Disclaimer: if it was on TV, it's not mine. Soundtrack for this chapter: Eurythmics' 1984: For the Love of Big Brother; Tyranny by Shadow Gallery.

With a quaver in his voice, Drakken called her name again, still unable to believe what had just happened.

Ignoring his plea for caution, she had walked up to their enemy, said something he hadn't quite heard, and viciously slapped the man with her steel-clawed glove. The next instant, their foe had pinned her to the ground, his face and hands glowing with the sick light of radiation.

Then he had witnessed the unthinkable.

Mere minutes before, he might have saved her. Now his tears fell across her pallid face. Her eyes were closed; he wouldn't have been able to face that lifeless stare. "Shego…don't be dead," he implored the still, silent body, holding her close. "Please, I – I need you," he said, and was racked with sobs.

Her murderer, his nuclear energy minimized, watched Drakken with distaste. "Even with your botanical might, you are pathetic. Spineless. You blubber as if something new and horrible has come upon you. Nothing has happened that will not happen to us all."

"You killed her!" he screamed at their enemy, through his tears.

"Yes. And if I hadn't, she would have fallen down a stairwell. Or suffered a stroke. Or been hit by a runaway tram. Einstein assures us light speed is the universal constant. He is incorrect. Death is the universal constant. It is the Divine curse, Dr. Drakken; it has been with us since the Garden."

Drakken held her tighter, overcome with grief. This is a nightmare, he thought. In just a second she'll open her eyes, and laugh, and say something clever and devastating. Then we fight him and win. That's how it happens. That's how it always happens.

But she remained motionless and lifeless in his arms.

"She will be spared the ravages of time," said the radioactive man. "Always beautiful and passionate. Fixed in eternity, forever young."

The blue man stroked her hair, touched her face, silently begged his heart to beat for her, his lungs to breathe for her. Without looking away from her, he asked a single question.

"Are you going to kill me now?"

Asafiev shook his head. "The Leader thought your woman could help us, but she would have only been a thorn in our side, impossible to trust, worthless to the New Soviet Union. Kimberly Possible and her chout companion are just as useless." He paused. "You, on the other hand, are a scientist,a talent we need."

"W—what?"

"The Scientists' Union is working on a magnificent plan, our Leader's grand design. I have stolen for it, terrorized for it, kidnapped for it, killed for it, and still it remains unfulfilled. Perhaps you are the answer. Maybe Providence has cast you on these shores to complete the project."

A strand of her jet-black hair was out of place; he brushed it neatly back. She hated to have her hair mussed up. He solemnly crossed her hands on her chest, just below her breasts, covering the wound that had killed her. Whispered three words to her and kissed her brow.

Then he got slowly to his feet. A trio of vines sprang out, coiled, tense. His voice was quiet, even, the calm before the storm. "I'll die before I'll help you."

Asafiev laughed. "This, too, is incorrect." A sardonic smile. "You are afraid to die. That's why you stood there as I killed your woman. Fear."

Drakken looked at his hands. Saw her blood there.

"And the frightened man can be controlled," Asafiev continued. "Without the crudity of compliance chips. Now let us go to the Leader as allies. You will become a legend, the man who helped us restore order and discipline to a world that has lost it altogether." He indicated the body with a nonchalant wave of his hand. "Or, if you must, you can join your woman in the next life. You have free will. Decide."

"Stop calling her that. She wasn't my woman." A dozen more vines sprang forth as he stalked toward the still-amused Asafiev. "She didn't belong to anyone. She was special. Rare. Unique."

"And now she stands before God, and what is left is carrion. Count the cost before you act, Doctor Drakken." Suddenly he was no longer amused. "I cannot be destroyed."

"We'll see!" he screamed, and leaped on the monster, vines that had devastated Lorwardian weaponry reaching out to tear, to crush, to smash. Immediately Asafiev unleashed his power on the blue man and his mutant symbiote, but as one vine was poisoned and crumbled, another burst forth to take its place, over and over again, enveloping the Russian, tearing at his limbs, crushing his torso, ripping his lower jaw from his face, twisting his head free from the neck.

