To their credit, Drakken and Sheila immediately returned the bow – Sheila in proper martial-artist style, Drakken like an English butler. But when they straightened, they looked just as confused as anyone else in the room.
"I see," Sensei said as he – slowly, and with great care for his back – straightened. "That many of you are confused by my actions." He nodded toward Team Go. "Others of you are angered – " He nodded toward the doctors Possible. "And some of you even feel betrayed." He nodded toward Kim, Ron, and Rufus. "But all I have done is give honor to two warriors who have spent years in the struggle against a great evil."
Drakken raised a hand. "Um…excuse me, Mr., ah…"
"Sensei," the old man answered. "I have left the name I was given at birth behind, so I would not be tempted to seek glory for that name. Now, I have become my role."
"Ah, yes, well, um…Mr. Sensei. I think you may have the wrong people. You see, we're – well, I'm evil, and she was until recently."
"Ah yes?" Sensei asked. "I see." He shook his head sadly, and turned to Kim and Ron. "Poor Possible-san and Stoppable-san. You must be truly resilient to have endured the rape and torture you were subjected to as his prisoners and come through with your spirits so intact."
Kim and Ron blinked and stared at him in confusion. What was he talking about?
"What?" Drakken squawked. "But – what are you – I never – "
"No?" Sensei said, turning on him sharply. "You are ruthlessly efficient, then, instead of cruel. How fortunate for Possible-san and Stoppable-san: the mercy of a quickly slit throat or a bullet to the brain. Much better than the alternative."
"Um…but…" Drakken protested weakly, pointing over Sensei's shoulder.
Sensei turned to see where the mad scientist was pointing, and seemed surprised to find the very-much-alive Ron and Kim standing there, with Rufus waving from Ron's pocket.
Sensei gave the peace and love salute in return, then turned back to Drakken with an astonished look on his face. "Truly, you are amazingly merciful for one so wicked! They must be extremely resourceful to have escaped their secure bonds and prisons, and your many guards, even after you had stripped them of their tools!"
No longer able to even protest, Drakken just looked at Sheila, who could only shrug helplessly. They were stunned by two things: the truths he was telling them, and the eerie similarity to a conversation they'd had among themselves three months before.
Sensei raised an eyebrow. "Or did you consistently leave them fully-equipped and poorly-secured in unguarded prisons and inefficient death traps?"
"Uh, yes," Drakken said. It was hard to tell, but it looked like he was blushing. "That's it right there. That's what we did."
"I see. You seem singularly unsuited for your chosen profession, Lipsky-san. The wicked need not be clever, or strong, or brave. But they must be merciless. One wonders how much you truly wished to succeed."
He turned back to Kim and Ron. "Understand, Possible-san, Stoppable-san, that I mean to take nothing away from your heroism. The odds were always against you, and only great courage and determination allowed you to create victory out of the slight openings that he left for you. Truly, they were but a single scale missing from the dragon's armor. I merely propose that, where you previously believed that you were taking advantage of your enemy's incompetence, you were actually taking advantage of a quite different psychological weakness."
He looked around at his audience, who were all some combination of confused, stunned, or lost in thought. All except Yori, whose face was impassive, and Dr. Director, who had long ago picked up the knack of simply absorbing information as it came and not struggling to make it fit with her preconceptions.
"I will explain fully," he said. "But in my own way. Everyone please have a seat. This may take some time."
----
Sensei sat at the opposite end of the table from Dr. Director, with Yori at his right hand. Hego sat at his left, apparently having decided that Sensei was the one who was really running the meeting, therefore his end of the table was the real head, and so that was where he, Hego, would sit. Mego sat beside him, then the Wegos, then Sheila, and finally Drakken, who found himself sitting – to his surprise and discomfort – at Dr. Director's right hand. Kim, with her front-of-the-classroom instinct, sat on the other side of Dr. Director, making the situation still more uncomfortable. Ron sat beside her, of course, then her parents. Rufus sat on the table itself, in front of Ron.
Sensei took a moment to survey his audience. Then he began: "Dr. Possible," He said.
Both heads turned.
"Sir," he clarified.
"Yes?"
"What is your belief in regards to magic?"
Mr. Dr. Possible just stared back at him. "You're serious?" He asked.
"As Stoppable-san would say, 'note serious face'. The answer is actually quite important."
Clearly confused by the question, James Possible struggled for an answer. "Uh…well…" finally, he just shrugged. "I'm a scientist," he said. "To me, calling something 'magic' is the same as giving up."
Sensei steepled his fingers in front of his face. "Interesting," he said. "Please elaborate."
In unconscious imitation of the older man, James Possible steepled his fingers and frowned in thought. After a moment, he laid his hands back down on the table and turned back to Sensei with clear decision on his face. "Where are you from, Mr. Sensei?" He asked.
