UnStoppable Flash

Disclaimer: Kim Possible trademark and all characters belong to Disney.

DC Comics and all characters belong to Warner Bros.

Previously on 'UnStoppable Flash'

"No more getting yourself injured, Miss Jenkins."

"Felix Renton, at your service."

"When it's ready, you'll be the first to see it." Silence fell again. Ron felt awkward and guilty at the same time. "You know what, I got time for one dance. If you..."

Joe Jenkins regarded Ron for a few seconds before speaking again. "Monique tells me that you are working part time with the Crime Lab?"

"Yea, I work as an intern to one of the analysts."

"Good. You've got a sense for this sort of thing. Keep up with it." Then he left.

Drakken turned to Kim. "See, Kim Possible, even if you are all that, I am now so much more! Meet Drakken The Super Atmospheric Sorcerer Supreme!"

"How do you like the new moves Princess? I've been training just for you, you know."

Kim held his hand tighter. "Please, tell me Ron. I can help."

Ron shook as the voices merged in his head. "No! No, you can't! How are you going to help me?!"

Chapter 14: Power Outage

"Kim." Miss Whisp was standing right next to the cheerleader's desk; a desk on which she was currently dozing off. "Miss Possible." A stricter, defined and louder call shook Kim out of her nap. She jumped slightly as she gathered herself.

"Sorry Miss Whisp!"

The math teacher narrowed her eyes on the cheerleader. "You look like you are tired. Want to share your reason with the class?"

The teenage demigod, clad in black leather and red armor jumped under a column and held it up, albeit with great difficulty. Her magically disguised voice sounded out loud. "Flash! Stop the fire, now!"

She shook her head. "Sorry...Just had a bad night. Killer headache. I think I may have caught something." She could only blush as she saw the disapproving gaze of the older woman. Said woman pointed to the back of the class. "And him?"

At the back, right next to an amused-looking Felix, dozed a sleeping Ron, as well. He wasn't sleeping on the desk though, his head was cocked back fully and resting on the wall.

"I got it!" The red blur stormed inside the burning building and stopped in the middle of the ground floor, close to the column Titan was holding up. "Here goes nothing!" The hero in red started to rotate his arms in an outward fashion, creating an air backdraft so that the resulting vacuum would kill the fire inside. After a good ten seconds, Titan heard a slight boom as the fires imploded and died out.

"I think he got the same bug I did. Viral infections at this season, you know..." Kim trailed off lamely, knowing that this looked bad no matter what. Thankfully, both she and Ron were doing very well academically. It had been only a week since Titans Tower had been fully online, but it was working very well.

Except for that one time a huge building caught fire and required both of them to stop the fires and evacuate people…And that was last night.

Miss Whisp threw another disapproving look at both of them. "I expect better from both of you, Kim."

After the class, Kim dragged a very much asleep Ron alongside herself, Monique and Felix. The fashionista looked at them with pity. "That was rough."

"It'll be fine." Kim shrugged it off. "She can't bust us for bad grades anyway."

"Yeeaaa...Ron-Man's untouchableee..." The drowsy Ron commented with an almost drunken slur.

"Seriously, what happened last night to keep both of you up?" A slightly worried and suspicious tone was coloring Monique's voice.

"Tweebs exploding their room." Kim lied through her teeth.

Monique threw an understanding look and dropped the issue. While relieved, this also scared Kim. She was getting extremely good at lying to her friends.

The watch on Ron's arm beeped twice. As if he was a machine, the blond suddenly was wide awake. "Oh damn, gotta go to pee! Don't wait for me!" He dropped Rufus with Kim, and hurried to a nearby restroom. They all shook their heads at his bluntness, and Kim's was just for show, since she knew the real reason for his panicked exodus.

"That boy and his antics." Monique turned to them. "So, anyone excited about Barkin's class?"

"The man is funny. I like him." Felix commented.

"Whatever you do, don't throw him a funny look. " Kim said offhandedly. "At least, that's what Ron says."

"Wha?" The brown-haired boy just had a blank expression of confusion on his face.

"He thinks a funny look he threw at Barkin in the ninth grade is the reason why the man is so hard on him."

Monique's phone chimed with an alert. She took it out and got excited. "Another Flash event!"

"Oh?" It was very hard for Kim to act surprised, but she pulled it off.

"He just pulled people out of a car wreck on the highway! Gotta post this on the blog..." She went to work, utilizing a tablet she pulled out of her bag.

Bonnie cut them off while walking, and rolling, in Felix's case. "Hi." She greeted everyone. Monique just nodded back, and Felix spoke warmly. "Good morning. You look vibrant."

