Author's Note: You guys rock, you know that? Thank you to everyone who sent a message or review after the last chapter was published. It's always nice to know that someone out there is reading and enjoying the hard work that goes into this.
As a reward, have another chapter! DUN-DUN-DUUUN. Bet you didn't see that coming! This wraps up the Senior Island rescue, and plants some biiiig seeds for the next phase of the story, as well as forcing some unpleasant conversations on our main characters. Tying this all together was hard, but I'm actually relatively happy with how this ended up. I hope you are too. Ironically, it also ended up being the longest chapter so far, whoooops.
As always, thanks to those who have read and left a review, or added me to their favorites/alerts, I appreciate it, as always.
Standard Disclaimer: The various characters from the Kim Possible series are all owned by Disney. All registered trade names property of their respective owners. Cheap shots at celebrities constitute fair usage.
Kim Possible: Shadow Plays
Chapter Twelve:
KP KP KP
Shego stalked through the corridors of Senior's mansion with her hands ablaze and a furious glare on her face that dared anyone to get in her way.
The number of idiots ignoring the warning increased the closer she got to the medical wing of Senior's mansion, which told her that she was heading in the right direction. Dealing with them was taking time, though, time they didn't have, and her frustration was growing by the minute. As it grew, so did the damage done to the troops standing in her way - and the collateral damage to the surrounding sections of the mansion increased in sympathy.
Men were thrown halfway through walls or into the roof hard enough to bring sections of it down, blasts of plasma were tossed that destroyed doors and blew out windows - and the bursts of semi-automatic weapon fire that Shego didn't incinerate with the plasma left pockmarked holes across the walls.
She reacted instantly when the low thwwiiip of a grenade launcher firing came from the far end of a corridor she had just turned into, throwing up a large plasma wave in front of her that destroyed the explosive projectile before it could detonate and scratch her with it's shrapnel. She broke into a sprint, hurling balls of plasma ahead of her as she raced forward toward the small squad of soldiers that had fired upon her, forcing them back around the corner.
She slid around the end of the corridor with both hands fully lit, and tossed a pair of concussive bursts into the middle of the men - one of whom was bringing a bloody rocket launcher in line with her! The blast scattered them, and the idiot with the launcher pulled the trigger reflexively, sending the rocket straight through the roof before it detonated on the floor above them with an enormous deafening roar.
Shego was seriously starting to reconsider her previous assessment of the soldiers she was facing. No highly trained soldier would have ever contemplated firing that indoors even in the most desperate of situations!
"IDIOTS!" she screamed at them, as she walked among the shaken soldiers, systematically knocking each of them out. "So much for your elite bloody troops, Jack!"
She looked up at the hole and the damage visible through it and shook her head. Senior Sr was going to be shelling out a lot of money on reconstruction work when he was rescued - assuming that the mansion was still standing when she was finished.
When she finally reached the small but advanced infirmary, only a single guard stood outside the door, which kind of suggested the condition Junior was going to be in wasn't going to be good. Even so, the guard he had his weapon out, but unluckily for him, he was carefully checking the far end of the corridor.
She stalked towards him, a furious scowl on her face.
"Hey there," she growled, before slamming her fist at full strength into the guard's jaw as he turned towards her, knocking him out instantly and sending him and his rifle clattering to the floor. No plasma needed.
She stepped over his prone form and into the infirmary proper, where she paused to take in the sight of Senor Senior Junior curled on his side in one of the beds. He didn't look good, even from a brief glance. His large form was tucked almost in a fetal position, and he was shivering despite the warm temperature in the room.
Shego felt her rage slowly supplanted by a feeling of pity - and fear, for reasons that she couldn't quite explain.
"Junior?" she asked hesitantly. "Junior, are you awake? Can you move?"
"Who is it?" His voice was cracked and hoarse, like he had a cold.
"It's Shego," she said. "I got a call for help from Bonnie, she said you guys were being held hostage.. and that they were.."
"Have you found her? Or my father?" he asked, rolling over and sitting up - and Shego suddenly realized his voice wasn't hoarse from a cold.. it was from screaming his throat raw.
Shego stared in complete shock at the damage that had been done to his once handsome, aristocratic face. Massive bruises had formed around his eyes, his nose, and across his cheekbones. Deliberate cuts had been made in ugly, uneven rows down his cheeks, his nostrils had been clearly cut open, and it looked like a part of his left ear was missing. His hands were as bad - several fingers had dirty red bandages on their tips, others were obviously broken and sloppily splinted.
"My god," she whispered. "What did they do to you, Junior?"
"They wanted to know…" he started, then stopped, and shuddered deeply. "They wanted to know what Father knew about the assassination of Kim Possible."
"But.. that doesn't make any sense, he wasn't involved. At all."
"I know that, and they must have known that.. and yet, they kept asking their strange questions. 'Where is Kim Possible?'.. 'Who else knows she is alive?'.. they kept hitting me, and when that did not work they started cutting me, and I screamed and screamed and screamed, and Father.. Father kept telling them he knew nothing…" Junior trailed off, and a broken look came over his face. "Why did they keep asking those questions, Shego?"
Feeling slightly panicked, Shego did the only thing that made sense to her and lied. "I don't know why, Junior."
Thankfully, he seemed to accept the lie without question, then his expression cleared slightly and he frowned. "Shego.. have you found Bonnie?"
"Yeah, K..uhhnnn.. an associate of mine has her safe, and she's taking Bonnie to a secure room in the mansion."
"You are not with the blue man any more?" Junior asked.
"Ahhhh, no. He's not around much these days. Busy guy, lots of busy work to do. My new partner is.. uh.. Phoenix." Shego hated how lame that name sounded the moment she said it, but again, Junior thankfully seemed to accept it without question.
"And now you will rescue my father, yes?" he asked, looking directly in her eyes for the first time.
"Yes, Junior, I will. Will you stay here until I come back?"
Junior looked down at his hands, and the trembling eased slightly, a commanding tone of voice coming back to him momentarily, like a glimpse of the old vain Junior she'd known. "Yes. Return to me when you have rescued my father and then take me to Bonnie."
Shego didn't like the look in his eyes one little bit, but she didn't have much of a choice - she needed to get to Senior Sr before the last soldiers still conscious did anything drastic, so she left the younger Senior in the infirmary and headed down the corridor that took her to the library. Once she reached it, this time without encountering any opposition, she opened the door hidden behind a bookshelf by pulling the appropriate book - always the classics with Senior - and she stepped into an elevator, hitting the button for the lower level, grateful that Senior had shown her how to open the door.
A few people knew about the second secret 'lair' beneath the mansion, and Shego was one. She had been a guest on the island a few times in the months after her turnaround from world's most wanted to free and clear, before leaving to begin her search for Kim, and the old man had shown her his setup out of a sense of professional pride - the enjoyment of having someone touring who would appreciate it properly might have also had something to do with it, she guessed.