"Japan."
"I don't know how much of an issue this is in Japan, but in the United States, there's a powerful political movement devoted to forcing science teachers to give the idea that life on Earth is the result of a miracle at least equal time with the idea that it developed by scientific processes. Now, there are other cases where science gets politicized – mostly in environmental issues – and other popular pseudoscientific beliefs out there, but this is one of the most powerful, and one of the most damaging. I'm a rocket scientist, not a biologist, but I do what I can for this particular conflict – donate money, sign petitions, what-have-you – because it strikes at the foundations of science itself."
Sensei leaned forward. "And that is?"
"The foundation of science is: 'I don't know. Let's find out.' Replace that with 'I don't know, it must be a miracle' or 'magic', and science ceases to exist." He leaned back in his chair and waved at the other side of the table. "I'm in a room full of things I can't explain, here. Where does Sheila get the energy for her plasma blasts? Where does the material for Jesus and Jaime's clones come from? How does Hector's body withstand the stresses that his super strength puts on it?"
At the end of the table, Hector Gomez gritted his teeth in frustration, but James Possible didn't notice as he pushed on.
"And just what in the name of Almighty God on his Throne happens to Miguel?" He finished. "I don't know. I'll probably never know, because the experiments that would be necessary to find out would be grossly unethical. But that doesn't mean I'm about to give up and call it 'magic'."
Drakken and Colleen Possible were both nodding. The younger four Gomez siblings were all staring in fascination. They'd never thought of any of this. They'd just taken it for granted: Comet Radiation equals Super Powers. Maybe their brother's comic book, superhero logic had affected them more than they liked to think.
Dr. Director and Yori were still impassive, and Sensei had that unreadable, watchful look on his face.
"I see," Was all he said.
By this point, Kim and Ron were both squirming. They'd seen Mr. Dr. P get into arguments with the Unscientific before, and it was never pretty. The last thing they wanted was for him to get into such an argument with Master Sensei. This whole sitch was already ugly enough. But it looked like he was bracing himself for just that.
Then, Sensei gave a slight smile.
"What if you were confronted with someone performing deeds that had all of the characteristics of true magic?" He asked.
James Possible shrugged. "Like I said, 'I don't know' is a valid answer in science. If I had to guess – and it would be just a guess – I'd say that the magician was tapping into some unknown energy source." He paused, tapping his chin thoughtfully. "Come to think of it, that would be my guess about the Gomez family, too."
Hego glowered at him, but the rest of the family leaned in eagerly, and Sensei's smile broadened.
"And if I were to tell you that the 'energy source' of which you speak is an outside entity?"
Dr. James Possible shrugged and gave the only answer a scientist could give: "I would ask you to introduce me," he said.
Sensei beamed. "But Dr. Possible," he said. "That is why we have brought you here."
----
Sensei raised a hand before anyone could start asking questions. "In my own way," He said. "Patience."
The rest of the people at the table managed to bite back their questions, but some were noticeably impatient. The Gomez family in particular – this old man apparently had some answers about the nature of their powers, and he was acting like every Inscrutable Old Master in every martial arts B-movie ever made!
Kim, Ron, and Rufus were used to that behavior, and the other people at the table were oddly comforted by it. It was a familiar frame of reference for them to deal with at least.
When he was sure he wouldn't be interrupted, Sensei continued:
"In many cultures in the ancient world, there was the myth of the primordial god-monster," he began. "The chaos-beast who lived in the darkness before the world. The first task of the gods was to defeat this creature so their new order, the world in which humans can survive, could come into being. The people of northern Europe called this creature Ymir. To a student of astronomy," He nodded toward Mr. Dr. P. "I'm sure that the Greek name Ouranos is more familiar, and perhaps even the Babylonian names of Tiamat, and her consort Apsu."
James Possible nodded. They were. How could he not have at least some interest in the people who had invented astronomy?
"The mistake that most of the world has made," Sensei continued, "From the first tellers of those stories until this very day, was to believe that it was over. The chaos-beast was slain by the gods and its body used to build the world, or it was crippled and driven into the outer darkness, never to return. The new order had come, and we had only to concern ourselves with our…'modern' gods and devils, if you even believed in such things at all."
"Some few of us have always known better. The god-monster was defeated, but not slain. It was banished to the darkness between the stars…but forever is a long time, and no prison is unbreachable. The ancients knew this, and formed warrior-orders to stand watch against its return. Yamanouchi is one of them – the last, I fear. We have spent endless generations accumulating knowledge and weapons for a day that we hoped would never come."
He paused, then sighed and looked down at the table. This was news he clearly didn't enjoy giving. Kim and Ron tightened their grips on each other's hands. Whatever could harsh Sensei's chill like that was Not Good.
