A few days later, Bonnie and Shego were sparring once again at their training area. Bonnie was doing a good job of holding her ground, but Shego still had the advantage. Shego blocked one of Bonnie's kicks and countered with a quick jab to the brunette's midsection which made her fall on her ass.

"Not bad," Shego said. "You've come a long way since we started this. I think we're ready."

"For the challenge you mean," Bonnie asked as she got back on her feet. "Are you sure about that? I mean, you just put me on my ass, and Possible and Stoppable have an impressive track record when it comes to this kind of thing."

"They may have history on their side, but we have a few things going for us as well. For one, we just want this win more than they do. Second, we have no problems about fighting dirty. And lastly, we have a surprise up our sleeves."

"And what's that?"

"I'll show you," Shego said as she went over to a bag she placed on the sidelines. She went through the bag and found what she was looking for. She walked back to Bonnie and presented the tanned girl with a pair of gloves that looked exactly like the ones that were part of Shego's black and green jump suit.

"Gloves?" Bonnie said with a skeptical tone and expression. "How are those going to help us?"

"I'm glad you asked. First, put them on," the pale green thief said. Bonnie did as she was told and felt something weird on the tips of the index fingers. "You feel those things on the index fingers?" Shego asked, and Bonnie nodded yes. "Those are switches. Flip them."

Bonnie flipped the switches, and was amazed as the gloves ignited with the same kind of black/green energy that Shego used. "Whoa," Bonnie said in astonishment.

"Turn them off now," Shego said before Bonnie complied. "There's a story behind those things. Want to hear it?"

"Yes," Bonnie said while nodding her head.

"Well, it all started over a year ago," Shego began. She didn't want Bonnie to know that she used to be a good guy or that her brothers also had powers and had come up with a way to work around those facts. "There was this bird brained idiot who found a way to take my powers."

"Take?"

"Take. Extract. Remove. However you want to put it. The point is, he jacked my powers and gave them to himself. Fortunately, he only took my powers for a very short time before I got them back and kicked his ass. But after a while, the fact that my powers could even be removed at all sunk in and it scared the shit out of me."

"I can guess the rest from there. You had that blue guy you work for create some kind of..." Bonnie stammered as she tried to think of her next words, "artificial version of your powers so that you'd have some kind of back up if something ever happened to them again."

"Exactly," Shego said.

"Cool. Now, how do I shoot the energy as blasts?"

"You can't. Drakken never got around to making the gloves fire the energy as blasts before I ditched him."

"That brings up my next question. If Drakken built these things, do I have to worry about them exploding on me?"

"I've checked on them myself, so you don't have to worry about that."

"That's good," Bonnie said, relieved that she could now use this new advantage without the threat of spontaneous combustion.

--

Later that day, Shego went out and prepared to issue her challenge to Kim. She decided that the best idea was to make the challenge from a pay phone so that by the time Kim's overweight computer genius traced the call, she'd be long gone.

The emerald eyed female found a phone booth that was a little far from her apartment, looked up Kim's phone number in the phone book, put in change and dialed. After two dial tones, the phone stopped ringing.

"Hello," Kim answered from the other line.

"Hello princess," Shego responded.

"Shego. What do you want?"

"I have a proposition to offer you. You and Stoppable go up against me and a friend of mine. If I win, you're going to recommend to Dr. Director that I want to change sides and work for her. If you win, I'm going to go to jail and actually stay there this time."

"And why should I believe any of that? How do I know that isn't all some big trap?"

"Look, I give you my word as a thief, lesbian and overall badass that this all on the up and up. Now you give me your word as a goody goody, world saving thorn in my ass that you'll agree to this and not try anything funny."

"Okay, I agree and I'll trust you," Kim said, then had something Shego mentioned click in her head. "You're gay?"

"Hell yeah," Shego responded, then proceeded to tell Kim about the where and when of the upcoming fight: tomorrow and the training area she and Bonnie had been using.