Disclaimer: if Disney owns it, I don't. Otherwise… Soundtrack for this chapter: Dominic Frontiere's Outer Limits s/t.
Kim jumped aside, barely in time; the beam singed the hair on her head. She threw up her force-field bubble, but it remained only a second before the Battlesuit shorted out with a brief, ignominious crackle. She knew she should have had Wade look it over before they left.
After all, it had been in the closet for years.
"Dad, no!" Another blast, which she deflected with a fallen henchman's shock-rod. "Fight it!"
He was fighting it. No one would ever know the extent of his mental struggle. But the chip's command proved irresistible.
Beyond them the Copernicus slowly began to rise, its pilot not daring to engage its incredible speed until he was completely clear of the narrow lair. Its anti-grav thrusters emitted something that looked like fluttering, glowing feathers.
Ron was surrounded by henchmen, unable to get to Kim, unable to stop her father. The next shot struck Kim's shock-rod at its centre, shattering it; there was no further defense and nowhere to run. The young woman stared in horror at her father, her assassin, knowing this was the end, unable to believe it had come like this.
Then, from behind him, a vine darted out, plucked the gun from his hand, smashing it; another whipped around, flicked the evil chip from his forehead. Dr. P. fell forward with a sigh; his daughter caught him, eased him to the floor.
Drakken stepped forward in full botanical fury, crushed the compliance chip beneath his heel.
Ron's adversaries took one look at the blue man and fled for the nearest exit. Incredibly quickly, Drakken's vines lashed out, ripped down a portion of the overhead catwalk, wrapped it tightly around their fleeing foes. "It's time for some vegetable vengeance, boys," raged the doctor, his ferocity not lessened a bit by the petals around his head. "No one works mind control on Dr. Drakken and gets away with it. Now where is Shego?"
"Thirteenth floor, room 23," said Dr. Possible, so weakly that only his daughter heard him. The ordeal had left him exhausted. "She told me to remember. As we left." His expression turned to alarm as the ship's radiant exhaust washed over them. "Look out … lazy gravity…!" The strange substance filled the lair as the ship ascended. A room full of sparkling feathers.
"It's … like …molasses," Kim gasped. "I can…barely…move!"
"Infinitesimal… halflife," muttered Dr. P. "Won't last long…"
Above them, the man in black leaned far out of the ship's access hatch, hurled something down to them, something black and round with a sizzling fuse. "Thanks for the ship… and the gazuntite!" his amplified voice bellowed. "Don't say I never gave you anything!" The hatch slammed shut.
The bomb crept downward through the lazy gravity, slowly, ominously, inexorably. They all sensed that it was far more destructive than its tiny diameter implied. Drakken tried to shoot out his vines, to seize it and throw it back, but caught in the quantum jelly of lazy gravity, they were useless.
Ron closed his eyes, concentrated, his mind battered by a thousand doubts he had to overcome. One chance at this. The blue glow of MMP ignited around him; he leaped into the air, the supernatural current of Tai Sheng Pek Kwar defying all the power of science and physics.
Buffoon…ignorant…just the rebound guy, came the accusing thoughts, but he defied them. It was all just something he'd read. Well, maybe he was a bit buffoonish, now and then. And he probably should have paid more attention in school. There was a lot of stuff he didn't know.
The steady blue glow suddenly began to flicker.
"But I'm not the rebound guy," he yelled, and the aura flared like a blue star. "She loves me."
He intercepted the sinister sphere, spun around in mid-air and flung it back toward the departing rocket with all the power of a born football hero. The bomb tore through the quickly fading exhaust like a missile, but the ship had finally cleared the lair and begun to accelerate as well.
The explosion toppled equipment, collapsed part of the roof, knocked heroes and henchmen alike to the floor. A lump of concrete struck Drakken in the head; he crumpled without even a moan, vines and flowers retracting. Kim was instantly at his side.
Groaning, the blue man opened his eyes. "Am I dying?"
"You're just dazed. It didn't even break the skin." It was a pretty ugly bruise, though. "Show a girl some flowers."
He concentrated. "Can't. Can't do it. My head –" They all looked up as the Copernicus howled into the sky, its thrusters now wide-open. "Do you think he's – got Sherri?"
The spacecraft was wobbling on its axis.
"Good shot, Ronald!" MrDrP exclaimed. "I think you hit it!"