Or maybe it was just the pleasure of her company.
Having been in more lairs than most people, Shego figured she was fairly well placed to comment on both aesthetics and functionality, and when she had first seen it, she had to admit that it had everything that Drakken had ever built, stolen - or on those extremely rare times he had the funds, actually paid for - beaten all ends up. Mind you, Drakken was notoriously cheap all times, whereas Senior was happy to pay top dollar for quality work, so maybe it wasn't that surprising.
Now, though, as the elevator doors slid open and she stepped out into the master control room, she looked up at where the main view screen was mounted and saw nothing but black.
None of the control panels were active, there were no henches manning them.
The room contained nothing but a threatening feeling looming in the darkness.
She walked forward cautiously, every one of her senses on high alert and ready for any possibility.
"Hello, Shego," a low male voice eventually said as she reached the center of the room, and she lit her hands instinctively, turning in a full circle to try and locate the sound of the voice, but finding nobody in the room with her.
"Oh, don't be daft, I'm not that stupid to actually be in the room. I know what you're capable of, and I have no intention of personally dealing with you. No, my employers and I had a sneaking suspicion that Ms Rockwaller got a message out, and we had guessed that it might be you who came, so I thought we could take out two birds with one stone, so to speak."
Shego growled as the implications of part of his statement became clear in her mind. He said employers. If Jack isn't his only master, has someone got their fingers into HenchCo like we feared?
"Unfortunately, your jet managed to evade the missiles.. but I always have a few backup plans.. you won't be able to evade this."
The doors slammed shut behind her and a series of bottles placed around the room started hissing, venting a grey mist as into the air. More curious than afraid, Shego threw an experimental plasma blast at one of them, and was highly amused when the detonation was a sparkling blue color that sparkled briefly with green flecks.
"Well then, looks like somebody didn't do all of their homework," Shego said with glee, and fired off another ball at the next one - this time, a trail of blazing blue fire following her green plasma ball as it traveled through the gas clouds. She snapped more off, destroying all the canisters, then as the last of the gas started to swirl around her legs, she lit her glow to the highest she could maintain comfortably, and a blue firestorm formed all around her. A few seconds later, she cut her powers, and then took a deep breath in through her nose. "Ahh, I love the smell of ozone in the morning."
There was a growl of anger through the hidden speakers.
"You bitch... you might have beaten the gas, but I've got more than enough men to throw at you until my reinfor… what the hell do you mean the island's air defense network is up again?"
Shego snorted. Of course she couldn't follow orders and stay somewhere safe. She had no doubts that last little tidbit was Kim throwing a wrench in the invaders plans, probably with Bonnie's help. She quickly had other things on her mind though, in the form of a whole room full of soldiers, that came flooding into the room from the various doorways, all armed for bear and generally looking pissed.
Unfortunately for them, Shego was more pissed, and she tore into them like a wild animal, sending men flying with plasma bursts, felling them with vicious kicks to knees and groins, knocking them out with punches to jaws and temples, and using their unconscious bodies as battering rams to take down more. As the numbers thinned, the soldiers fought more and more viciously, knifes and batons and tasers and even sidearms all aiming for her but never hitting as she danced around every attack and counterattacked with devastating results.
Several had stayed clear of the melee and were aiming their weapons at her as the last of the troops near her went down. A barrage of bullets melted in the plasma wall she hastily threw up, scorching the last few conscious soldiers in her vicinity and sending them scrambling away to put themselves out. As they began to reload their rifles, she tossed more concussive plasma blasts at them, launching them into the air, only for walls or consoles to rudely interrupt their sudden flight.
Less than five minutes after the had started to rush into the room, they were done. Shego stood alone, unchallenged, supreme in the middle of a pile of shifting, groaning - or in most cases, still and quiet - bodies.
"C'mon, I've barely even worked up a sweat!" she complained, as the last two soldiers dropped their weapons and held their hands up in surrender. She almost laughed at the comical whimper the two let out simultaneously as she raised one of her hands, then she smashed both of them into unconsciousness with a single punch.
"Very well, Shego," the voice said from the walls around her, and this time the nameless man had regained his smug superiority. "I suppose you can have this one, but since we have what we need, we'll leave you to it.. good luck with Senior, I do hope you're ready to carry him... I suspect we'll meet again, very soon, and when we do... I'm going to make you pay for this."
A squeal of static signified the disconnection of the speakers.
"I hope we do meet," Shego growled. "But it won't go the way you think." She extinguished the glowing plasma and stalked into the detention cell area.
She was headed for the control panel for the cells to look for Senior, when she was surprised by the sight of two regular Henches, still in their customary red uniforms but with the hoods pulled back, lying uneasily on the metal cots in the first cell.
One of them looked up warily at her footsteps, and blinked in surprise when he recognized her.
"Shego?! Hey, Sam, look! It's Shego!"
"What? Here?"
Shego blinked in disbelief as she too recognized the two Henches - from stints they'd spent with Drakken years ago. "Hey… it's Ralph, right?"
The large man nodded keenly, a weary smile on his face. "Hate to ask it, but can you get us out of here? We're the last Henches that were on the Island, and we were supposed to ship out yesterday after Senior cancelled his contract, but these new assholes showed up before we could leave…" he trailed off and scowled. "I'm pretty sure they consider us expendable, cause we ain't been fed since we were shoved in here."
Shego nodded, looked around for the security panel beside the cell, and found an override to unlock it. "Got it. How many more of you are there?"
The larger black man - Sam, she remembered - shook his head sadly. "Was ten of us.. Pretty sure there's only five or six now. I heard at least one person here get shot yesterday for complaining about the treatment, and it wasn't Senior."
Shego's rage came roaring back. Henches were supposed to be protected species.. you kill Henches outside of actual operational activities and the thousand howling dogs that Jack Hench kept as a Legal Department would come down on you like a ton of bricks. There was a reason that Henching was actually generally considered safe - as long as you avoided meeting Kim Possible.
"Those fuckers," she growled. As the two Henches nodded in agreement, she pulled the door open and they stumbled out into the corridor. "Hey guys, do you know where they were keeping Senior?"
"In the maximum security cell down the corridor, on your right," Sam answered. "Careful, I heard one of them mention that there's a series of trip plates around it that'll vent a poison gas into the cell if you trip it."
"Thanks for the heads up," she said. "You should get your friends moving. I've got a transport here, and as soon as I secure Senior Sr, I'm getting us out of here… you should be on it. At the very least, I highly recommend getting off the island, because I suspect you might have just been made unemployed, and there's a second transport full of these guys coming."
The two Henches shrugged. "Probably for the best. There's something weird going on at HenchCo," Sam said.
Ralph nodded in agreement. "This sounds like as good a time as ever to get out. I've henched for ten years, that seems like enough. Best times were always working for you and the Doc. You were always good to us, even if the Doc was a bit.. forgetful.. when it came to things like supplies."