Bonnie was caught off-guard. "Uh...Thanks…" She suppressed a blush out of surprise and turned to Kim. "So, about that thing today..."

Kim got what she meant. "Oh, right...We'll handle it after the cheer practice." It was their 'private' practice session, at the airfield.

Bonnie nodded trying to be as vague as possible. "Okay. Thanks...See you all." She turned to leave, then turned back. She seemed to struggle with something for a moment. "You know...My mom is…" She coughed lightly and dropped her voice. "She is organizing a birthday party...for me...Sooo..."

Monique was still working on the short update, but spared a look. Felix and Kim on the other hand, gave their full attention to her. "So?" Kim followed up.

"Wanna drop by?" Bonnie sighed slightly. "She...kinda invited everyone from last year." The brunette seemed at odds with that.

"Except we weren't there last year." Kim couldn't resist needling the brunette.

"Yes. That's...why I'm inviting you now."

"I'd be delighted to come. If I'm included." Felix smiled again.

"Of course...All of you guys are...invited." Bonnie looked around. "Ron included. Where is-?" She had just noticed Rufus on Kim's shoulder. "Oh well, you guys are all welcome. Friday, my place. Sounds okay?"

"Okay." Kim nodded, thinking that she had worse Friday nights.

"I'll be sure not to be late." Felix threw another smile Bonnie's way. Monique just nodded an affirmative. The brunette walked away for good this time.

"Wow, she is sure being TSN." The dark skinned girl finished her post and looked at Kim. "Totally super nice." She elaborated a second afterwards.

Kim sighed. "She's changed."

"She sure has. What's that thing you two have after cheer practice?" Monique inserted a follow up query.

"We are...uh...Developing a new routine. You know, brainstorming. New spankin' moves...And stuff." Kim lied again.

"You two?" Monique seemed incredulous. "My, how things have changed. Since..." The blogger teen caught herself and stopped, grimacing ever so slightly.

Kim sighed again. "Yea...I better get Ron. You two go ahead." She turned around and walked off as well.

Felix threw an odd look at Monique. "Okay, so...What's that again? Just like with Bonnie last time? What's getting into you people all of a sudden?"

Monique sighed heavily. "You heard about the Valentine's Day attack months ago?"

"Sure. Everyone this side of the Atlantic heard of that."

Monique slightly dipped her head to side as they advanced in halls, their talk melting into the general noise of the student body. "One of the victims was a student here. A cheerleader."

"Oh." Felix seemed deflated. "That is why Bonnie..." He ended with an inquisitive tone.

"Her name was Tara. Really nice girl. Short, blonde, cute. Bonnie's best friend." Then she added with more difficulty. "Ron's girlfriend."

"Holy sh-" The teen in the wheelchair stopped himself from cursing. "That's why he avoided the dance...Oh my God. Didn't his parents-"

"Die on the same day? Yes. So we try not to talk about it." Monique's tone was final. "Just step around the issue okay? I...don't want people to hurt."

Felix had stopped propelling his chair forward. He looked extremely thoughtful. He lightly commented. "Monique, people will hurt even if you don't talk about it."

The girl had barely heard that. "What?"

Felix shook his head. "Nothing. Let's go." He wheeled away.

Kim was having a very unexpected conversation with her Nana over the phone. "Yes Nana. I know. Don't worry. I know. Take care...No, I won't wear that green dress for my photo day!" The redhead puffed. "Nana!...Thanks. Love you too."

Ron, who had blurred right behind her in their 'tower', made a comment, making Kim jump slightly. "That sounded important...ish."

Kim spun and leapt slightly back in surprise. "For God's sake Ron! Stop doing that! I get superspeed, but that's just way too ninja!" She spied Rufus peeking out of Ron's pocket, scanning for his foremost passion, cheese. The mole rat seemed to be chittering with some sort of laughter. "Great, even Rufus likes it when I get jump-scared."

Ron grinned. "I don't think he's laughing at you." He sat down on one of the chairs near their center table. "What was that about?" He pointed to Kim's phone.

Kim sighed. "I'll need both you and Wade to be on duty tonight. Just got fresh intel from Nana."

Ron seemed very doubtful. "Intel...from Nana Possible?" He huffed as a new wave of stress made its way on his mind. "I won't like this, will I?"

"Probably not." Kim sat down as well. "Global Justice has officially been disbanded today."

Ron couldn't say anything for a good few seconds. Then he put all his feelings on the matter in one word. "Damn."