"But it has. One year ago, something happened that warped and damaged reality itself. We do not know what. All that we can ascertain is that Mystic Monkey Power was involved somehow: its abuse caused the damage, and its use repaired it. But the harm had already been done. The prison had been weakened just enough. This spring, the creature that my order knows as the Unshaper broke free and began to move toward the Earth."
Silence. Total, very uncomfortable silence.
Kim and Ron knew Master Sensei, and they believed him. They couldn't be terrified about it all just now, however. They were too worried about something else: to anyone who didn't know Sensei, and who hadn't witnessed the Mystic Monkey Power and the Lotus Blade and many other such things, this all had to sound – not to put too fine a point on it – batshit crazy.
When Mr. Dr. Possible finally broke the silence, their fears were confirmed: "Mr. Sensei, I don't wish to be rude, but we were brought here at a very bad time, because we were told it was crucially important that we be here. We're sitting in a room with the two people on Earth that we genuinely hate, and we're being polite about it. But my patience with this whole situation is starting to wear thin. Now, I've already told you my problems with taking ancient myths for science. Given that, do you really expect me to simply accept yours?"
Once again, the old magician surprised the scientist.
"On the contrary, Dr. Possible," he replied. "I am here to request – no, to beseech – you to investigate. Unlike those who choose their beliefs over the scientific evidence, I most sincerely wish to be proven wrong. But if I am right, you must be our reconnaissance. You must be the one to tell us where and when."
For the first time since Sensei had arrived, Dr. Director spoke up: "I can personally assure you, Dr. Possible, that the deadlines on any government projects you're currently working on will be adjusted to allow for this, and that you'll have all the funding you need."
James Possible was taken aback. Before he could reply, Mego spoke up.
"Yeah, that's great for him," the middle Gomez brother said impatiently. "And it's all very interesting. But as far as I can tell, it's all one big non sequitur. What does it have to do with us?"
"Isn't it obvious, Mego?" Hego asked, puffing up into his full superhero persona. "The world is threatened, and they've called the one team they knew could help: Team Go!" He thumped his fist on the table for emphasis. The way he said the last two words, you could easily see them in your mind, spelled out in neon, or perhaps even fireworks.
Sensei looked quietly back and forth between both brothers. Then he turned his attention to Colleen Possible.
"Doctor Possible. Madam." He said.
"Yes?"
"Does it seem likely to you that a single comet, even one made up of many different-colored ores and stones, could grant such vastly different powers to such genetically-similar people?"
Colleen Possible was silent for a long moment as she considered the question. When she finally started speaking, it was very slowly and carefully. "First of all, you have to understand," she began. "That there are whole branches of science involved in that question that I know nothing about. My only real answer is 'I don't know'. If I were to guess…and it is a guess…I would say 'no'." She looked up and down the other side of the table, at each member of the Gomez family. Even Sheila. "Actually, I would think that radiation from a comet would be more 'likely' to give someone cancer than superpowers. But here they sit. Still, it's very odd – they were all exposed to the same materials at the same time, but…well, here they sit. To be honest, it's like…if they did get sick after the comet strike, but one of them had a liver fluke, one malaria, one Sickle-Cell, and the twins brain cancer."
"Ah," Sensei said. "And if a group of patients did come to you, blaming such a wide variety of ailments on a single source?"
"I'd look for other factors."
Sensei nodded. "As would I."
"Wait,"
"Are you saying"
"That the Comet"
"Didn't give us"
"Our powers?" The Wegos asked.
"I am saying that I do not believe that any mindless natural phenomenon could bestow such a variety of impossibilities. However, I also do not believe that what bestowed those impossibilities is mindless, or even really a part of nature."
The three scientists at the table frowned as the younger four Gomez siblings looked at each other worriedly. The Wego sitting closer to Sheila (Jaime?) actually took her hand.
"I think that might be a bit of a jump in logic," Colleen Possible protested.
"It is," Sensei agreed. "And I most sincerely hope that I am wrong. I am as one who is tested for a fatal disease, Dr. Possible. The best result is a negative one, but we must prepare for positive."
Hego was frowning, but not for the same reasons as Drakken and the Doctors Possible. "I'm still not sure I understand what you're saying," he said. "Did the Comet give us our powers or not?"
Sensei showed no outward signs of impatience. Nonetheless, he apparently realized that riddles and hints were useless teaching tools for the eldest Gomez brother: "I do believe that the Comet bestowed your powers. However, I do not believe that your 'Comet' was a mere piece of ice, metal, and rock drifting through space. Imprisoned or not, the Unshaper has never been entirely helpless. It has always watched and hated from the emptiness between the stars, yearning to return the world to the silence and darkness of Before. Every so often, it has been able to send fragments of its Self and its power out into the world to further that end. You and your siblings were touched and transformed by that power. To what purpose, I do not know, and I hope not to learn. However, as the Unshaper approaches and your power grows beyond your control – "
"Wait," Hego interrupted, shaking his head and waving a hand at Sensei to stop. "Wait, wait, wait. You're saying that the Go Team Glow…is evil?"