Shego shrugged. "Always forgot the little details - that's why he always failed."
The hench grinned. "That and a certain cheerleader. Real shame what happened to her. I kinda liked her, even if I was always sore for weeks after she visited." Shego pulled open another cell for them, and they found several unconscious Henches. Ralph bent down and pulled one of the unconscious men up with ease, throwing him over a shoulder in a fireman's carry as Sam moved to get the other.
"Me too," Shego muttered, loud enough for the two henchman to overhear and shoot her knowing grins that she pointedly ignored. She pulled the last few doors of the detention wing open, finding several dead Henches, and one more live one in a cell, rocking back and forth in a near catatonic state next to the body of another dead Hench. The two mobile Henches slowly coaxed him to his feet and steered him back down towards the main control room, shooting a sad glance back at the body.
Shego knew what they were thinking - Henches might not be military, but they had a dislike of leaving their own behind every bit as strong as any soldier.
"We'll see you soon, Shego. Hey, it's good to know you're still alive, at least."
"Yeah... get going, and be careful," she replied. "I'll be back with Senior as soon as I can get him out."
She found the cell easily enough, then after ten minutes worth of careful electrical work with her gloves and the tools she kept in the leg pouch of catsuit, Shego had disabled the trip plates around the cell. She pulled open the door carefully to find Senor Senior Sr inside lying gingerly on a metal bench, somehow even frailer looking than last time she'd seen him. He gaped at her for a second before recovering admirably as he pulled himself upright.
"Shego, my dear, this is most unexpected.. But it is most gratifying to see you again. How on earth did you know to come?"
"Your daughter in law gave us the heads up that something screwy was going on here," Shego said by way of explanation, as she stepped into the cell and severed the chains holding him with a careful application of her power. "Her message is how I knew something was up. We found her first, and that's how I knew you were being held down here."
"And my son? My Junior? Have you found him?"
Shego nodded slowly and crouched down in front of the elderly man. "Yeah, I found him but... he was in a real bad way. I left him in the infirmary to come and get you. Not sure it was the best idea, he didn't look so.. stable."
Triple S shuddered, his head falling and his eyes burning holes into the concrete floor. "Oh Junior.. I am so sorry." He looked up as tears spilled from his eyes. "I could not betray you, Shego, not even to save him. I could not betray Miss Possible either."
Shego felt her poker face pushed to it's absolute limit, before Senior gave a low, unhappy chuckle.
"You hid her well, but Elizabeth and I, we figured it out - eventually."
"And you still didn't say anything? Why? You could have saved Junior.." Shego couldn't hide her disbelief.
"No! I would have saved nobody by revealing what I knew! All I would have done is condemn us all - myself, Junior, even Bonita and the baby - to a quick grave. As long as they suspected I knew more, they would keep us all alive, though I truly feared what I would do if they turned their attentions from Junior to dear Bonita."
"You've.." Shego trailed off, unsure how to respond. "I'm not sure what to say, Pops. Thanks really doesn't seem sufficient."
"Shego.. I have no doubts that Kimberly Ann Possible is quite possibly the most important person on the planet. I think you realized that when you went looking for her when she disappeared."
Shego blinked. "I thought I knew it, but out of idle interest, why do you of all people think so?"
"You know that I believe in the archetypes of good, and evil, Shego; and though some might accuse me of being a mere 'hobby' player in the latter... I have seen true evil, a monstrous evil far beyond that which I, or you, could have ever even imagined.
"Kimberly is important because she represents the very best of what humanity can be, and because she is a lightning rod for all the very worst of what humanity can be. She will be tested - many trials await her - but if I believe in her so much how could I possibly betray her when my own time to be tested came? How could I do that and look my family in the eyes afterwards?"
Shego blinked in surprise, then narrowed her eyes as his implications about her previous encounters with the redhead became clear… and then sighed when she realized that up until the Lowardian invasion, she and Drakken probably did represent a pretty poor example of what humanity could do with the gifts it was given.
Damnit, I'm going soft, she complained to herself, not for the first time.
"Yeah, well, the problem with lightning rods," Shego pointed out as she picked Senior up and carried him through the cell door. "Is that they tend to get struck repeatedly in a storm."
"Very true, Shego, very true. That is why it is important to ensure they are properly grounded."
Her head snapped to look at his at the tone of his voice, but the benign smile on his face gave nothing away.
"Don't even go there, Grandpa," she warned eventually as they made their way towards the control room. "You will not enjoy the experience."
"Why Shego, whatever could you mean?" he asked innocently, and then grinned at the growl he received in return.
"I mean whatever is between Kimmie and I is between Kimmie and I, and is already likely enough to go poorly without busybodies interfering," she said angrily as she stepped into the elevator and slapped the button for the upper levels. "And no, I don't actually know what's between Kimmie and I right now, thank you very much, we've been a little bit busy in the last few days to actually talk about it."
"You might want to make time," Senior said, with a sad, wistful smile on his face as the elevator rose back to the level of the mansion. "I do so wish I had had more time to talk to Junior's mother, my dear beloved… unfortunately, we only ever get the time we are given, not the time we need or the time we want - and sometimes it's simply not enough..."
Shego nodded slowly at his words, then as the doors slid open she was confronted by Kim (her face once again covered by the suit) along with Bonnie, the two of them supporting Junior's considerable weight. Behind the three of them, the surviving Henches were gathered.
"We have a problem," Kim said before Shego could open her mouth.
"Besides you not being in the safe room?"
"Yes, besides that," Bonnie said, frowning. "Wade was wrong - it wasn't just one transport, we've got a whole fleet of jets coming in, from all over the show, and the first is almost right on top of us."
"The dude who thought he'd laid a trap for me in the control center downstairs mentioned reinforcements being on the way," Shego said. "But he also said the air defense network was back online."
"It is," Bonnie replied, frowning. "But somebody only wanted to turn the acquisition radars on, and not allow the system to actually launch missiles."
"We gave them pause, and gave us enough time to get away," Kim pointed out. "At least, we did if we leave now."
"This is our home!" Bonnie exclaimed.
"Alas, my dear, our anonymous friend is correct," Senior said, surprising first Bonnie, then Kim as he threw her a wink. "We are no longer safe here on the island, and we should leave, assuming Shego is offering us a ride."
Shego nodded. "Phoenix," she said, emphasizing the name just enough. "Go grab the jet as quickly as you can - neither Senior is in a condition for a long walk, nor a few of the Henches. Stay low while you're out there, in case there are any other surprise visitors."
Kim nodded as she realized Shego had called her Phoenix to cover her true identity, although she wasn't sure for whose benefit, since Bonnie knew who she was, and Senior had clearly guessed. She eased Junior's weight on to one of the Henches and sprinted for the door, crossing the island at breakneck pace, her suit helping her stay balanced and upright through the draining run.
