Chapter 2: Coverup

Time: 3 days after the stabbing

I forgot to say that I don't own Kim Possible or any character in it. Doy.

He might have died, but for once, Lady Luck was on Drakken's side. The knife blade missed vital organs and only tore flesh. Painful? Oh yes. Terribly so. Lethal? No.

So he spent several days in the prison hospital, which was as cheery a place as a medieval madhouse. He was questioned by prison authorities several times and interrogated twice by independent lawyers. On every occasion he told the truth as he knew it: Klein had threatened him. Klein had somehow staged the courtyard riot so that he could make good on that threat and kill him. Why had Klein done this? How had Klein done this? Drakken had no idea.

"A man does not knife another man for no reason, Mr. Lipsky," most of the interrogators stated at some point. "You must have done something, said something—"

"I did nothing to that maggot. The man's a cretin," Drakken would reply. "Maybe he doesn't like blue skin. He wouldn't be the first."

So it ended there—just another prison riot with resulting injuries. Drakken raved and ranted and yelled until his injured abdomen cramped in pain and his vocal chords went hoarse, but after the "facts" were collected, the case was closed.

It wasn't closed for Drakken. In fact, the final report made him livid. According to authorities, every guard questioned swore they'd been at their posts on the courtyard when the riot broke out. All interviewed prisoners said the same, and surveillance camera evidence backed it up. As for Klein, all involved claimed that he hadn't ever stepped out on the courtyard but had been working out in the prison gym the entire time. Most disturbing of all was that the prison hospital doctor claimed that Drakken had been stabbed with a simple shiv, a rather badly-made one at that, and not a nice sharp kitchen knife worthy of cutting tomatoes for homemade spaghetti sauce. The real knife had disappeared. The shiv deemed responsible was pathetically made.

Drakken was no prison virgin. He knew how crooked and insidious the jail system could be, how people could be bought, how plans could be implemented from the inside, from the outside, or from both sides at the same time. He knew how big money could change hands in the jail system faster than at your average bank. He'd manipulated the system countless times himself. He knew how easy it could be, if you knew how to do it.

The question was, why him? Who would want him dead? Yes, I'm Doctor Drakken, he thought to himself, feeling rather proud of that fact as he lay in the hospital bed. Yes, I'm a world-famous supervillain, a bone fide scientific genius, and I've come close to taking over the world on several occasions. But who would want to kill me? More intriguing was the question of who would pay enough money to arrange such a complex hit and then botch it up. After all, he was still alive.

Drakken was extremely happy about that, but he was also confused. Clearly Klein had been a stooge obeying orders, but whose orders? Monkey Fist? Fist was a simian nutbar, but he wasn't a murderer. Duff Killigan? Talk about a hole-in-one loon, but he had no beef with Drakken. Señior Senior Senior? No way. That man was so polite that if he did plan to murder someone, he'd send an invitation first. He would happily let loose a platoon of Spinning Tops of Doom in Times Square on New Years Eve, but he would warn everyone ahead of time to give them a sporting chance to run away.

What about DNAmy? Drakken shuddered. If she'd wanted to hurt him, she would have sent him a teddy bear—twenty feet tall, alive, and with fangs. But she was too cutesy to kill. Create monsters so cuddly they might make innocent people vomit to death at the very sight of them? Maybe. Engineer household decorations so disgustingly quaint that visitors might drop dead one step through her front door? Possibly. He'd seen her house himself, after all. Smother someone to death in her enormous cleavage? Well, that might prove an accidental death, but it would do the trick. In the end, though, Drakken took her off his list. DNAmy was enough to make him gag, but she wasn't the killing type.

Okay, so who else? Frugal Lucre? Puh-lease. Camille Leon? No fashion connection. The Mathter? Didn't add up. Professor Dementor…?

Drakken pondered that. Dementor hated him, all right. They'd had a rivalry for years. They despised each other. Drakken dreamed of the day he could yank that ugly tin can off Dementor's head and really see if the little Munchkin had any hair or not. As for Dementor, he openly envied Drakken for having the beautiful Shego as his sidekick. But murder? Nah, Drakken thought. Dementor's idea of scary was giant killer dachshunds or mutant schnitzels, not straight-to-the-point knifings. Besides, Dementor couldn't do anything without yelling at the top of his lungs while doing it.

So who was left?

That's what bothered Drakken. And it bothered him a lot. Maybe there's a new player out there, he thought nervously. Maybe that new player has realized that I'm the biggest threat to their plans. Maybe this won't be the first time I'm attacked. Maybe they really intend to kill me!!

After scaring himself silly over that thought, Drakken dismissed it. Again, who would have the power to arrange his knifing, get half the inmates in the jail into the act, then bribe the guards and create false footage, only to botch it up? Because I'm not dead, he thought for the fortieth time. Whoever is behind this has my kind of luck, he decided sullenly.

It would all be different if Shego would just come get him. Where on earth was she?

TBC