For a full minute it struggled to stay aloft, shrieking ever higher into the stratosphere, a tiny glittering dot in the heavens. In an instant it was lost to sight in the clouds. Then it reappeared, turned on its side far above them and began a slow but inevitable spiral descent, trailing a dark plume of smoke.
Henchmen jumped from the windows, fled down the halls, bolting in panic.
"Ron! Get Dad and Drakken out of here!"
"What - where're you going?"
"To get Shego." She fired her grappling hook, shot upward on the wire. Her husband, her father, and her former enemy watched her ascend across the lair.
Across eternity.
The emerald harlequin was still in her bonds, her head shaven. Kim whipped out her laser lipstick, cut through the bonds. "We gotta get out of here."
"You bet we do. I owe Big Nose a beating."
They hadn't taken two steps when they were slammed against the unyielding titanium wall, unable to catch their breath, every molecule in their bodies in agony, the taste of blood in their mouths. Another crushing blast of sound, bruising them inside and out.
When their vision cleared, Phobos and Deimos stood in the doorway of the room. Phobos wagged her finger at them like a schoolmarm. "You should have stayed chained up. We were going to" – a pause, then a smile – "assimilate you. But you can't be allowed to threaten the collective. It's too new. Too fragile."
"The ship," Kim pleaded, "is about to crash on us."
Green plasma flared. "No time for diplomacy," snarled Shego, but before she could fire, Deimos' disruptor roared again. And kept roaring. Kim stared in horror as the green woman writhed, twisted, screamed.
Phobos' laser eye glowed like a hot coal, her mouth a crazy grin. "We've never killed anyone before," she shouted, to be heard over the din.
Deimos' disruptor shook the walls. "It's fun."
Kim pulled out her laser lipstick, hardly believing what she was about to do; before she could use it, Phobos snatched it from her trembling fingers and, in one fluid motion, spun to kick her feet from under her. Apparently their ongoing evolution had made them a lot more efficient.
The redheaded woman went down, hard.
Her cyborg adversary towered over her. "Brutal," she spat. "Ugly. Vicious. We're going to split you open like a piñata."
"And we'll find out what you're made of," added Deimos, her insanely happy gaze never wavering from Shego's tortured form. "Sugar and spice – "
"— and everything nice. Or maybe just blood and guts." Phobos' laser eye flared. ""We'll get someone else for the collective." They giggled. "We'll get the whole world." The faltering whine of the Copernicus could now be heard clearly, even over the disruptor's thunder. "And anyone who won't join… will be deleted."
A blinding crimson beam shot from Phobos' eye.
With superhuman reflexes, Kim grabbed her compact from her utility belt, caught the ray with its mirror.
The reflected laser neatly severed Deimos' disruptor antenna, silencing the thunder with a cascade of sparks. Their telepathic circuits bound them both in a feedback loop of fear and pain. Sparks continued to erupt as the stricken sisters staggered backward, clutching their heads, shrieking in perfect unison:
"— Notfairnotright Cheatercheaterdirtybrutalspoilsport Stopit Stopit STOPITSTOPITHELPHELPHELP -"
The laser flashed wildly, slicing holes in the walls, the floor, missing Kim and Shego by millimeters, severing the protective rail of the catwalk even as the cyborg girls fell against it. With a final incoherent scream they tumbled over the edge.
Then the sound of the spacecraft's engines filled the world.
"We're not getting out this time." Shego coughed hard, blood staining her lips, and weakly smiled. "I turned the alarm on at Hench's. Thought you were stealing my thunder."
Drakken's hovercar whirred erratically to a wobbly stop just outside the room, Dr. P. and Drakken in the rear, Ron anxiously clutching the controls, his knuckles white. "Kim! Shego! I can't get any closer. You need to be here, now!"
"Go on," Shego gasped. "I can't –"
Mustering the last of her strength, Kim lifted her fallen ally, her onetime foe. Shego bit her lip to keep from screaming as broken bones grated against each other, closed her eyes tight against the pain.
They reached the hovercar just as the Copernicus plowed into the lair, becoming a blazing supernova as its shattered generators unleashed their full fury in a paroxysm of destructive force.
Ron screamed "Do it! Do it now!" to someone, even as the white-hot fireball hurtled down, blocking all chance of exit.
An instant later the island exploded.