Five minutes later, she settled the jet down outside the main entrance to Senior's mansion, and Bonnie carried Senior while Shego half carried Junior and the Henches followed slowly. As soon everyone was on board and she heard the ramp lock closed, Kim powered up the engines and aimed them into the sky.
"We've got company coming in fast, so I'm going for broke. Strap in fast back there," she called, as Shego struggled forward into the cockpit, dropping into the copilot's seat. As soon as Bonnie called that they everyone in the rear was set, Kim punched the throttles forward to their stops, kicking in the afterburners, and the jet rocketed into the sky, even as two hypersonic transports and a half dozen Su-37 Flankers escorting them converged on the island.
Leaving the cumbersome transports in their wake and doing their best to evade the interceptors, Shego and Kim monitored the threat board as they raced towards Europe at maximum afterburner.
"Shit, if we can't lose these soon, we're in trouble - we'll have to drop out of afterburner," Kim said, tapping the fuel gauge with a finger.
Shego frowned. "I need another refuel… how? Oh crap, we must have taken a hit in one of the tanks from the shrapnel.. That's probably only enough to make it to Greece, France or Italy. Hey Pops!" she called back into the main cabin. "Got a line of credit at any airfields in southern France or Italy?"
"France!" Bonnie called back. "Aéroport Nice Côte d'Azur, we store the Lear there when we're on the continent."
"That works," Shego muttered. "Your Platinum card is paying for my top up," she shouted back.
Nobody in the rear seemed in any mood to argue as Kim threw the jet into another set of evasive maneuvers to break a radar lock from the only fighter that had kept up with them, before he too eventually gave up the chase and turned back a few minutes later.
"Whew," Kim breathed a sigh of relief as they watched the blip on the radar fall further and further behind, until she felt comfortable dropping out of afterburner and back to cruising speed. "I think we're clear."
Shego shook her head. "They'll still follow us," she said. "Those transports wer slowing down to land, but you can bet they'll refuel and scramble after us."
The Kimmunicator buzzed on Kim's wrist, startling the two of them. Before Kim could tap the button to answer it, Shego had reached down to one of her control panels and linked the device into the MFDs in the cockpit. Wade's face appeared before them.
"What's going on?" Shego asked.
"We've got a big problem," the young black man reported.
"Bigger than the two transports full of angry soldiers bound to be on our tail, and the leak we currently in our fuel tanks, not to mention the fact that Senior had to evacuate his island?" she asked.
Wade paused for a second, and then nodded, bringing a look of alarm to both Kim and Shego's face. From behind them, a soft exclamation of surprise came from Bonnie, who'd made her way into the cockpit, brought two piercing gazes aimed straight at her.
"Sorry!" she said quickly. "I just… Junior's sedated, and Senior is staying with him. I just wanted to check on things up here and I overheard.."
"This is going to affect the Seniors, too," Wade added quietly.
Shego looked at Kim. Kim looked back, and then nodded minutely.
"If it's relevant, she can pass it on to Senior." Shego turned back to Bonnie. "Only Senior, please."
Bonnie nodded her understanding, and Kim turned back to the main screen.
"Go ahead, Wade."
"In about six hours, for the next major news cycle, the President is going to announce that you're alive, Kim."
Three simultaneous voices shouted "What?" at the exact same moment, prompting Wade to feign hiding behind his computer screen.
"You know, normally I'd just take your word for it Wade, but I think this time, I'm going to need an explanation as to how you know that," Kim said.
"I thought you might say that," he said, and hit a few keys that replaced most of the screen with a scrolling text. "About thirty minutes ago, a package was delivered to the White House that contained evidence gleaned from the autopsy that showed conclusively that the person shot on the steps of the Capitol was not one Kimberly Ann Possible, but was rather a shapeshifter disguised to look like her."
Kim felt an intense fatigue settle over her, and tried to resist the urge to burst into tears at the sudden pain that squeezed her chest.
They'd known that the secret would get out sooner or later, but she'd longed for more time to discover the conspirators.. and more time to work out how to tell her parents, who were still mourning her supposed death.
"On top of that, they were emailed a video that looks like it was taken from inside Senior Mansion, of a blonde girl whose facial features match Kim Possible's standing next to Bonnie Senior. The President is apparently taking the view that Kim has betrayed the country and is now working with the Seniors in some villainous plot."
"Me working with her-"
"Well, guess you have joined the other side, Kimmie!"
Bonnie and Shego looked at each other, then burst out laughing despite the seriousness of the situation. When they noticed that Kim wasn't laughing, Bonnie leaned forward and put a hand on Kim's shoulder. "Hey Kim... Kim! I'm sorry, okay? They must have placed a hack into our internal security system after their first assault to get that footage."
"That's what he meant!" Shego exclaimed, slapping her palm against her forehead. "I thought something was going on when the Chief Doofus in charge said 'We have what we came for'. I thought he meant something from the Seniors, but he wanted us - or more specifically, you."
Kim nodded slowly, trying to breathe normally through the panic that was threatening to overtake her again. "How did you get all this, Wade?" she asked eventually, while Shego and Bonnie shared a concerned look.
"I have a spectacularly good source inside the White House?" At Kim's sigh, he held ups his hands. "Alright, so I might have slipped a compromised USB drive into the purse of the President's main speechwriter and let her do the rest... social hacking, gotta love it. I've had a hack on her computer for a few years now. She's typing up his announcement to the world as we speak."
Shego and Bonnie both laughed again, and the latter leaned forward. "Any chance you could put that.."
Wade frowned. "No."
"Aww, just one little.."
"Whatever you're about to ask for, Ms Senior, no."
Shego's laughter continued as Bonnie folded her arms and huffed, then she noticed Kim's quiet, contemplative look. "I know that look. What are you thinking, Princess?"
Kim took a moment to blink out of her thousand yard stare. "I'm worried... I'm worried what this is going to do to my parents, to my brothers, to everyone around them, too. I worry that they're just about to have an even bigger target painted on them... and I'm worried that this could make it so much more difficult for us to work through the conspiracy. How are we going to get anything done when the whole world is looking for a blonde Kim Possible working with Shego and the Seniors?"
Bonnie patted her on the shoulder again. "Got a pretty straightforward solution for the last problem, at least," she said, with another grin.
"Oh yeah?" Shego asked.
"I just happen to know the best hairdresser in all of Europe works in Nice.."
KP KP KP
A few minutes later, Kim excused herself, and Shego took over the controls. The young woman looked suddenly exhausted, and when Shego told her so she simply dropped her head, before pulling up her hood and stumbling out of the cockpit. To Shego's surprise, Bonnie slid carefully into the copilot's seat a moment later, and while she was quiet for a few minutes, she eventually turned to Shego and started asking pointed questions about Kim's health - physical and mental.