Sensei seemed to ponder that for a moment, then nodded. "You say it more simply and clearly than I would have thought to, Hego-san. Your power is the Unshaper's, and so it is evil."
Hego sprang to his feet, sending his chair rolling across the room. "I knew it! This is a trick! Some supervillain's attempt to brainwash us! We must escape! AAAAHHHH!" With a shout, he charged the nearest door. Kim, Ron, Rufus, the doctors Possible, and Drakken all leaped to their feet. The three scientists retreated, as is probably wise for ordinary people in the same room as a panicking superhuman. Kim and Ron stepped forward defensively. Sensei, Dr. Director, and Yori just sat impassively while Team Go watched their brother freak out with no more reaction than rolled eyes and sighs of exasperation.
Hego punched the door and, to no one's surprise but his own, tore through the steel like it was tissue paper. He stumbled across the hallway and crashed into the opposite wall, denting that as well.
He caught himself before he could fall, shook his head, then turned around and came back into the doorway, looking around the room in confusion, clearly wondering why no one was either chasing him or following him.
"You're paying for that, Hego," Dr. Director said. "That door wasn't even locked."
"I…I expected more resistance," Hego said, as if that explained everything. "Adamantium or something."
"Dude, there's no such thing as adamantium," Ron said.
"Actually, there is," Dr. Director corrected. "But it's far too expensive to use as a building material."
Sensei ignored them both. "Nothing constrains you, Hego-san," he said, not even turning his chair to face the bigger man. "You may leave any time you like. Even if we wished to, we could not stop you if you chose to go. However, if you do so, you will learn no more about your family's power."
"What am I supposed to learn?" Hego said, storming back to the table. "That the source of my family's power is some giant space monster? That's insane."
"And yet it is true. The Unshaper, in its many aliases, was known as not only a god-monster, but a parent of monsters – even other god-monsters. Ymir sired the Jotun; Ouranos the Hundred-Handed Ones and the Cyclopes; and Tiamat gave birth to the Elder Gods, as well as a horde of monsters to send into battle against the younger gods. I do not know why the Unshaper chose to indulge your fantasy of superheroism when it remade you, but – "
"Now, wait just one second," Hego growled, leaning forward. He seemed to be resting his fists on the table, but after a moment it became clear that they were slowly sinking in. Was Hego capable of a threat that subtle, or was he just too angry to pay attention to his own strength? "Are you calling my family monsters?"
"Not of your own choice," Sensei answered, unperturbed. "Indeed, you are victims here. But the Unshaper may intend to use you for some purpose of its own, and even if it does not, the mere fact that you are conduits for its power makes you a danger for those around you – as this morning demonstrated."
"No," Hego said, shaking his head again. "You're wrong. I don't know what happened this morning, but it has nothing to do with your…alien. We're heroes. We use our power for Good. It's not the Glow's fault that Shego got more and more fascinated with the evil every time she fought it, until she decided that she preferred it."
"What?" Sheila flared. "Is that what you've been telling people all this time?"
"It's the truth!" Hego said. "One day you just left us, for no reason, and the next time we heard from you, you were a supervillain! What else could it be?"
Sheila just stared at her elder brother for a long, long moment. "My God, you really believe that, don't you?" she said quietly. Hego didn't answer, and she remained silent for another long moment. "Do you want to know why I left?" She asked. "Do you really want to know why?" Hego still didn't answer. In fact, he turned his attention back to Sensei.
Sheila turned her attention across the table. "Hey, Kim," she called.
Kim – who'd still been standing on her guard, watching Hego, jumped and turned to face the Gomez sister. "What?" She asked suspiciously.
"Ever heard of machismo?" Sheila asked.
"Of course I have," Kim answered.
"Know what it means?"
"Of course I do," Kim said, wondering where the former supervillain was going with this.
"See, I don't think you do," Sheila said, slowly rising to her feet, the usually-simple process complicated by her manacles. "Not really. You just know the dictionary definition."
"And just how do you know that?" Kim snapped, thinking of Darren Edwards.
Sheila looked up at her sharply, then nodded. "Okay, so maybe you've had a taste of the real deal. But I still think I know more about it than you do. Remember that little quote that shocked everybody who could understand it?"
"Yes," Kim answered. "Something about the hombres – "
"Cuando los hombres hablan en la sala, las mujeres se lavan las nalgas. Right." Sheila said. "It means 'When the men are talking in the living room, the women are washing their asses'."