"Yes. Damn." Kim leveled her gaze at him. "Hope you didn't have plans for later."

Ron seemed troubled. "Monique and I were gonna catch a wrestling event on TV."

Kim deflated. Then shrugged. "You know, it won't take long. I think. This thing we gotta do. You can probably wing it with a bathroom break."

"My most overused excuse. People will start thinking I have bladder control issues."

Kim smiled. "Makes you miss the old days of us going 'hiphop-ing' all over the world and no one batting an eyelash, doesn't it?..." She spared a sideways glance. "Nana's wording."

"The woman has class; I'll give her that. Retired superspy class."

Kim sighed. "Seriously though. Another date fell through at the middle last night because I couldn't tell Josh where I had to leave for."

Ron rolled his eyes in annoyance. "I told you to sit still over the earpiece KP. I had the chain accident under control."

"I didn't see you lifting a car to free that injured driver."

"I was... making a plan to get him." Ron defended his position weakly, before getting back on track. "Look, I can handle things when you are on dates and girls-night-outs, or whatever. The Flash has things under control."

"Says the guy who was late for everything for the last month."

"Not everything."

"You showed up three minutes late to the game with Upperton High. You have yet to show up to one class on time-" Kim was going to go full on listing mode, until Ron cut her off.

"I get it." He deflated. "So I'm a bit late. Not the end of the world."

"Just goes to show you, having a patrol schedule might not be a bad idea."

One very nondescript, completely normal looking building at the edge of Middleton suddenly started vomiting black vans out of its garage. A fair amount of those, plus what looked like an armored truck, made their way to the highway leading out of the Tri-City.

Without any prior notice, out of the darkness of the night sky, a woman in black dropped right in front of the convoy. She put her hand on the leading black van and stopped it cold, with the tires turning to no avail. A few seconds later, men spilled out of the vans and started aiming fully automatic military rifles at the woman.

"Stand down freak!" One of them, presumably the one in charge of the convoy, shouted towards the woman. "United States military business."

The woman's answer came across strong, in a very strong and melodic tone. "Don't even try to bullshit me! Unmarked vans emptying out Global Justice headquarters. You are not military. You are ARGUS!"

All the men, to their credit, didn't flinch at being found out. The man in charge spoke back. "Looks like the freak knows a lot more than she is supposed to. All the same. Stand down, or you'll be put down!"

"I'd like to see you try." She looked behind all the men taking aim from behind car doors and spied the telltale blur circling behind them near the armored truck. She then pushed the car she had stopped a few meters to make a point. "Lucky for you guys, you won't even get to." Then the black haired woman looked directly at the man in charge. "Tell Amanda Waller to stay out of Tri-City. This is our territory."

Then she jumped far away and disappeared into the darkness.

A minute later, she reappeared in a deserted back alley. Flash was waiting there, with four people still shaking slightly from being carried by him. "One order of former GJ agents rescued, delivered as promised."

Kim in Titan disguise just smiled. "Thanks for the assist. You can go back to watching wrestling." Flash threw a little finger salute, waved at the four people he rescued, and then sped away.

One door at the deserted alley opened and a woman with an eyepatch walked out. She pointed to the agents. "Inside, all of you, now."

Will Du threw a sideways nod to Titan as they did. "Thanks for the help, ma'am." Titan just nodded back.

Director Betty closed the door as all four agents got inside. She looked at Titan. "I have to say, Director Possible sure knows how to send the best help." Then she smiled a little. "You have really grown Kim."

Titan smiled ruefully as her hand went to her neck. "I should've known that you'd guess." She removed the silver choker, disguise giving way to her real, redhead self.

"I've seen what you did to Gemini's men. But this-" Betty pointed to Kim's outfit and new look. "You seem to have jumped up more than a few levels." Then she pointed to the direction where Flash disappeared. "And acquired a very powerful ally."

"He comes in handy." Kim put her hand on Betty's shoulder, surprising the older woman slightly. "Will you be okay? With ARGUS after your agents?"

Betty smiled, placating the teenager. "Don't worry. We still have more than a few safe houses and escape routes. I will have to disband most of our clandestine ops, but we will manage." Then she put her hand on Kim's shoulder. "You have to be careful Kim. Secret identity is a good idea, but you need to be extra careful now that ARGUS has its full attention turned here, without any interruptions."

"Is this 'Amanda Waller' really that dangerous? Nana warned me as well."

Betty nodded. "She's worse. She was Director's prized pupil. I was a distant second in most aspects. She's the best and worst of your grandmother, just amplified. Cares little for individuals, uses them to what she perceives to be for greater good, and discards them without a second thought. Given chance, she'll turn your life to hell."

