Stand up… stand up on your own and punch me… and I'll answer any question you have. Your girl can even listen in if she wants."
"Shego, I already told you I can't-"
"No… you told Vinchenza some panty waste story about how you couldn't walk on Mars," the awoken bad girl sneered, "Me? Shego? What you keep calling me? I know you. And I know the girl who can do anything isn't going to let a little thing like two busted legs stop her from getting what she wants. Now stand your ass up, put on your big girl britches, and hit me."
Kim glared daggers at her nemesis. Part of her knew she was being baited, and that it was her own fault for calling out the dragon, but right now she didn't care. Snorting irritably, she unclipped the buckles across her stomach, and then her thighs. Then looking as much at her own legs as at Shego before her, the redhead pushed away from the upright chair
She took one uncertain step forward. And then another. And then she began to fall forward.
Vinchenza darted forward to catch her, cursing her moment of pride for goading a crippled woman.
And when her head cleared, she found herself laying on the ground, the left side of her face screaming at her.
Kim stood above her, her hands interlocked from where she had hammer fisted the dragon woman, "That is for calling my daughter a cum stain."
The immortal woman spat out a mixture of saliva and blood and grinned, sitting up, "Kinky… I like it, very underhanded, Princess. Okay… I deserved that… but she wanted to fight Shego. And you know name calling is part of the game."
"And you know it's not a game," Kim glared at her. After a moment, she relaxed her hands, allowing them to drop to her sides. "It was never a game between us and I thought for a minute you might…"
"Hey, Spunky," Vinchenza reached into her pocket and pulled out a Phoban dollar and turning to the freckled teen, "Your mom and I need to talk about some adult stuff… go find yourself a cute farmboy and make him buy you an icecream."
"Ah… farm girl actually" Kim corrected the instructions as she watched the face of her oldest foe, marveling at the sudden change.
"Really?"
"Yes Shego… my daughter is homosexual… Is that a problem?" the elder redhead rolled her eyes.
"Oh, well in that case, here's two bucks… find a nice girl and go dutch."
"Mom?" The teen looked at her mother, who hadn't taken a step since waylaying Shego, with obvious concern.
"Sim…" Kim sighed deeply, shaking her head, "You and I are going to have a long and righteous talk about all of this later… but yes… for now I need some time alone with Shego… and you are to keep your mouth shut about all of this or so help me I will beat the Italian out of you, got it?"
"So what, you can threaten child abuse, but I can't even call her names?" the reborn Shego rolled her eyes, "Harsh. But hey color me impressed. When I was growing up, the threw you in a mental institution for being anything other than straight… now I hear tell they don't even have parades for it anymore."
After Sim climbed back up the path out of the abandoned "field," Kim let go a ragged sigh and carefully moved around until she could rest a hand on the wheel chair. "Alright Shego… time to pay up… Why."
"Why what?" the professora with so many names slowly got to her feet, watching the redhead.
"You know Why What… Don't make me say it."
"Ah, but I'm a teacher… in fact, I teach other teachers… 'Why' is not a question, it's just a subjectless preposition." The brunette smirked wickedly as she moved closer to the redhead.
After slowly turning herself about and leaning against the upright chair, Kim let go a put upon breath, "Fine. Why did you leave Shego? You know I could have protected you. You just explained to my daughter why."
The darker woman paused. She had envisioned giving a quippy response to this question, maybe followed up by sneaking a kiss from the forty five year old redhead, but that all died on her tongue in the face of the words spoken.
"I… Look, it's,"
"And don't tell me I wouldn't understand." Kim gave a weary glare at her counterpart, "I certainly could have tried. Did try in fact."
"I you tried, then you know about Mim."
"I know about Mim, yes. I understand that I resemble her a bit."
"Kimmie," the immortal woman sighed and opened the neck of her blouse, pulling out an ivory cameo, "If that's what you think, you don't understand a thing. You don't just resemble her, you ARE her. At least physically."
As she handed the cameo to the redhead, she continued, "And when I first met you… I hated you with every fiber of my being for that. And that hate went on a good long time."
"Explains the sharks…"
"Yeah, explains the sharks." She continued as she started pacing back and forth, "Anyway, it hurt. In ways you can't understand without being two hundred years old, it hurt… to see the face of someone you love and know they don't even know you exist or what went before. And once we weren't enemies any more, once I spent time with you and got to know you, the person…? When I stopped hating you for looking like Miriam, I started to have feelings for you too."
She kept pacing back and forth as Kim converted her wheel chair to a sitting position and then sat down into it, "And from there it got really confusing. When Mim and I fell in love, it was this incredibly new thing for both of us. But then… with you… everything was happening the same way all over again… we fought… we teased each other… we became friends…."