Shego was dismissive of her concerns at first, until Bonnie had pointed out that the she could lay claim to knowing Kim nearly as well as anyone except her family (or Ron), and she could clearly see that Kim wasn't the same person she had been.
"She's on the edge of losing it, Shego," Bonnie hissed. "She's so desperate for control that she's trying to hold on to something - anything - that isn't changing in her life in order to ground her against a world that's she feels is trying to destroy her - and she might very well be right! Right now, that one thing that's not changing is you."
Shego refused to meet her eyes, so she rushed on ahead anyway.
"Look, I don't know what Senior said to you, but I think I can guess, based upon my talks with the Old Man: he thinks she's important, save the cheerleader save the world, yadda yadda. Well, much as it pains me to have to admit it, I think he's right. She is important, Shego, and I swear to god if you fuck up and let her fall apart..."
Shego merely raised an eyebrow.
"I will find you and kill you myself - somehow."
Bonnie levered herself out of the seat and stalked out of the cockpit. She paused at the exit, and without looking backwards, let Shego have one last salvo. "At least talk to her. Tell her how you feel!"
She was gone before Shego could respond, and the green woman found herself totally alone as she flew them on toward Nice, chasing a mournful sunset that bathed the sky in blood red.
When they finally arrived at Nice and had parked the jet inside the hangar rented by the Seniors, Kim and Bonnie disappeared, leaving Shego do the maintenance work sealing the leaking fuel tank by herself - first pumping all the remaining fuel in it across to another, undamaged tank, then applying a patch with a very careful application of her plasma power. Once she'd tested its integrity and was satisfied the patch would hold, at least for the short term, she topped off the fuel tanks courtesy of Senior's accounts, and set off to gather a few supplies from a nearby supermarket, before heading back to the airport.
They'd been on the ground for nearly two hours by this point, and Shego was starting to get antsy.
It seemed like the surviving Henches had signed on directly with Senior for the time being, and they'd been generous enough to act as security for the Hangar while the elderly villain sourced his own transport onward, and Shego stood uneasily with the Henches while they waited for Kim and Bonnie to return. To a man, all of them seemed eager to disappear with Senior, and when Shego finally voiced her suspicions about the soldiers that had attacked the island being Jack's, Ralph had slowly nodded.
"We always hear rumors," he said cautiously, looking around the others for support. "Sometimes you wonder if they're the sort that get started by Management, to keep the Hench Corps in line through fear... but I'm starting to wonder how many other rumors might have more grains of truth to them."
She nodded, and looked over at Sam, who was thinking.
"You and your friend in black going to be okay on your own?" he asked eventually. Shego didn't bother hiding the grin. If only you guys knew how well we could take care of ourselves. She paused, and Bonnie's words came back to her. Usually, she amended her mental boast.
"We'll be okay. I'd worry more about yourselves, given Jack's well known dislike of disloyalty."
They nodded, as Bonnie and the black-suited figure of Kim returned, stopping just out of earshot and talking to each other for a few moments. To Shego's surprise, Bonnie suddenly leaned forward and gave the smaller girl a tight hug, one that lasted a few uncomfortable moments until Kim tentatively returned it. They separated, and then Bonnie smiled, gave her a gentle shove towards Shego, and waved the Henches to her. "Time to go, fellas. The Old Man has a ride organised, and a destination, too. We'll have to stop for some warm gear on the way, though. Oh, and bring the other one, too. Senior has a few questions he'd like to ask."
Both Ralph and Sam stopped to shake Shego's hand in thanks, and the others nodded deferentially to her as they left, carrying the ex-Cerberus soldier between them. Kim and Shego watched the henches load him and then themselves into the back of the anonymous black van that had dropped the two women off. Bonnie climbed back into the front, then with a squeal of tires it was gone, and the two of them were alone on the tarmac, with only the jet and the looming hangar for company.
The second the van was out of sight, Kim pulled back her hood, and Shego was startled by a dramatic change it revealed.
"You.. you went back?" she asked in confusion, as Kim ran her hand through her short - but once again bright red - hair.
She nodded slowly. "If they're looking for a short haired blonde woman who looks like me, Bonnie suggested throwing them off by looking more like redhead me. I could pass myself off as my cousin, or something. C'mon, lets get going."
Shego pondered that statement as she climbed back on board and taxied the jet out of the hangar. It didn't quite add up - if she remembered right, Kim's cousin Joss had brown hair, not red - and that would have been an easier dye job too, not to mention being less distinctive.
She sensed Bonnie's hand in the choice of color, and wondered at her game.
As the echoing boom that told her that the doors to the hangar had been pulled closed was followed by light footsteps and the whine of the ramp closing, she decided not to push it - unless Kim brought it up first. For now.
The tired redhead - that was going to take getting used to - settled back into the copilots seat and strapped in, and Shego fed power to the VTOL jets and lifted them into the sky. She engaged the cloak and climbed steadily back into the sky, pointing the nose west, once again setting off in chase of the sun, as they headed back across the Atlantic towards the United States.
A few hours into the flight, as they skirted a massive storm that had formed in the mid-Atlantic and looked to be spinning in to a Cyclone, Kim finally asked a question Shego had been on edge expecting ever since Bonnie's confrontation.
"Shego… why are you really helping me?"
"Do you really want to know the truth?" Shego asked warily, but Kim went on as if she hadn't heard her.
"I mean… I know you say you respect me," she added - and Shego heard no trace doubt in the young woman's voice, more a sense that respect wasn't the complete story. "But that isn't all of it, is it?"
Shego stared out at the flashing of massive lightning bolts only a few hundred miles away from them for a long while, before she sighed and shifted heavily in her seat. Might as well let the shit hit the fan now, I guess. I should have told her this before...
"No, it's not all of it."
"Why did you come after me?" Kim asked softly, and Shego could sense that she was simultaneously dreading and desperately desiring the answer.
"Because I was afraid that whatever you encountered that made you run… might end up turning you into me," Shego answered, equally softly.
"Turn me.. Evil?" Kim asked, after a few minutes of silence.
Again Shego didn't answer for a while, then she nodded slowly, her eyes never moving from the storm.
"What happened?" Kim asked carefully. "You've never told me... you've never told anyone why you..."
Shego didn't answer for another long period of time, as she tried desperately to marshal her thoughts and find the right way to tell this right.
Kim let the silence in the cockpit go on as long as necessary. Some instinctive part of her told her that this was important, that the two of them needed to talk about this, that without true honesty, they'd eventually break apart… and with the forces apparently arrayed against them, going alone was a guarantee of failure.
She couldn't lose Shego, not now. She knew now that she relied too much on her ex-nemesis.
"When I was eighteen, we'd been doing the Team Go thing for… nearly four years," Shego eventually said, her voice so quiet that Kim struggled to heard her over the engines. "It had been Hego's idea, of course… it started as a way for him to get some kind of meaning out of what had happened to our parents when that damn meteor hit... but it was also as a way of getting out from under the thumb of the agency that was… studying us." Shego spat the words 'agency' and 'studying' with so much venom that Kim instinctively flinched away from her, but Shego's eyes never saw it, locked as they were on the storm and the dancing, destructive light within.