Kim sighed. "I might just have told her lackeys off with a really strong warning."

Betty patted the teen's shoulder. "Can't be helped now. Now, listen." Betty handed a small USB drive to Kim. "This contains all the Global Justice local surveillance reports and such. Our presence in Middleton kept Tri-City's crime rate very low for a long time, but it has been rising as our power diminished. Now, the crime will try to return in full force. Flash and you need to be ready for it."

Kim nodded as she pocketed the drive. "We already have a headquarters built. Wade has full access to all law enforcement systems. We will be ready."

Betty smiled, relaxing a little. "How is Ronald? He was...not well, the last time I saw him."

"He is...better. A lot better. Thanks for the concern Betty." They shared a small hug.

"You won't hear from me or any Global Justice agent for some time. Until then." Betty shook Kim's hand and disappeared back into the building she came from.

As Kim put her choker back on and flew upwards, she heard Wade's voice from her earpiece. "That's the mystery of how Middleton's crime rate rising was solved."

"Indeed." She kept her flight slow and low.

"Let me ask you a question." The kid genius' voice came across thoughtful and tired. "How many metahumans have Ron and you bagged so far?"

"Not many, but a few notable ones."

"Do you want to guess how many of them ended in federal custody?"

"All?"

Wade answered with certainty, disturbing Kim with his answer. "None."

Kim uttered a silent curse as she stopped in the air and hovered, thinking. "Waller. It has to be."

"Kim, what I found about this woman is very, very little, and this scares me to no end. The woman is a ghost. And if she is as good as Dr. Director and your grandmother claims..."

Kim answered as she scanned below herself, watching the city from above. "We have one big bogey... woman on our hands."

"I'll try to look up some more in intelligence databases...But I'm not sure how much attention that will attract. What's your call?"

Kim thought and pros and cons of one such action. Her decision came swiftly. "Hold that play in reserve. Until Waller comes knocking on our gates, alerting her to our full capabilities is not a wise course of action."

Wade confirmed that order. "Understood." Then his voice took a little bit of playful tone. "You are certainly living up to your heritage."

"What's that supposed to mean Wad— I mean, Watchtower?"

"Come on, one of the most legendary spies of all time as one grandmother, and the goddess of wisdom, justice and strategy as the other? Genetics is on your side."

"Says the kid with genius level intelligence. See you back at HQ." Then she blasted off flying towards the tall apartment complex she could see in the distance.

Ron felt guilty. But it was not fault that either Kim, Felix or Monique didn't have superspeed. He'd prefer not to do this...

But he had no choice.

There was no other way.

This was his destiny.

As he steeled his resolve, he stepped out of the alley he had changed into his plain clothes, and looked upon his destination. Finally, he was where he was supposed to be. Where he belonged.

The Mucho Grande Bueno Nacho building shone under the light of the evening sun. He felt his eyes tear up a bit. Rufus, who had been hiding in his backpack, also peeked out with a drooling visage. He had run across the country for this. Go City hosted the single most anticipated opening for Bueno Nacho lovers everywhere.

"Rufus. I thought I was ready but..." He began to hyperventilate. The naked mole rat climbed up his shirt and moved his mouth for big breaths. Ron finally got his grip back. "Okay...Okay...I think I'm ready."

Wade's choice words filtered in through his watch. "Ron, it's just another Bueno Nacho."

"Just another Bueno Nacho?! I don't think so!" Ron turned his culinary geek mode on. "This is the world's Mucho Grande Bueno Nacho! It represents the future of Bueno Nacho!"

"Seriously?" Kim, who was a little aggravated that Ron had just left her behind for this, commented from her end.

"Yes! It could be..." Then he walked in through the doors. His voice dropped low. "The most beautiful thing I've ever seen in my life." Rufus also let out a shocked tone.

"Wade, call me back when he is done with fanboying out." Kim's line cut off. Ron didn't mind. He was in his own world. He had just seen –"The Salsa Parade! It's just as they described on the website!" Then he turned and saw what he craved most. "Can it be true?!" He got closer to the object of his instant new affection. "They finally made the dream a reality."

"Ron, it's just a kiosk." Wade commented as he watched the speedster through security cameras.

Ron didn't even hear the condescension. He gazed lovingly upon the kiosks that took the orders and payment, and provided the product in return. "Yes! The transaction has been reduced to its most primal elements." He got closer and hugged the machine. "Man. And menu." He rubbed the screen with unmatched compassion. "The special orders can get wild as we want. There's no one to judge us now..." His voice trembled with anticipation.