Drakken was a shrieking whirlwind, driven by rage, not stopping until the indestructible man was scattered lumps of glowing matter, no longer recognizable as human. Not stopping until radiation was consuming him, until his dark hair began falling out in clumps, until his sweat ran red as blood, until his eyesight blurred and began to fade.

Not stopping until he had avenged the woman he loved.

Hank Perkins, the Leader, stood in the doorway of the lab, his eyes shadowed, his features grim. Flanking him were his right-hand men, Ivanov and Khrennikoff.

Perkins drew a pistol, aimed it unerringly at Adrena Lynn. "Make it work," he commanded, speaking loudly enough to be heard over the time-tilting device's chaotic ticking.

The members of the Scientists' Union froze in their tracks.

"Make it work now," Perkins repeated. "This venture will not be forced into insolvency when we are so close to the goal."

"Leader," Gregori Shchedrin hastily began, "we can't. Even Adrena's technological talents cannot penetrate the mystery of the guidance system. Until that is solved, it would be disaster to enter the chronoton field." He spoke quietly, calmly, trying to defuse the situation. "That weapon will not change that, Leader."

"Don't try to pacify me, Shchedrin! She can't fix it because she isn't trying." He turned his furious gaze on Adrena. "I had you brought here to assist us. To be part of the team. Not to make small talk with Comrade Shchedrin while you called Kim Possible for help!"

The roar of the gun was deafening in the enclosed laboratory. Adrena involuntarily threw her hand to her heart, before realizing the shot was meant for the little device on the workbench, now just so much twisted junk.

Perkins was again calm and collected, his temper under control. "What you didn't know, Miss Lynn, is that Kim Possible is just as much our prisoner as you are. There will be no salvation from that direction."

Khrennikoff, who rarely spoke, suddenly erupted. "Now you will make that machine function! Or you can discuss the matter with Comrade Qua-Czar, who is becoming extremely – what is the word? – antsy about the whole situation."

Unexpectedly, Adrena stood her ground. "I've heard your Leader bellowing orders over that intercom. That's what this is about. You're losing control of your freaky assassin, aren't you? You've got to get this thing working before he goes completely off his nut."

Perkins grimaced.

"Comrade Qua-Czar," intoned the funereal Ivanov, "has placed his talents and abilities completely at the beck and call of the Leader. He desires nothing but the restoration of the country he served as a Vympel operative prior to his - transformation. You would do well to consider his wishes your top priority, Miss Lynn." The old man pointed to her shattered signaling device. "If he should suspect that you are hindering the project, I assure you he will not hesitate to remove you from this scientific kolkhoz. Permanently."

If the threat frightened her, she didn't show it. "And if that happens, then your time machine never works. Gregori and his men are good, but they're not good enough. But you knew that when you kidnapped me."

The troika listened in baleful silence.

Adrena continued, the dread within her tightly controlled, inaudible in her voice. "I'm the one who took over world communications with a Sony videocam. I'm the one who'll crack this thing, if anyone can. So you would do well to make my safety your top priority. Keep your atomic man away from this 'scientific kolkhoz.' Or all your frea – all your big plans just might go iz okna. Is that right?"

"Close enough," snarled Khrennikoff. He snapped his fat fingers; armed guards stormed into the lab. "These men will make sure there are no more technological diversions. We will expect results very soon." He approached the woman, who faced him without fear. "You wear courage like a mask, Lynn; I've seen it many times before. I hope you will be just as bold when your delays do cause us to lose control of Comrade Qua-Czar. Because there will be no mercy, believe me, if that happens."

The three men left the lab, walked down the hall. Comrade Raikh of the Psychology Department joined them. "Leader, fellow comrades, we have problems."

Perkins, exasperated, exploded. "I know, Raikh. Qua-Czar is cracking up on us. Our people are in disarray. You've made that abundantly clear. What else have you got? Anything?"

"Yes," he said, tone so dire that even Ivanov was troubled. "Shego is dead. He killed her."

Perkins stopped in his tracks, stunned. "I ordered him to bring her in alive. To cease hostilities. A direct order. No options, no choices. I wanted her alive."