She clenched her hands, then consciously tried to relax them when she heard the flight stick protest at the treatment she was giving it.
"We were still under their thumb, of course, but it was a level of freedom we hadn't known before… and then the agency decided we should attend school again, instead of being tutored in the labs. It was to 'help with our integration with the public'." She scoffed. "The boys loved it of course, but I hated it. They could turn their powers off, I was always fucking green. Do you know what kids do to people who aren't like them?" she asked rhetorically.
Kim nodded. She knew exactly what kids could be like. She'd been there - she'd done it, to her shame.
"I did anything I could to avoid school. I started skipping class, but the school told the Agency and they threatened to lock me back up… permanently. So I tried a new tactic - I stayed out at night, even after Hego called us back in from patrol, and I found the biggest, meanest, baddest people in Go City, then I fought them. I always won, of course, but I hope I would come in with so many bruises on me that they'd have to keep me out of school or questions would be asked… and that's when I discovered how good my stupid healing factor was. It kicked into overdrive. I couldn't fucking win, it was a choice between miserable in the lab, miserable at school, or miserable out in the city…"
Kim's smaller hand slowly and carefully eased its way into hers, and gave a slow squeeze. Shego looked down at the hands, then across at the former heroine, and smiled sadly before returning her gaze to the storm.
"As I said… I was eighteen, Hego was nineteen, and the two of us had been out all night on a patrol.. Mego and the Weegs were supposed to be in bed cause of a test or something. Anyway, we'd been trying to track these particularly clever criminals going after research labs across the city, without much luck, and we were exhausted and off guard cause we were six blocks from home, and that's the moment both of us felt a series of darts hit our backs." She swallowed.
"The next thing I knew, I was waking up shackled to a metal stake while some guy was standing in front of me, holding an honest to god burning torch, ranting at me about the devil and demons and that he was an avenging angel sent by God to cleanse the city of the wicked."
"Oh my god," Kim whispered.
"I could see Hego, and he looked like he was unconscious but I couldn't see if he was actually breathing, and I didn't know whether he'd been given more and it had killed him, or if my body had somehow survived it, but I was on my own with this maniac who was going to kill me… he kept alternating between pouring water over me and stacking more wood underneath me... he said that he had to purify me. I'll give you three guesses as how he was going to do that. The first two don't count," she said, in an utterly broken voice.
"I've never… I can't ever forget…" Shego started and stopped a couple of times. "There's a particular smell of burning flesh that never goes away… that you just can't forget. When he… when he... came close and told me that he was going to kill me, and then Hego, and then Mego and the twins... I lit up, Kim. As hot as I've ever gotten, and he dropped the torch onto the wood underneath me. He kept screaming about vengeance and my whole body flashed so hot I melted the stake, I melted the stake and the shackles into my skin, and my plasma kept it hot, kept it burning me the whole time… but he just kept screaming as he… he burned... right in front of my face. I watched him die… I felt him die."
Shego swallowed a few more times. "I eventually managed to get him… his body… off me, and I stumbled over to Hego… I found out that he had an IV in his arm that was feeding more tranquilizers into him... thankfully he woke up a few minutes after I ripped it out, but when he found out what had happened…"
She choked back a sob.
"He actually blamed me. He said it would ruin us as heroes if it got out that I had killed someone! He said I should have found another way. Another way! The guy was about to kill me - and my baby brothers - and he said I should have found another way!" Shego's voice was nearly hysterical, until she felt the small hand holding hers squeeze again, and latched onto the physical contact to keep her in the present, not slip back into the memories that threatened to drown her.
After another long pause, she finally continued.
"I ran… I have no idea how he cleaned it up. Called in a favor or something, I suppose, because by the time he came and found me curled up in a gutter a week later, it was like nothing had ever happened. Nobody ever mentioned the guy again - apart from the missing persons report that was filed when a well known extremist Pastor didn't show up at his local church."
Kim shuddered in sympathy.
"And that's why you left?" she asked.
"Not immediately," Shego replied slowly. "But looking back, was it the thing that started the wedge that split me from my brothers? Yeah."
The dark of night, still lit by flashes from the massive storm system that was slowly falling behind them, matched the gloomy atmosphere of the cockpit as they flew on towards the US.
"I didn't know how to deal with it," Shego admitted eventually. "Nothing seemed to make me forget the smell, the sound, the sight… my memories were too good. And if I wasn't reliving it during the day, I was at night. The nightmares were worse. The ones where he survived, where he kept burning alive forever and ever, where he was on fire and strangling me in my own bed... I stopped sleeping, too. Then one night, after we broke up a drug smuggling ring, for some unknown reason, I kept a bit of the ecstasy the cops were confiscating, and it was the first time I had found anything that dulled the memory enough for me to feel like… feel like life was worth living."
Kim cursed the cramped confines of the cockpit and the harness that was keeping her in her seat, because she wanted nothing more than to throw herself onto the other woman and hug her for as long as possible. She knew it wouldn't take the pain of the memories away - there was probably nothing that ever could - but maybe, just maybe it would help her, even for a little bit?
Might help them both?
She had to settle for squeezing her hand tight again, and felt a slight lift in her heart when Shego squeezed back.
"I started stealing seized drugs from across the city. Police station evidence lockers were nothing in the face of my plasma powers," Shego said, her voice shaky. "I guess it never even occurred to me that the agency could have probably provided pure versions of it, purer than the street crap I was snorting or popping or injecting but… I was eighteen. I didn't know any better. Hego eventually figured it out, of course. He read me the riot act all over again - 'imagine what a drug addict member would do to our reputation' - and when I told him why, he said I should just deal with it... and then he twisted the knife by saying that it wouldn't be an issue if I'd just found another way in the first place."
She looked over at Kim. "I couldn't deal with that second betrayal. I ran, and in the course of running I went off the deep end. I lost myself in a haze of constant drugs and alcohol and everything under the sun. I honestly don't know how I didn't die - my healing factor must have been working harder than it ever had before to keep me going, to flush the shit from my system, but I never let it get me close to sober. I spent six months in the gutters and slums of Go City, New York, Philadelphia, DC... I chased the high across the country until one day… one day a funny man with small hands and a blue complexion stumbled over my comatose body and somehow recognized me."
"Drakken." It wasn't a question.