A man lightly touched his shoulder. Ron, tearing himself away from the console with much difficulty, turned around. He saw a big, burly man with glasses and black hair looking at him. He had the Bueno Nacho standard uniform with the clip-on tie of a 'Manager' on his shirt.

"Excuse me, is your name Stoppable?"

"Very much so, my good man." Ron was in such a good mood, nothing could break it. Or so he thought.

"I'm sorry, but Corporate sent out a memo. There are...special procedures I'm supposed to implement at this point."

"NOOOOOO!" Ron hugged the console again. "Tis' mine, my precious!" He roleplayed a perfect Gollum, though it was not clear to Wade if this indeed was an act or Ron really felt that way towards the new kiosk system. "Just let me have this one day with it!" He teared and sulked perfectly, tugging at the heartstrings of the Manager.

"Well. In honor of our Grandé opening, I'll look the other way."

"You won't regret this dude, I promise you!" Ron turned around got ready to go wild with the menu.

Only, he had forgotten he rarely got to enjoy his downtime uninterrupted these days. A slightly psychotic, mostly annoying laugh filled the atrium filled with kiosks in the Mucho Grande building's ground floor.

The automatic doors opened to give way to a very absurd looking man. "Beware hero, for it is I, Aviarius, and revenge will be mine!" The man had Mohawk styled, dyed red hair. He also wore some sort of purple bird-wing looking cape and had talon-styled gloves and boots. He completed this stupid outfit with some sort of short scepter with a slightly glowing crystal on top.

"I've no idea who this is. What revenge?" Ron quietly asked towards his watch.

"Don't ask me, I don't even know whathe is." Wade's calm answer filtered through.

The man that called himself Aviarius pointed towards his general direction. "Condor, attack!" An actual, large condor swooped from behind him and charged.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me!" Ron got ready to jump away, and he ducked and rolled as the condor swooped low. He jumped behind one of the kiosks. "I'm suiting up!"

"Don't! We can't explain how Flash appears there so fast, not without exposing you on the scene!"

"Oh, fuck me sideways then!" He chanced a look around, and saw the Manager jumping behind kiosks as well. The man didn't notice Ron watching him. Then the weirdest thing happened. His hands and body glowed with a blue energy, tinged with black particles in it, then he took his shirt and pants off in a well-practiced move set. Ron's eyes grew as he saw a black-blue outfit that was somehow very familiar to him. The man's hair also took on a dark blue hue. As the manager, now revealed to be some sort of metahuman, turned to jump into fray, he saw Ron's wide-eyed stare.

Ron saw a momentary panic in the man's eyes, but to his credit, he got over that and jumped over the menu consoles. The blond spoke into the watch, as he heard the screech of the condor again. "Did you see that?!"

"See where that metahuman appeared from? No, what happened?!"

"He is the Manager dude of this B.N., I just saw him change!" Ron peeked above the console to see the blue colored metahuman lifting a large piece of debris from the ruined salsa parade and throw it at Aviarius. The bird-themed villain dodged, and retaliated with a blast from his weird scepter. The blue metahuman took it head on was blasted backwards.

Ron couldn't watch anymore. Making sure no one was watching, he dropped Rufus and his backpack, and blurred into action.

In a split second, Aviarius was hit twice by something he couldn't see. The Mohawk-sporting man got knocked down due to those, but didn't let the scepter go. He just pointed it all around as he looked for whatever hit him, until a blurry shape charged him. In panic, the scepter was fired off in its reverse form.

Ron got caught to that weird beam, and felt a ripping sensation all over his body. It hurt really bad, and he let go of Aviarius in that pain. The blue metahuman also leapt towards Aviarius, but he also got caught to the beam, and screamed all the same.

Ron fell on the ground, unconscious.

Hector did not know what to do. The teenager that had defended him had been lying unconscious for more than six hours now, and he was now certain that Aviarius had somehow stolen his superstrength.

The man knew he was nothing like the big time superheroes, but superstrength had been part of him for so long. Losing it felt like losing a limb.

The big screen in the circular big room he was in activated, as the sensors outside Go Tower had picked something up. He only saw a woman with long black hair at the door. Then, the woman stuck her hands into the crack of the automatic blast doors...

And proceeded to pry them open with her bare hands.

Hector jumped to his feet, feeling confused and scared, as without his power, he had no defense. Out of the darkness of the entrance hallway, the woman walked out with a brisk pace, and a look of absolute fury in her face.