"The comrades in Observation saw it on the security cam."

"Why am I hearing this from you, Raikh?"

"I – Leader, I have asked them to keep me posted on Comrade Qua-Czar's actions, in my official position as Head of Psychometrics. I've told you that he is dangerous, not only to our enemies, but ultimately – "

"Never mind that. Did they send some men out there? Get her to sickbay? She's recovered from radiation before."

Ivanov and Khrennikoff scrutinized their Leader without word or expression, exchanged a knowing glance. Superhuman or not, Shego could not have been that important to their goal. It was very clear the Leader had held some misplaced feelings for the fiery, rebellious woman. Qua-Czar might well have done them a favor.

"It wasn't radiation. His Spetsnaz, ah, skills." Raikh shuddered, his face pale. "There was no doubt that she was dead, Leader."

"Drakken? Possible? Stoppable?" It was all falling apart right before his eyes.

"We've lost track of Team Possible, if they're still alive. Drakken –"

"Yes?"

"According to Observation, he's done a very foolhardy thing."

Unable to stand, Dr. Drakken crawled slowly, agonizingly back to her, leaving fragments of dead vine in his wake. It seemed to take an eternity to reach her, to tell her what he'd done.

Behind him, shadows shifted, phosphorescence flickered. Something moved.

"Sherri," he whispered, reaching out to touch her still face. "I – I did it." He coughed up blood. The petals that surrounded his face were wilted and brown. "I killed him. I killed Qua-Czar. For you."

"Again you are incorrect," said a horrible, gurgling voice, a voice just recognizable enough to fill Drakken with terror. Glowing hands dragged him away from his beloved, spun him to stare into the face of Andrei Dmitryevich Asafiev, a face still only half-formed, still flowing together before the scientist's eyes. "An excellently thorough effort. You die a man, not a cowering invertebrate. But my consciousness extends to the subatomic particles of my being; there is nothing I cannot recover from. That said," and the face smiled beatifically, "I felt that."

Drakken closed his eyes, expecting the death blow, but Asafiev flung him down beside Shego's body in disgust. "You have destroyed the uniform the Scientists' Union developed. Pity. They'll have to make another." Turning away, he added "Tell God we asked you to help us with the time-tilting device; instead you chose to die."

Somehow the scientist mustered the strength to speak. "…Time-tilting device?"

The radioactive man stopped, bent down to him. "One was built by some unknown genius, years ago. On an island. It brought me through time, and in doing so, fused me with the radioactivity that should have killed me. Through the sovereign will of God, it made me what I am."

Drakken groaned in an agony deeper than any sickness, realizing what must have happened. Somehow she must have known. She'd tried to destroy it. He remembered. He'd been so furious with her over that.

Her blood was on his hands even then.

"That machine was destroyed, but we construct another." Now completely whole, Asafiev coldly watched the blue man writhe. "We will ensure that my country does not collapse. Our new world order will stand a billion years. We will impose sanity on this global madhouse." He stood up, walked away from the dead and the dying. "You have thrown away not only the chance to live, but to have ever existed at all."

Before Kim's eyes, Ron was losing the battle, growing paler, his breathing growing shallower by the moment. And there was nothing she could do to help him. Suddenly his eyes opened in panic; he grabbed her hands so hard it hurt. Blue ch'i energy surrounded him. "I won't let you fall, Kim," he said, delirious. "I won't let go."

"Ron, I'm –" She choked up, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I'm all right, Ron. You – you saved me." Over and over again, she thought. From Warhok and Warmonga. From Drakken, Shego and Hank Perkins. From Professor Dementor. From Miss Hatchet, back in school, when all our missions seemed so light-hearted, and death was just a word, powerless to touch us.

He let go of her hands, reached up to lightly touch her face. "I love you, Kim." He smiled, the silly schoolboy smile. Then he sighed and fell back, as the aura flickered, flashed, and went out.

From behind her a disarmingly cheery voice rang out: "Ah, Miss Possible! I thought you came this way. We have not been properly introduced. I am Andrei Dmitryevich Asafiev."