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Gray
He groans as his spine makes contact with the back of the chair. He hurts everywhere from bashing into the top of that train tunnel. The solid stone was even harder than it looked.
So the pain reminds him of his latest failed scheme, and that hurts, too. He remembers back when his brain used to bubble over with one great idea after another - he couldn't write them down fast enough. So when one idea failed, it was, as his arch-nemesis put it, "so not the drama." He just moved on to the next one.
But now - now it's been really hard for him to even come up with plans at all. They don't show up very often, and when they do, he forgets them almost as soon as he blinks. This one was so much trouble just to even remember - and then it failed.
He stares at the blank, white, empty piece of paper. His pencil itches in his fingers, wants to scribble down another evil plot. But he can't think of any. It's surreal, like the sun has burned out - like he's run out of something he thought he had a lifetime supply of.
You messed up again. The thoughts hiss at him. Loser. Loser. Loser.
He folds himself into a ball, whimpering as his back cracks. Usually he tries to drown out those thoughts with ranting - but now he wonders if they're right. What if something's very, very wrong and won't ever be right again?
"I HAVE to be evil!" he says right out loud. "I don't know how to do anything else!"
"Did you say something?" Shego calls from the next room.
"No," he lies.
The phone rings then, right next to his ear. He about jumps out of his skin.
After he climbs off the top of the desk, though, he's grateful for the distraction. Maybe he'll be able to stop thinking about the nagging sensation that all his villain-ness has been used up.
"Hello, Drakken residence, Drakken speaking," he says in his most professional voice.
He doesn't recognize the voice, and he can't make out any words. All he can hear is the crying.
He takes a wild guess. "Mother?"
"No." Hmm. It's obviously a girl, but it's not Mother. He can't think of any other girls who would call him.
"It's Amy," the voice continues.
His mouth goes dry. Ugh. He never knows what to say to DNAmy anymore. "Hey, how have things been going since I proposed to you and you turned me down?" isn't exactly a good conversation-starter.
"Why - why are you calling me?" he manages to get out.
"It's Monty," DNAmy whines.
He feels his forehead fold. He doesn't know anyone named Monty. The confusion of everything knots up his brain until all he can say is, "Amy, I don't understand. Who's Monty?"
"Monkey Fist," she explains.
That doesn't ease his confusion. Why is she calling to talk to him about the guy she turned him down for?
He sighs loudly. Relationships are so confusing. "What about Monkey Fist?"
"He's dead."
In his mind, he hits the train tunnel again. She didn't just say what he just heard, did she? "He's what?"
"He went off to go find some big important weapon thing and -" she stops and hiccups - "and something happened. And he got turned to stone and there's no getting him out! My little cuddle monkey!"
Some small part of his brain notices how bizarre it is to be calling Monkey Fist a little cuddle monkey. But he can't say anything to her. It's like he's half-asleep and barely hearing her voice, barely feeling the chair under him.
Monkey Fist isn't his friend by any stretch of the means or whatever the expression is. He's kind of mean, and he says only saps depend on machinery to "do their villainy for them." That puts them at odds right away.
But they know each other pretty well. Monkey Fist is his acquaintance. Sometimes he's even his ally.
Was his ally.
That's when he starts to shake. No one he knows has ever died before - well, his grandma did, but she was about a hundred years old and so nobody was really surprised and besides he only saw her, like, twice before then, anyway. And he doesn't think pet goldfish count either.
"How do you know all this?" He can barely hear his own voice over the humming in his ears.
"Kim Possible and her friend came to tell me. They thought I should know," DNAmy answers.
He about spits out his teeth. "You let Kim Possible in your house?"
"Oh, yes." DNAmy's voice goes back to its usual little chirp for a minute. "We're all having milk and gingersnaps."
At least he's more villainous than her. "I - I - I -" he stutters.
"And I thought I should tell the rest of you." Her voice cracks again. "And don't tell me it's okay, because it's not!"
"I won't." He hates it when people tell him things are okay when they're very obviously not okay. "I know it's not okay. It's awful and it's horrible and it stinks! And I don't know what else to say."
He wishes he did. Actually, he wishes this conversation never took place.
"I'm gonna go call Duff now," DNAmy whispers. "Thanks for just listening, Drakky."
He's glad she can't see his face go red through the phone line. Talking to her is still really awkward. He hangs up the phone without saying goodbye. The whole thing feels like a bad dream.
"She-she-she-Shego!" His voice gets stuck.
Shego appears then, out of nowhere, in that way she can do. She's filing her nails and smirking. How can she look the same when everything's so different? "You bellowed?" she asks.
He just stares at her, because he can't make his mouth move. He must look worse than he thought, because Shego points the nail file at him. "You okay, Doc?"
"No," he answers.
Shego's eyebrows quirk. "Yikes, who died?"
"Monkey Fist," he says simply.
The nail file clatters to the floor.
DNAmy somehow managed to haul the statue into HenchCo's basement. She and the rest of the villains - that includes him, too - are there to pay their respects. His teen foe and her goofy beau (ooh, he likes that!) are standing off to one side, making sure nobody "tries anything funny," as Kim Possible said. Somehow he's pretty sure she doesn't mean whoopee cushions.
When it's his turn, he just stares at the statue for a long time. It's gray and smooth-looking, but he doesn't want to touch it. Just the thought of his fingers brushing it gives him the shivers.
But it's the look that gets him. Monkey Fist is barely standing up, knees bent, one hand reaching up, empty eyes wide - like he's grabbing for something just beyond his reach. And not lemon squares. Help, more likely.
"I'll be honest with you." He hears Kim Possible's voice and whips around to see her leaning against the wall. Nobody else is around, and his eyes get big. Is she talking to him?
"I'm glad he can't make trouble anymore," Kim continues. Her green eyes droop at the corners. "But I wish there was some other way."
"Did - did he suffer?" He isn't sure he wants to know the answer.
Kim shrugs. "I don't know."
"Was he scared?" He isn't sure why he asked that.
Kim sighs. "Drakken, I don't know."
She sounds annoyed, so he shrinks back a little. Annoyed usually comes before green balls of plasma hurled in his general direction - except Kim Possible can't do that, he remembers. Still, she can kick hard.
"Do you know what happened?" he asks.
"Let's just say," her voice gets serious, "he was messing around with powers beyond his control. That's the risk you take as a villain."
Then she's gone, and he's left to try and process that. Powers beyond his control? That sounds like something out of a cheesy horror movie.
The risk you take, she said. Did she mean villains in general or was she talking to him?
He sinks down next to the statue because his knees won't hold him up anymore. He's remembering things, and he can't stop them.
The Diablos, of course. What happened with Warmonga. That terrible time, only a few weeks ago, when he opened his eyes and found himself in the middle of the ocean in pirate clothes, feeling half-sick and out of control. He still doesn't remember how he wound up in that situation.
Is - is he messing around with stuff he can't control, too?
He looks up into the eye holes of the statue and shivers. "Can - can you hear me, Monkey Fist?" he whispers.
No answer. Well, that only makes sense. Even if he can hear him, he's probably not in any position to respond.
"Did you ever think you shouldn't be a villain, but you didn't know what else to do?" he continues. "Did - did you wish, right before you got turned to stone, that you'd become a radio talk show doctor like your mother thought you were? Where are you now? Does it hurt?"
He swallows hard and gets out the last question. "Are you scared?" He leans in and puts his lips a few inches from the statue's ear. "Because I am."