Before Hector could say anything, the woman, dressed in black leather and a red chest plate, surged forward and shoved him aside, taking a look at the blond teen lying on the table. The Bueno Nacho manager barely got a grip and saw the concern and fear on the woman's beautiful visage. Then that face turned to Hector.

"What the hell happened to him?!" The woman jumped suddenly and landed near him, pulling him up, leveling her gaze at zero distance. "Explain this before I turn you into a paste!"

"I will tell you, calm down please!" Hector exclaimed in panic. The woman let her go, then shook her head as if to center herself.

"I'm...sorry...I need to know what happened to my friend." She seemed a tad calmer now. Turning around, she revealed a backpack she was carrying. She set it near the blond lying on the table, and let out a naked mole rat out. The animal chittered in panic and went to trying to wake up the blond.

The woman turned back to Hector. "Look, he is my friend. I need all the details on what happened."

"I need those details as well." The big screen activated to show a scrambled image, obviously being encrypted to protect the caller's identity.

Hector, deciding that telling the tale was more important, recounted the event in detail.

The woman revealed her alias as Titan. "So, you are telling me that this 'Aviarius' was there for you?"

"Yes. I'm...Hego. That's my superhero name."

"Uh-huh." Titan wasn't amused. "You are telling me that my friend here got zapped with the same scepter you were hit with."

Hector, or Hego as his alias was uttered, nodded in concern. "Aviarius is not very dangerous...Or so I thought. I think he stole my superstrength with it."

Before Kim could start to contemplate what that meant, groans rose from Ron's lying form. Apparently, Rufus' prodding had worked. He raised himself slowly, looking around. "Woah...Did anyone got the plates for the truck that hit me?"

Kim, rather, Titan, rushed at his side. "What the hell you have gotten yourself into?! I told you not to leave me behind!"

"It was just to see the Mucho Grande Bueno Nacho-" Ron saw that he was talking to a magically disguised Kim. "Titan." He looked around and saw Hector. "You! You are the Manager there at Mucho Grande!"

Titan interrupted, "Yes. He already told me about his secret identity, and his enemy, that you saw."

"I think I need to thank you for my life, Mr. Stoppable, though I'm not sure how you saved me."

"Awesomeness." Ron got up and stepped on his feet. As soon as he did, he wavered, with Kim having to hold his arm to keep him up.

"Ron, are you okay?!"

Ron's eyes grew as he tried to stand straight, and succeeded very slowly. He looked at his hands, then his body. "Something...is off...Wrong." He looked back at his right hand. Kim also turned her gaze there.

Ron vibrated his hand, and Kim saw a tiny wisp of yellow lightning, before it died down and Ron's hand slowed down. Ron tried again, with the same result. The blond closed his eyes and tried to vibrate his whole body. That also failed.

Opening his eyes, he looked at Kim in Titan disguise. "My...my speed...It's gone!"

The sinking feeling in Kim's gut transformed into fully fledged panic and fear. Failing to say anything else, she just exclaimed softly. "Oh, damn."

Hego had no idea what they were talking about. "If I may ask...His speed?"

Ron collapsed on the ground, sitting abruptly as he felt powerless. Kim just held him from going fully limp as she turned to Hego. She grimaced. The man had no idea how much trouble they were in. He needed to know. "Ron...He is..." Sighing one more time, "The Flash. That what he meant by his speed being gone.

Hego stood there for a full second, as the implication that two A-list superheroes were now standing in Go Tower. It took him another ten seconds to realize that Flash's speed might have been stolen. His mouth fell open slowly. Then he scrambled to the big console nearby. "I need to warn my brothers!"

And then the worst happened, as Wade spoke.

"You need to see this..." After that ominous statement, Go City News Channel came on.

Melvin tried to crawl away as he felt his broken ribs, plural. During his time as a metahuman, he had never felt such pain. He had not felt such desperation either.

Aviarius stood right behind him, watching the crawling hero. The villain was keenly aware of the news helicopter circling above him. He knew the police would be here soon.

But such things were not his concern now. He had ascended. The man known by the moniker Aviarius was no more.

He originally had a simple plan. He had discovered a spent crystal shard from the multi-colored comet that had transformed Team Go into what they were. He had synthesized an energy matrix to activate the shard, so that he could suck the Go Glow powers back to it. He was just going to steal their powers, humiliate them in public and finally complete his revenge against the team that had thrown him in jail.