The doctors Possible both gasped. Ron and most of the Gomez family – Yori too, actually – winced. Hego tightened his grip on the table. It creaked as his fingers sank into it.
Kim…looked puzzled. It certainly sounded horrible, she'd definitely be insulted if someone said that to her, but…
Sheila laughed. She actually laughed. It was a deep, rich sound, totally unlike Shego's rare, harsh snickers. "Bless that confused expression, querida, you shouldn't get it! It means that when the men are taking care of business, the women are getting themselves ready to fuck."
Kim could feel her face catching fire.
Chuckling, Sheila began to circle around the end of the table, behind Dr. Director. "The boys in the old neighborhood used to say that to me if I got too bitchy, if that gives you an idea of what I'm talking about. My little brothers weren't poisoned with it, thank God, but my papi had a case." She patted James Possible's shoulder as she passed his seat. He flinched and turned to stare at her. "You don't know how lucky you are, Kim. I loved my papi very much, rest his soul – "
"Rest his – "
"He and mom didn't get superpowers from the comet," Mego said. "All that happened to them is what usually happens when a rock falls from space and hits you."
"Oh," Kim said, "I'm sorry."
"Thank you," Sheila said, then quickly pushed on. "I loved him very much, and I was proud of him, too. That's part of the reason I get so angry with Hector for his whitebread act."
Creak. Hego's fingers sank further into the table.
"He owned a construction company. But he played it smart: he didn't just build duplexes and apartment houses and little subdivisions – he was the landlord, too." She swallowed hard. "We'd just moved out of the old neighborhood and into the new house that spring…he built that treehouse for Jesus and Jaime with his own hands that summer." She paused and shook the memory out of her head. "Anyway, there was nothing I wanted more than to go to work with him. I didn't care what job, as long as I got to do something, and be there with him. But he wasn't having any of that. No daughter of his was going to be hanging around construction sites – he wanted me at home: cooking, cleaning, and taking care of Jesus and Jaime." She stopped and smiled sadly back over her shoulder. "You know, developing the skills I was really going to need, later in life." Then she turned back to face Hego, who she'd reached by now, and her face hardened. "So yeah, our papi had a case of it. Most of my brothers managed to escape infection, but there was one who got it bad."
Hego said nothing. He didn't even look up from the table.
"Tell me something, Hector," Sheila said, finally addressing him directly. "How did you like it that time that Aviarius stole your powers and gave them to Kimmie over there?" She nodded back over her shoulder. "I mean, here's this skinny little gringa with your super-strength, and you had to act all polite and helpful and noble and deferential about it, because that's how one of your comic-book characters would act. And then I show up, and suddenly there are two mujeres in the picture who can kick your ass. And then I get all of the Glow…! And you know something Hector?" She leaned in close, and stage-whispered into his ear. "I let Kimmie take the staff away. I gave you your powers back. If I'd wanted them, I'd still have them. But it took that same skinny little gringa to get them back for you, because you were too busy cowering and whimpering. Now doesn't that just feel like somebody cut your balls off and stuffed them in your mouth?"
Hego answered that with a hard backhand.
Sheila had apparently expected it, because she leaned back out of the way, then ducked beneath the roundhouse that followed it. Then she threw herself up and back to avoid what looked like a right uppercut, but instead Hego caught her connecting chain where it joined her handcuffs, and he lifted her up off the floor, drew back his blue-glowing left fist and –
BLAM!
Kim, who'd been flipping across the room, let herself fall to the floor instead of completing the flip. Ron, who'd been charging behind her, turned his run into a headlong dive beneath the table while Rufus plastered himself flat to the tabletop. The doctors Possible covered their heads and the Gomez siblings – six Wegos and a seven-foot-tall Mego (apparently they'd been activating their powers with the intention of stepping between their brother and sister) – leaped back.
Dr. Drakken lowered his gun from the ceiling and pointed it at Hego, his feet set in a comfortable shooter's stance, both hands gripping the handle steadily.
Dr. Director just clutched her empty shoulder-holster and stared at Drakken in astonishment. She knew for a fact that no one had ever seen Drew Lipsky move so fast.
"You're fifteen feet away from me, Hector," Drakken said, sounding chillingly lucid. "And that stupid pose you're striking makes you a perfect target. Care to test my marksmanship? Given what it did to the ceiling," He nodded toward the dinner-plate-sized hole through the steel, into the concrete beneath. "I think that whatever's in this gun will take your head off, Glowing or not."
"Of course it will," Dr. Director said, sounding more annoyed than anything else. "Did you think I'd come into this meeting with any less? Now give it back." Her hand had disappeared beneath the table. "You have ten seconds before the fail-safe in your chip activates, and your nervous system melts."