"And we were starting to become more," the redhead sighed as she fastened the buckles on her chair again. "I know I felt more… I didn't realize it back then, but after you were gone it threw everything into stark relief. I wasn't just looking for a missing friend when you 'died,' I was looking for someone who was more important."
"Exactly," the Martian professora scowled, "the lines of time were starting to blur for me… when we'd be watching the Memopad and sipping wine, one moment I was there, and the next moment I was with Miriam in a parlor in Morocco listening to the sitar. I couldn't tell if I felt what I felt for you, or if I was having some kind of perverse detailed fantasy about my wife. Hell, I'm sure at least once I actually called you Mim and you just failed to notice."
Kim sat, looking up at Shego. As she saw the stresses in the face of this long-lived woman, and then looked to the cameo she'd been handed, she began to appreciate that it wasn't just words. She really couldn't grasp the emotions that Shego, or Vinchenza, or Veronica or whomever, was relating.
"That's insane…"
"That's how I felt. And god help me when I saw that little Simmy of yours yesterday? I was sure I'd had a psychotic break." Vinchenza held her head softly. "It took me all night to figure her game. A younger version of me, like Shego, probably wouldn't have and would have gone insane and tried to kill you both."
Kim shivered in her chair at the thought, recalling the words that this woman had thrown around before and during the fight. To this day, she had difficulty reconciling the Shego who tried to kill her on a weekly basis with the Shego who had saved her from an alien murderer and with whom she'd started to fall in love.
To learn that those two people coexisted inside this woman's head still, and many more people like this Vinchenza?
"So what now?" She finally, rather weakly, inquired after sitting fr a few minutes trying to digest all that.
"There is no 'now,' Miss Possible," Vinchenza sighed a bit, forcing the ghost of Shego back into a bottle and becoming the respected professora again, "Whatever I felt for you needs to stay where it was, in the past with Shego. It's not fair to you to deal with my feelings for a woman who's dead almost a hundred years now… and it's not fair to her that I share feelings with you that were hers.. So you'll take your kid and go back to Earth, and I'll continue being Vinchenza Maria Gomez, teacher and deputy sheriff, until it's time for me to stop that and become someone else somewhere else."
"and that's not fair to me." The redhead scowled. "Shego is no more dead than I am. I saw her here, just a few minutes ago. She's my friend and she's more and she's still a part of you even if you've picked up a new name. And maybe I'd like to get to know Vinchenza Maria Gomez too. And you're not the same person you were twenty five years ago? Well guess what, neither am I! No one is! Me twenty five years ago? That Kim Possible didn't know she could feel things for Shego that involved a long soapy shower. And she damned sure never thought she'd have a one night stand resulting in a child, but I sure do!"
Kim realized she was working up into a rant, and slowly took a breath, clawing a hand through her hair, "Look. I thought that I could cut you out of my life and let you go when you left the last time. I was wrong… it hurt and it sucked and there were a lot of nights when I almost picked up my kimmunicator and ordered Wade or Jime to find you for me; I still do that. Time made those feelings hide away in the back of my brain, but they never faded away. And when I saw you yesterday at the bar I wasn't sure if I should kiss you, or throw you into another microwave tower."
"So what?" the darker woman watched her redheaded counterpart, unsure where all this was going, "You're too young to retire to Mars, which no one does anyway. And I can't just pick up and move to Earth because someone will recognize me."
"The hell you can't…" the redhead rolled her eyes, "You forget, I'm not the person I used to be… this Kim Possible can lie and cheat and steal with the best of them when needs be; and she can hire a private bodyguard for her daughter who she met on the Martian police force. And if anyone happens to think Vinchenza Gomez look like Shego, this Kim Possible will punch them in the mouth."
Vinchenza looked at the redhead. Part of her wanted to jump at the scenario described. But part of her was far more skeptical, "And if I'm not in love with this Kim Possible the way I was with that one?"
"God you always had to be difficult." Kim sighed theatrically, "Look, you may not be getting any older, but I'm not getting any younger. I would like to spend a little time with someone who is my equal in life before I shuffle off this mortal coil. It doesn't have to be a permanent thing, but it will be a thing… Because I know who you are, and I know where you live, and I am going to be pestering you whether you like it or not."
"And you're not going to let me disappear, are you?"
"Not on your life."
AN: this more or less wrote itself during the past few days. I'm posting it with reservations, because frankly I like the open ended nature of the first chapter by itself. This still has some openness to it, though… Anyway, the people I showed this too before publication liked it, so I will share it with you folks and hope you enjoy it and review it too.