That was, until, he had somehow absorbed a very wonderful dose of power from an unknown, nondescript blond kid while attacking Hego. The crystal trembled with energy, and with that energy, came the speed. Aviarius had not thought to discover what this energy was. He only knew how powerful it made him. Powerful enough to take down members of Go Team, without breaking a sweat.

He watched Mego pathetically crawl for a few more seconds, before he used the newfound speed provided by the scepter, and grabbed the whiny man from the ground. Then, in true maniacal fashion, something no one thought that Aviarius had in him, he raised him towards the hovering helicopter.

"Look upon your hero, Go City! Look how he suffers! Look how he is just a man!" The villain reached out and pulled the mask from Mego's face, outing his secret identity. "Look and see whom you placed your trust on!" Then he threw him back on the ground, pointing the scepter at the fallen, purple-black dressed man's back. "And watch him fall!" He screamed as the scepter drained Mego's powers.

As he did so, Aviarius heard a scream of rage. He turned to find a multitude of red-black dressed teenagers rushing at him. His smile grew. The Wego twins had spared him the trouble of looking for them.

The first thing twins found out was that Aviarius could not be touched. They duplicated as fast as they could, filling the street with an almost literal army. But they could only watch as Aviarius avoided every single clone, and delivering blue-glow superstrength blows in return. The bird obsessed villain was using a very powerful form of superspeed, one that twins had no hope to win against.

Aviarius screamed as he overcame waves of Wego attacks. "You two will fall like your brothers!" Then the scepter glowed blue as the man struck his fist on the ground, making it shake and crack. The twin army faltered, and thus gave Aviarius to do what he really planned to. The Mohawk sporting man shrunk and used superspeed, becoming a bullet that dispelled the duplicate army in seconds.

The twins found themselves hurt, on the ground, close to the suffering Melvin, and looked as Aviarius grew again. They both tried to get up and fight. Aviarius hit them with an unseen speed and power again. They were knocked down, almost out of it. Kyle and Ryan was scattered to different sides.

Aviarius walked by Ryan, and drained his power first. Kyle could only listen to his twin's screams as the power was ripped out of him. He knew he would be next. He tried to get up, and failed as he fell back on his face.

A few seconds later, he sensed a presence above him, and saw Aviarius standing right nearby. With a maniacal glee, the bird villain turned the scepter on him, and started ripping out his glow power.

Then they both heard a vengeful battlecry. "GET AWAY FROM MY BROTHER!" Ryan had charged from behind, tackling Aviarius to the ground. A moment later, Kyle saw a blue glow and heard a sickening crunch. Ryan flew backwards, blood spilling all over the place. Aviarius got up, his face scratched slightly, but distorted in pure rage as the red glow he stole from Ryan activating. He suddenly split up.

"Kill the insolent little shit!" The original ordered, and in horror, Kyle saw ten blurs of Aviarius converge on his twin.

Even the news cameraman shooting the scene from above couldn't contain himself and puked as he lowered the camera while watching the ensuing carnage. Kyle passed out from pain as he felt a sudden, tearing pain as Ryan's shouts cut abruptly.

All in all, it was an okay day for Shego. For the last few months, all Drakken had cared for was to train with his new powers. No harebrained schemes, no stupid assignments to be sent on, Shego was living good. Regular spa treatments, binge watching some shows on Netflix, and all she had to do in the name of 'work' was to join in some of Doc's training sessions.

Sparring with a freak who could control weather itself had done wonders on her own form. She had better control over her powers than she ever had, not to mention increased power as well. Then again, she had never trained seriously with it.

Because she had never wanted any of this in the first place.

She shook her head to dispel that train of thought. Thinking in retrospect wasn't her style.

She didn't know she would have no choice but to do exactly that in a few minutes. Her cellphone rang, surprising her. She didn't have many contacts besides Drakken. Tentatively, she answered the call.

"Who is this?"

"Shelly." The voice at the other end was female. A familiar one at that.

Shego had not heard from that person for years. "Cat? What the hell?! How did you get my number?!"

"Investigative reporter, remember?" The voice of Cat Grant came across strained, unusually so. That woman was firm and powerful as they come. "Shelly, you need to open Go City News Channel."

"I thought you were at Metropolis or something. What do you care about Go City, Cat? Neither of us give two shits about that place anymore." Shego voiced her feelings. "Or what do you care about me? You made your point clear last time we spoke."

"Shelly...I didn't call to discuss the past. Just...open Go City News. You need to." After a short pause, "Goodbye, Shelly." The call was ended on Cat's end after that.