"Drakken. He took me in, figured out very quickly what I'd been doing to myself, and somehow - I've never been sure how - sourced a supply of methadone. Enough to keep me buzzing and forgetting, not enough to kill me or knock me out. He kept talking to me the whole time, never about what had happened, or what I'd been doing to myself… he only had eyes for one thing…"
Shego made a wry smile. "He wanted to take over the world, and he wanted my help in doing it. 'Think of it, Shego,' he'd say. 'The entire world at our beck and call! Anything we want, anything at all, would be ours. The people who hurt you… you could hurt them right back.' That was the hook that landed me - a chance to hurt the people who'd hurt me, who'd let me suffer and blamed me for trying to help myself. That's when Drakken got me to sign up. He even drew up a proper contract, too, I couldn't believe it… as a sort of bad joke, I asked him for Australia and Greenland, and he nearly had a hissy fit till he remembered how hot and cold they were and decided they were better off with me."
Kim couldn't help the little laugh that sneaked past her lips. A half second later, and Shego laughed too, and for a brief glorious moment, the two of them were both laughing at the silliness of Drew Lipsky, rather than dwelling the sadness of Shego's past - or the situation they were in now.
Shego eventually sobered. "He was pretty good, too, in those early days," she said softly. "Smart - brilliant even. He knew exactly what he was doing, and had plans to get it… he just kept getting frustrated by the details. He realized I had extra skill sets besides just superpowered bodyguard, and started getting me to steal things. The first few didn't go so well - who'd have thought high tech labs have better security than suburban police station evidence lockers, huh? So I started training myself, had him build bigger and better security mockups and then training on them. I learnt to pick locks, to open safes, to pull off some incredible heists. He's the one who figured out I could twist my plasma effect to disrupt some electronic equipment, if it isn't shielded right. He's the one who helped me design the upgrades to my claws to let me channel tiny amounts of plasma. Then with all this training, he let me loose on the world, as a freelancer when I wasn't working directly for him, letting me have fun all around the globe, stealing to my hearts content - or my clients requirements."
She sighed almost wistfully. "I miss that Drakken. He really could have taken over the world, you know."
"What happened?" Kim asked, more than a little curious at the vastly different version of Drakken she never remembered meeting.
"Well, this annoying little redhead cheerleader kind of showed up and busted up his first big scheme," Shego said, with a rueful smile. "After that, World Domination sort of seemed to be playing second fiddle to proving that you weren't all that. The more times you stopped us… the worse it got. He kept focusing on you as the cause of all his failure, and seemed to get stuck in a loop. The one time - the only time - he managed to get around that… well…"
"Bueno Nacho."
"Yeah."
The less said about that, the better, Kim quietly thought.
They carried on in silence for another few minutes.
"So in the end, Kim, I guess I came after you because I was afraid that you'd fallen into the same dark place I had, and that someone, somewhere, might find you and twist you, make you into something that you weren't - aren't. I didn't want to see you become me."
Kim smiled at her. "Every time I think I've seen the real you, there's always a little bit more to get to know," she said softly, and when Shego opened her mouth, Kim rushed ahead. "That's not a criticism! I'm just... I'm just glad that you trust me enough to let me know the truth of... this. That means a lot to me. And for what it's worth... I like this version of you. Not sure about the path you took to get here, but the results are okay."
Shego's mouth snapped shut for a minute, then she finally sighed. "Yeah, well… now you know."
Kim's smile became a full blown grin. "Thank you, Shego."
"You're welcome, Princess."
For another hour they flew on in the darkness, each lost in their own thoughts.
Shego wondered if she'd done the right thing, opening up the locked doors that had held back her past for so many years. The things she'd done... could Kim really just ignore that? Could she forget the past they shared as well? Had telling Kim the truth of her turn to evil been a selfish act, had she just wanted another person to share the pain and misery that had made her her for so many years? Or had it helped Kim to deal a little bit with her own demons, the fear and worry that had originally driven her into running from Tokyo, and kept her trapped in Sydney, not yet ready to return and face the world?
Kim, for her part, worried that Shego had shared something she hadn't wanted to because she'd been pushed into it. That fear built upon previous fears about the green-skinned woman's reason for helping her that had never fully evaporated, and it sat on top of the other fears that still continued to freeze her in place dangerously whenever they seized her. On the island, when Bonnie had wanted to blow the second wave of planes out of the sky, she'd hesitated almost too long, before disabling the missiles. She'd nearly let her bloodthirst take over again and kill more people... and she worried that it was becoming too easy to be that person that let death in the door, like she'd opened it and never been able to fully seal the door again.
She made a note to talk to Kate Watson when they landed...
Beep-beep-be-beep. The familiar four tone ring of the Kimmunicator interrupted that thought.
"What's the sitch, Wade?" Shego asked, surprising both him and Kim.
"Right phrase, way wrong person. But God I missed hearing that." He smiled briefly at her, then his face darkened. "Got some more bad news for you - I think you need to divert to Chicago."
"Why, what's in Chicago?"
"Dr Director - and I think she's in trouble. Check out this news footage I just caught the tail end of."
"Live now to Chicago where FBI agents have just confirmed they have arrested a woman tentatively identified as Elizabeth Director, reportedly head of the secretive Global Justice organisation that was accused by slain teen heroine Kim Possible of plotting to attack the US in a false flag operation to shore up support for greater powers worldwide. Here's Tom Stanforth with more."
Kim's mouth dropped open as vision of Dr Director being led away in handcuffs into an FBI vehicle played for them.
"Got a location for us?" Shego asked.
"Nope," Wade replied. "They went off the grid - she never arrived at the local FBI Field Office for processing. CPD haven't seen her either."
"That is not a good sign," Shego commented.
"I agree. I've been looking for anything that could help us, but so far I've come up blank - and you know that's not normal. Someone is doing their best to keep this away from me - and I think by extension, you."
"I know a couple of people who might be able to help," Shego said slowly. "Might being the operative word. And Kim, you're probably not going to like who they are."
Kim looked over at her, and saw a frown forming on Shego's face. "There's a saying about ends justifying the means - I never really used to believe it, but lately I've had to become a little more.. flexible.."
Shego's frown morphed into a sly smile. "I'm just going to bypass the opportunity for a really easy crack there, and move right along to calling for help. Wade, let me know if you find anything before we hit Chicago."
"Sure thing," he replied, and disconnected. Shego flicked her eyes over the controls and instruments, then looked over at Kim. "Can I trust you to stay quiet and keep an eye on things up here while I talk to my contact? And if you overhear things, not tell anyone about them? And I do mean anyone."
Kim nodded slowly. "I can do that."
"Good. Take over, then." Shego slid out of her seat and grabbed the laptop that was sitting secured to a docking station in the rear of the cockpit, one Kim had noticed but had never seen open - or even powered on - before. "Let's see if Senior was as good as his word about getting me a new account, and if my contacts are willing to accept it's bona fide."
Five minutes later, after going through the security setup then linking the laptop to the jets external communications array, Shego brought up a secure browser, logged into Tor to anonymize her connection completely, navigated to an IP address she kept stored only in her memory, and waited. Fifteen seconds of analyzing the screen let her retrieve the correct username/password combination from another part of her memory, which she used to log in and initiate a secure voice chat session.