Hego suddenly felt two iron-hard fingertips press against the back of his neck, and his left arm flopped uselessly to his side, the Glow winking out. "Put down the weapon, Lipsky-san," Sensei said calmly. "Hector is releasing his sister."
"Hector." Not "Hego-san". If Hego missed the significance, he was the only one who did.
Hego set Sheila carefully down on the floor.
Drakken set the gun down on the table.
Dr. Director pulled her hand out from underneath it.
Everyone started to breathe again.
Kim and Ron picked themselves up off the floor. Mego shrunk back down to five-foot-ten or so, and all but two of the Wegos disappeared. Drakken collapsed back into his chair and put his head between his knees. Sensei hopped down from his chair, brushed his footprints off it, and sat back down.
Sheila took a step back and looked up at her brother, giving no indication that she was even aware that she'd been one left jab away from losing everything from the neck up.
"That's why I left, Hector," she said. "Because I knew that if I stayed, one of us would end up dead. I wasn't evil when I broke up your little superhero playgroup. Not yet."
With that, she turned and started walking back around the table to her seat.
As Hego watched his sister walk – hobble, really – away, he noticed that everyone was looking at him. Everyone except Shego and that Lipsky fellow, anyway. Normally, he would like that just fine, but this time they were all looking at him…funny. Were they glaring at him? Were they blaming him for this?
"Hey now," he said, holding up his hands defensively. "Wait a second! You can't just take everything she says at face value! She's a supervillain! She'd just love to set the Good Guys against each other."
"Hector," Jesus said.
"She's making a…a whole big case out of nothing! All siblings fight!"
"Hector," Jaime said.
The glares weren't going away. "I know I was a little…out of control, activating the Glow, but wasn't this whole meeting about the problems all of us were having with keeping control?"
"I thought there were no such problems, Hector," Sensei said quietly. "Just an isolated incident this morning."
Hego stopped short, his mouth working helplessly.
"Hector," Miguel said, his voice breaking the sudden silence. "Sit down and shut up."
Hector Gomez stared back at his brothers, and for a moment, it looked like the big man might actually cry. "She left!" He wailed. "I stayed! I tried to keep this team – " Stop. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again and continued, it was with much less bluster. "…this family…together."
Then the last Gomez sibling spoke, and she was very quiet, as if – finally, after all the years – she was too tired to be angry with her big brother any more. "Hego," She said. "Sit down."
He did.
----
"Now. Sheila-san," Sensei said as Sheila took her seat. "Please tell us what happened after you left your family."
She hesitated for a moment, frowning in thought. She tried to raise a hand, perhaps to scratch her head or run her fingers through her hair, but of course she couldn't.
"You know, after that point, it gets a little hazy," she said. "I could've lived on my savings and my inheritance, but I tried to keep busy. Some extreme sports, some martial-arts competitions…I could've gotten a job as a pilot or maybe opened my own dojo, but I knew that I wasn't really suited for those jobs. I was so…angry all the time."
Sensei nodded, as if he'd expected that.
"So I took jobs as a bouncer or bodyguard…and as time went by, I started taking jobs where the bouncing or bodyguarding was liable to involve some real action, even if those jobs were kinda shady."
Sensei nodded again.
"And then one night…" She paused and smiled nostalgically. "And I remember this pretty well…one night, I was in this bar – not bouncing or anything, just having a drink – when this older guy comes up to me and just starts babbling. He doesn't even smell like booze, he's just nervous. So nervous that I have to sit him down and get him a drink so he won't pass out on me."
"I wasn't that bad," Drakken protested.
"You were worse," Sheila retorted. "But once you had that first beer in you, you started to settle, and we started to talk. As much as you can talk in a crowded bar on a Saturday night. Eventually, I go off to the Ladies' room, and when I come back, I find that a bunch of guys aren't happy that I'm talking to Drew instead of them, and that maybe stomping him is the way to get my attention." She frowned again. "Is that when you got your scar?"
"I…think, maybe…?" Drakken answered, touching the scar and looking confused that he didn't know for sure.
"Anyway," Sheila continued, her expression darkening. "Once they got my attention, they didn't want it. I got Drew out of there before the police arrived and took him to get stitched up – yeah, I guess that was when you got your scar - and then I took him home. I probably should have gone home myself, but it was four in the morning, and I just crashed." She grinned wryly. "Drew didn't know how to handle waking up with a woman in his bed, even a fully-clothed one."
"You said you liked the breakfast I made you!" He protested.
She just raised an eyebrow at him.
"I know that you wanted coffee and all I had was cocoa-moo, but still…"
"Anyway," She cut him off. "We talked some more. To my surprise, we spent the next few days talking. I told him about my brothers, he told me about these asshole friends he had in college who picked on him so much for one little mistake that he didn't even try and make any new friends after he switched schools…"
James Possible swallowed hard and lowered his head a little.
