Chapter 10
A/N: Sorry for the delay. I haven't heard from my beta in ages (Anyone know where donteatacowman is?) so I've decided to update without this being edited. Feel free to point out errors. 1 more chapter after this!
Happy Holidayness to everyone. And remember - reviews are the best gifts of all.
"BOTH OF YOU ARE DEAD!"
There was a second of stunned silence, followed by a flurry of button-pushing as Drakken tried to make the malevolent force of Dr. Betty Director disappear from the view screen. "Drakken, so help you if you don't stop what you're doing this instant!" Drakken obediently cowered in his seat. Shego had taken out her nail file and was paying rapt attention to the task.
"Now, both of you… no. Shego!" Drakken was impressed that Shego did not jump in the slightest from the anger the inexorable voice projected.
She lazily uncrossed her legs, and gestured still holding the file, "Can I do for you Miss Director?"
Betty growled at the honorific. "Yes, Shego," she drew out the name with false patience, "You can. You see, I was recently alerted that a car in the vicinity of the COWUN headquarters had caught fire. I was wondering if perhaps you had seen anything." Her voice dripped sarcasm.
"Why no, I don't think I did." She lifted her hand to her chin, pretending to be thoughtful, the other hand still gesturing with the file. "You see, Drakken and I went out for a lovely walk…" She plucked a hydrangea flower from where it lay on the hovercar floor. "And it was just so wonderful that I simply didn't notice much else…" Her voice was high and breathy, and her eyes had a dreamy look.
Sounds of gagging could be heard in the shadows behind the Director, and the woman herself looked faintly disgusted.
Drakken frowned in confusion. A walk? Hadn't she stormed off threatening to quit, and hadn't that flower come from his cursory departure when he had driven through the dang bush? Oh, right. She must be acting sarcastic. He could never tell if she was being sweet or sarcastic.
The normally unflappable Director found herself without words for a moment, before resuming her brisk tone. "Earth to Shego. Earth paging Shego. Come in, Shego, we're losing contact with you." Green eyes gave a ferocious glare that she returned with a smug smirk. "Now, back to business… WHAT IN THE BLUE BLAZES WERE YOU THINKING?!?! You just get recognized by the COWUN, then go out and demolish some fancy boy's car?!" She was breathing hard. It took a lot to get the head of Global Justice out of her normally calm, cool, and collected state so to see this really drove home that she probably wouldn't mind taking out that new grenade launcher for a bit of practice.
"You know me," said Shego flippantly. "I've always had anger management problems." She never could take getting in trouble seriously.
However, the apogee of Betty Director's anger had not passed. "That does not excuse anything! All the strings I pulled for you-" She was interrupted by a loud clamor from Drakken.
"YOU PULLED? I spent hours calling and e-mailing and faxing every official and petty bureaucrat I could get my hands on. You refused to even try, said there was no hope! 'No treasure with honor' or 'thieves with treasure' or 'honor with thieves' or… or… nya, gah, da… YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN!"
It seemed to be an excitable day for everyone, thought Shego. The Doc never usually got this aggressive. Despite her musings though, she had not missed the content of what the two were saying. What were they talking about? Well, be it far from her nature not to be direct.
"What are you talking about? I mean, really, is it too much to be kept in the loop?"
The other two stared. Then started to stammer; a rushing stream of excuses, the words tumbling over each other. "I thought that- You never- You see- think to tell? But I- Well I didn't- Of course- Then again- I was right…"
"Shut up!" The inscrutable flow of words was abruptly dammed. "I can't hear myself think with you two idiots babbling over one another. Now, I don't trust you," another sharp glare at towards Dr. Director, "And you… well, close enough. Now talk Doc."
Still he cowered. However, a sharp jab to his leg provided enough impetus. "You weren't going to get amnesty… Dr. Director said there was no hope for you to reform…"
"And I was right," Betty injected. "I was trying to obviate a situation like this, but would you listen to me? Of course not."
"Well I will now." She placed a hand over her heart and held the other in the air. "Dr. Director is right… I will never reform." And before the other two knew what was happening, she had zapped the view screen, ripped it out, effectively disconnected any wires, and then took to the controls.
"Shego! What are you doing?!" cried Drakken in horror. She continued flying at a terrific pace, eyes locked onto the air ahead, her mouth stubbornly mute. "You can't!"
"Why not?"
"What?"
"I said: why the heck not?"
"Because- cause… because you'll bring down GJ and the entire world down on us, that's why!"
"You didn't care back when you were building super lasers."
"But… you can't… they… then… I was… on purpose, trying… not wanted… gah! Why must you be so frustrating?!" The two villains were hardly the best at having a cogent debate.
Shego could hardly explain herself to him, after all, to explain her motivations would require an onerous amount of intrapersonal exploration that she was incapable of doing. (She was incapable of knowing she was incapable, preferring to think it stupid and a waste of time when instincts had always served her well enough.) What she did know was that she was mad, and that she wanted to prove something.
You'd think she'd want to prove Dr. Director wrong, but her mind didn't quite work like that. Instead, she was tired of everyone debating over what way she was going to chose to live her life. Would she remain bad, go good, go good but give in and relapse to criminal ways? But no, she wanted to prove that she wasn't a coward, that she wasn't wishy-washy. When she had left her brothers she had sworn never to look back, something that turned out surprisingly easy to do. But lately, she had been wondering, thinking about what she wanted to do. She never thought of growing older, it was a horrible nightmare- losing her edge, losing her looks- but without really thinking about it, she had vaguely acknowledged maybe it was better to go good, that without such a pressure to keep up her reputation the transition would be easier. Not to mention she had kind of wanted to stick around Dr. D…
But anger had done away with all that, and left her only with an ardent passion to prove once and for all that her adopted lifestyle of villainy was the one that suited her. Her paranoia of having her past found out, her brothers and Team Go discovered, had made being a villain, being feared as villain, and proving that she was one of them through and through, her autopilot mode.
"Because I am," she replied shortly, slaloming through a set of trees at a speed that made them little more than passing green blurs. "Here." The hovercar jerked to a violent stop. "Get off. There's no reason for them being after your head as well." Drakken stared. "Look," she said impatiently, "Just get off, go fifty paces that-a-way, turn right, and there'll be a pay phone. Just tell them I kidnapped you or something… the world will believe it." Still he hesitated. "What are you? Slow? Get off! I need to get out of here before those dang GJ fox-hunters come an' get me!"
"I thought we were an evil family… we stick together…."
Shego stared at him, sincerely speechless for the third time in her life. "You... Me... GAH! Dr. D! You don't wanna stick with me, not with the heck Miss Betty Director is going to dish up for me, and I've proven I can't stick with you… not if you choose that life. Now will you get your sorry self out of here?!"
If he wasn't so anti-social and self-centered and generally better at dealing with people, Drakken might have noticed that her tone had become less of an angry command and more of a desperate plea. But this was villains' (or ex-villains') land and everything had to be wrapped in twenty layers of issues rather than being straightforward.
"Fine. Be that way! See if I care!" And he stuck out his tongue before attempting to disembark. (He actually ended up tripping and landing flat on his face.)
She flew off, and he trudged to the pay phone, both bitterly angry with the other, and both with a sense of déjà vu.