"Shego? Shego darling, is that you? Do you have any idea what time it is?" A cultured English voice suddenly emanated from the laptop's speakers.
"Hey Sapphire, how's it going?"
"My gosh, it is you! You know, I almost thought you were dead for a while there… I hear nothing from you for nine months, your accounts dry up completely, and all that after going legit?"
Shego blushed, and even though she knew the woman on the other end couldn't see it, still felt embarrassed. "I didn't go legit!" she protested.
"Uh, forgive my cynicism darling, but you got a pardon and a medal for, and I'm going to quote the UN citation from memory here, 'For conspicuous gallantry in aiding teen heroine Kim Possible to save the world from the Lowardian invasion.' Sweetie, they handed them out in a ceremony - you wore green. Drakken got one too, as I recall, but I never really paid attention to him."
"Yeah well it wasn't intentional, okay?" Shego snapped, then paused. "Wait, no, that didn't come out right. It was intentional that I saved the world, because despite all the shitty things it's done to me, I kinda still like parts of it enough to want them to still exist, okay? The pardon thing, and then the funds drying up bit, that wasn't intentional. Well, the pardon's been okay, I suppose."
There was a pause on the other end, then a titter of laughter came through. "Oh Shego, darling, you're always so easy to wind up."
"What?"
"Darling, do you really think I didn't know why your account suddenly dried up? I figured you had to hand over most, if not all of your ill gotten gains when you did your deal with Betty Director. No, I'm mostly surprised it's taken you this long to get in touch with me - or any of the other contacts of yours, to put the band back together."
"I'm not exactly putting the band back together, Sapphire."
"No? Why do I get the feeling this just became a lot less business, and a lot more personal?"
"Because it is personal. Betty Director.. she helped me when she didn't have to, and now I feel like I have to return the favour to keep my ledger even."
"Ahh, so you're heading to Chicago then."
"You're as good as always."
"Would you pay me if I wasn't it?"
"Not sure if I can pay you this time, unless.."
"Oh darling, you haven't even checked your operating accounts yet, have you? Sweetheart, you're fine for my services for at least the next ten years or so."
"What?" Shego asked again.
"Judging by the timing of the transfer, I'd say you did something nice for Senior Sr in the last 24 hours, because a big chunk of money just left his accounts, and landed in yours."
"How… how big a chunk?"
"A small big chunk - for him, maybe - only fifty million."
There was a coughing noise from the cockpit, and Shego shot a glare at Kim, who had turned around in her seat with an incredulous look on her face. She waved a hand to shush her, then turned back to the screen.
"You're kidding me."
"Not at all, my dear. Have you lost your faith in my ability to manage your operating accounts?"
"No, it's just.." Okay, Senior must have transferred the money just after we left him in Nice. Good to know the old man is grateful but.. "Nevermind. Okay, I have operating capital again, and it's more than I'm used to having, which is nice.."
"I'll prepare investment portfolio options for you over the next few days, shall I?" Sapphire asked, and Shego could hear the wide smile on the face of the woman, whose day job as an investment banker was almost the perfect cover for a money fixer - and gave her access to all sorts of secrets and contacts who had even more, all for the right price.
"Sure, go ahead. Set aside five mil though, I'm going to be transferring that to a standalone fund for a.. for a friend."
She looked up at the cockpit, and again Kim's face was turned towards her, with an expression that alternated between shocked, horrified, and just a tiny bit grateful.
"This friend, does he have a name, and is he that good in bed?" Sapphire asked, and this time it was Shego who was covering a cough of surprise. "Oh, my mistake. Is she that good in bed?"
"Sapphire!"
"What? I'm just saying, you never really struck me as the type to share your wealth - I mean, after the first two or three times, you didn't give Drakken a dime - smart choice, by the way."
"Yeah, well.. this one is different. She's… special."
Sapphire didn't respond for a while. "I figured she must be," she said eventually. "Well, I'll make sure that gets done... I'll just put it in account named Kim for you, shall I?"
"Does bloody everybody know?" Shego exclaimed, losing her composure finally and accidentally slipping into the British accent she'd perfected when she'd spent six months in the British Isles at one point. "First Bonnie, then Senior, and from what I can tell, Betty too?"
"Hey, don't blame me for being nosy," Sapphire said. "I figured it out when I saw a rumor about you pop up a couple of times in Sydney, at the end of a rather interesting trail that led from Tokyo down the South East Asian peninsula. Putting it all together took a bit of work though. Your operating funds must have been from somewhere else because I couldn't work out where you were getting the money you must have been spending."
"Kim's tech boy," Shego muttered. "And I thought I was being ultra careful."
"Ahhh, Wade Load. No wonder I couldn't find anything there. That boy is a black hole. And don't worry, you were careful - I doubt there's more than a dozen people in the world who could put together what I did to make the guess - and it was just a guess that you sort of just confirmed for me," Sapphire said.
"Yeah, well, it was a good one, and now you've got me worried that other people could have made the same guess."
"Like I said.. a dozen people, tops, only if they had access to all the same sources I did... and most of those people like you enough to not go digging like that, unless they're being paid to. Which I don't think anyone is."
"That's less reassuring than you might think," Shego said wryly.
"Well, it's the best I've got, darling. Anyway.. what exactly in Chicago did you call me for help with, if you're working with Wade Load?"
"He lost track of Betty's 'FBI' transport somewhere in Chicago, and she never made it to the local Field Office to be processed, nor has she shown up in any of the CPD precincts."
"Ohhh, that's not a good sign," Sapphire said.
"No kidding," Shego replied.
"You think she's at the Homan Square black site? You want me to get a list of current prisoners and the cell numbers?"
"I don't think they'd risk her there," Shego said. "It's gotten some bad publicity lately, so I was thinking they'd take her even deeper."
"Right.. give me a few hours to dig up what I can, and I'll get back to you via the normal method," Sapphire said. "Oh, and by the way, say hello to Kim for me, would you? I've always admired her, even if she seemed a little bit naive sometimes."
"Sure, Sapphire. She heard, she's flying the jet right now."
There was a pause, then another titter of laughter. "Oh my dear, you have gone soft. Letting someone else fly your baby?"
"Goodbye, Sapphire," Shego growled, terminating the connection, and ignoring the laughter coming from the cockpit.
A/N: Well, there you go. Two hooks set for next chapter, and our heroes back on the road. But it's still going to be bumpy.
I originally had written Shego's backstory differently, using a horrible tired old cliche that I'm very glad I decided NOT to use, because it's just.. unnecessary. This version works a bit better, at least in my mind. I hope you guys reading it feel the same guy punches I did when writing it - when it was dropping in fully formed in my head I was feeling bad but actually writing it all out... that sucked. I definitely understand why someone who went through that would turn out the way Shego did.
See you soon with more. As always reviews, corrections, and suggestions are all welcome and appreciated!