"…you know, we opened up. Then, finally, nature took its course…"
"WHAT?" Hego bellowed.
"Don't say a word, Hector," Mego cut him off.
Sheila turned her head to hide her grin from her brother, and happened to notice that several other members of her audience were making faces like they'd just heard the gorchiest thing of their lives.
"What?" She asked.
"Please tell me you're kidding," Kim said.
"Hey, he was a sweet, gentle, bumbling geek. I don't think I'm the only woman in this room who sees the appeal."
Suddenly, both Possible women were blushing, and neither could meet her challenging gaze.
Then Sheila turned back to Sensei, and her face clouded over. "After that…actually, I don't remember much after that."
"As I suspected," Sensei said. "Because it was not long after that Shego, as the world knows her, became dominant."
"How can you be so sure of that?" She asked.
"I have information sources that Dr. Director only wishes she could use," Sensei answered, nodding toward the opposite end of the table. "But part of it was also what you might call 'good old-fashioned detective work'. Although Drew Lipsky is a good bit older than Sheila Gomez, there was no Dr. Drakken before there was a Shego. Now I know how he became infected with the Unshaper's energies."
The mad scientist and the ex-mercenary both blushed.
"You make it sound like an STD…" Sheila muttered.
Sensei didn't answer that, but Ron suddenly looked horrified. "Is that why I turned blue when I got Drakken's evil?" He demanded.
Sensei looked thoughtfully at Drakken. "Unless Lipsky-san remembers the laboratory accident that dyed his skin?"
Drakken shook his head.
"It would also explain why Shego switched her allegiance so quickly," Sensei said. "You were not only a more effective villain, but the taint of the Unshaper was transferred from Lipsky-san to you."
Ron shuddered. "Suddenly so much grosser than it once was."
Sensei smiled at him sympathetically, then pushed on. "The Unshaper had been focusing its attention on Sheila-san, the member of Team Go who was the most isolated and vulnerable – and apparently the most angry and bitter – trying to corrupt her. Then she met another wounded soul, one who could provide her with an army and an armory, and it lost patience and brought its will down upon them. But even then, the resistance continued: Shego, who should have been the Unshaper's general, its…Witch-King, yes?…became lazy and subservient, while Drakken – who can build the Fountain of Youth in a handheld form or put a miracle in a syringe – became inept. The more dangerous the scheme, the more it sabotaged itself. For example, imagine the result if the mind-control formula from his shampoo had been used to taint existing cosmetic products."
Almost everyone at the table looked horrified and amazed, as if they had never realized before just how bad the situation could have been. Which was probably the case. Only Dr. Director greeted the thought with a simple, grim nod.
It was no surprise that Kim, Sheila, and Yori seemed particularly squicked by the idea. It probably shouldn't have been that Mego and Hego were as well, but what can you do?
"Thus the psychological weakness I spoke of, Stoppable-san, Possible-san…they did not truly desire to win. Until – "
"Until this spring," Kim said, making the connection. "When Drakken suddenly became a lot more competent, and Shego became a lot more aggressive."
Sensei nodded. "And yet they still left you alone and armed in a simple warehouse at the moment of their greatest victory. As the situation grows more dangerous, it grows more unstable as well."
Everyone at the table pondered that for a moment. Then Kim spoke again.
"The sitch does look pretty dire," she said. "And that's usually what people call us for…"
Sensei nodded – partly in agreement, and partly in approval of her choice of words. Once she would have said "me" instead of "us".
"But this looks like an entirely new level of dire. It's always been gods who beat this thing before, so that makes us look pretty third-string."
"Total benchwarmer," Ron agreed.
"Wasn't calling us pretty pointless?"
"On the contrary, Possible-san," Sensei said. "If your parents agree, we can gather information about the coming threat, which is far from pointless."
"Don't be ridiculous," James Possible said. "Of course we agree."
"You do?" Kim said, surprised.
"Of course we do, honey," Her mother said. "We've seen some pretty strange things in our time – remember the toxic snowmen?"
"How could I forget?"
"Well then. It's clear that something bad is happening, and if there's even a chance that Master Sensei is right, then we can't stand idly by."
Sensei smiled. "I expected no less from the parents of such a hero." Then he turned his attention back to Kim. "Second, one of the pieces of information that we have gathered over the ages at Yamanouchi is a prophecy. One that says we may find our hope in the Scarred Warrior and the Laughing Magician."
Kim – and most of the other people at the table, really – winced. "Well, that's blunt enough," She said.
"Prophets are seldom sensitive about such matters," Sensei apologized.
"But – it can't be talking about us," Ron protested. "I'm not a magician!"
Sensei quirked an eyebrow at him. "No?"
"No! All I've got are some Fu skillz, and – "
"Which, in my tradition at least, are one path to such power."
"But – "
Sensei held up a hand. "If you are not a magician, Stoppable-san, please explain the following two impossibilities to me:"
Ron fell silent, waiting for Sensei's "impossibilities".
"First, Rufus-san's intelligence."
Ron looked down at Rufus, who looked back up at him and shrugged. Then he looked back at Sensei, completely perplexed. "What do you mean?" He asked.
"Surely you do not believe that all naked mole rats are like Rufus-san?" Sensei asked. "He is an animal, Stoppable-san, and he often behaves like one. His tendency to swallow food he enjoys whole, rather than savoring it, for example. And yet his intelligence – and wisdom – is greater than that of many humans. His 'Fu skillz' exceed yours, as do his technical abilities, and I suspect that the only reason he cannot speak in full conversational English is because his speaking apparatus does not allow it."
Ron looked back down at Rufus, who nodded, said "Uh-huh," and patted his throat with a paw.
Ron looked back up at Sensei, a little stunned. "So how does that make me a magician?" He asked.
"Rufus-san is what the western tradition would call your familiar, Stoppable-san," Sensei said. "You went to Smarty Mart for a pet, and you reshaped that pet into the friend you imagined in your childhood loneliness." He smiled slightly. "It may please you to know that your bond ensures that Rufus will live as long as you do."
"Well, that is pretty – hey, wait!" Ron said. "What's the second 'impossibility'?"
"Possible-san's survival," Sensei answered.
Silence.
"Oh, hey," Ron said, showing a strained grin. "That's not impossible. She can do anything!" He looked desperately at Mr. Dr. P. "Anything's possible for a Possible, right?"
After a moment of staring at the table, James Possible shook his head. "No," He whispered.
"What?"
Both teen heroes stared at him in horror.
"No," He said more strongly. "No, she can't, and no, it's not." He raised his head and looked at Ron. "I'm a rocket scientist, Ronald. Explosions are part of my job. And it is impossible that anything human standing in front of the blast that leveled that wall could have survived it. She should have been vaporized."
"I knew it!" Drakken crowed. Ron, the Possibles, and Rufus all snapped evil glares at him, and he cringed into his chair. "I'll just shut up now…"
"Thank you," Kim said coldly.
Sheila just bowed her head in shame.
"You could not defend yourself from such force," Sensei said to Ron. "Not then, and probably not even now. To confront the power of the Unshaper head-on is to Sumo wrestle with a freight train. But once Possible-san had rescued you, your need was able to rewrite the laws of chance and probability so that she survived as well. It was the effort to do so, not the blow to your head, that sent you unconscious. Did you never wonder why you suffered no concussion, nor even a split scalp?"
Ron didn't ask how Sensei knew his specific injuries. Instead, he just wheezed: "Let me guess, you felt a disturbance in the Force."
"Even as you say."
Ron felt Kim squeeze his hand fiercely, and he turned to face her. Her eyes were shining with triumph. Do you see? Those eyes were saying. I told you! It was never your fault – you saved me just like I saved you! Maybe the scales still weren't quite balanced, but –
Beyond Kim, James and Colleen Possible's eyes were shining with even deeper gratitude than they'd felt before. Ron had the feeling that he was seconds away from the mother of all Group Hugs.
"Is that…" Colleen Possible swallowed hard. "Is that why Kimmie recovered so quickly?" She asked. "Because Ron was there to help her? Even with Drakken's invention it always seemed – well, miraculous."
"It certainly caused no harm," Sensei said. "But your daughter has power of her own. She is the Scarred Warrior, after all. Stoppable-san could not have survived what she did, even with her modified luck, for he is – "
"Okay!" Ron said, throwing up his hands. "I'm the Laughing Magician. Great. Ha Ha and Hocus Pocus. Now what?"
"Now I would very much like to take you to Yamanouchi, to spend what time we have in preparation and training. Dr. Possible – sir, madam – if I have your permission? I assure you that your daughter's education will not suffer."
They made affirmative noises (though it was clear that they would have more questions), and then Sensei turned his attention to Dr. Director. "Would it be possible to create another fictitious exchange program, perhaps?"
The question came as a relief. Apparently, Sensei didn't know everything.
"It won't be necessary," Dr. Director said. "Team Possible was expelled from their High School this afternoon."
Sensei's only sign of surprise was a raised eyebrow.
"Apparently," Dr. Director continued, "The powers-that-be decided that they were too dangerous to be allowed into the presence of regular students."
"Those powers should be ashamed of themselves," Sensei said. "Still…" He turned to James Possible. "What is your belief in regards to fate?"