Her own past irritated Shego to no end. She had more skeletons in her closet than most reality TV stars. And she had resolved to keep them there. But Cat's tone, asking her to open the news...It was eerie. Cat Grant was rarely sentimental.

Shego turned her TV on, and found Go City News from her guide. She came face to face with news coverage and footage.

Drakken was practicing forming ice balls in his hand and throwing them in his self-made training room. Then he heard a shrill scream, and a sound akin to explosion afterwards.

Rushing outside, he found the source to be Shego's personal quarters. Somewhere he never dared to venture. He could see burns of green plasma everywhere. Stepping over the rubble, he walked inside the quarters. To find Shego in a half dressed state. The room was wrecked otherwise.

Turning his head away, he asked. "Shego...Are you…okay?"

An answer didn't come. He turned his head slowly to find the woman fully dressed in her green-black outfit. As he watched, she let loose a massive blast of plasma out of her hands and blew the wall up nearby.

"Shego?" He asked again.

"Don't fucking follow me Doc! Don't even dare!" With that ominous shout, Shego ran out of the hole in the wall and blasted towards the night sky as her hands flared and spew green plasma in impressive quantities.

Drakken could only watch, as he had not mastered flying with his powers yet.

That, and Shego scared him. But he was also concerned.

"Mr. Rayner?" Hector raised his head from his hands. A female doctor was standing in front of him. He nodded to the doctor to signify that he was listening. "We've stabilized Melvin, although it is unlikely that he will gain consciousness for another day. He suffered four broken ribs, a major concussion and internally hemorrhaged into his abdominal cavity. We are keeping him in the ICU for at least a week."

"What about..." The large man couldn't bring himself to ask about his youngest brother.

The doctor seemed to understand. "We...don't know what is exactly keeping Kyle in coma. Physically, he only has soft tissue damage in some areas, and his brain scan showed no signs of trauma, yet he will not wake up." The doctor seemed apologetic. "I am very sorry about all that has happened." She put her hand on the man's shoulder tentatively. "Go City shares your loss."

"Did they bring Ryan in?" The question was desperate, and filled with pain.

After a brief silence, he got an answer. "Yes. He was taken to the morgue. I'm very sorry, again." Then she left him alone, to deal with his pain. He would not be left alone though. As soon as he left the hallway near the intensive care unit and walked into a separate waiting room, he found it deserted. The door closed behind him.

"The whole story. We can't waste any more time." Hector turned to see intimidating Titan, and the blond teen, currently sporting a dark red hoodie that had been pulled to his nose. Hector couldn't be sure, but the blond seemed extremely broken. The depowered Hego threw a tired look at her.

"You want the whole story?" He collapsed on a nearby chair. "You'll get it."

In the beginning, there was just a family. Plain and happy with their lives, for the most part. Mother. Father. The eldest son. The big sister. Spoiled younger son. And a surprise baby. They were well off. Didn't want for anything.

Had a big house in suburbs. Even had a huge treehouse that the siblings liked to frequent very often.

One day, one fateful day, Lady Fate came a' knockin'. And she knocked hard. Something struck the treehouse. It came down from the sky. Without warning, without a trace, it destroyed the tree. No one ever knew where it came from. A neighbour had claimed that it looked like a rainbow colored rock. But the incident was classified as a freak accident. Everyone but the father was inside there.

That day changed the family. The eldest son used to be an irresponsible failure. He changed, for worse or the better, no one could say for sure. But he had done a full one-eighty.

The big sister was a happy, caring, responsible and well-mannered young girl. She loved her family. But she changed as well. The things she lost changed her, made her stubborn, angry and jaded.

The spoiled young son grew up to be even worse. Once there was just a little brat, but after the incident, he cared little about others.

But what had been unsurmisable was the situation with the new baby. Somehow, without any sort of explanation, there were two of that baby. For all intents and purposes, a complete genetic match to each other. Twins. They were named as such, and no one ever knew which baby was the first one, and the other was some unexplained freak.

That didn't matter much in the long run. The siblings all developed powers. Glowing energy leaked out of them as they discovered themselves anew.

The eldest son took to his power very quickly. He wanted what all boys wanted. To be a hero. The younger son didn't think on it too much. His power was his own, and that was all he cared for. The twins never knew a life where they didn't have powers.

But the big sister did remember. She always remembered a time where there were no powers, no heartbreak, no hurt. And she never quite let go of it. The more she held on, the brighter she burned, until she burned out of her own life, and family, and friends.

Ten years after their incident, eldest son urged his siblings to form a team. To become heroes. To give meaning and purpose to their tragedies. And for a time, it was good.

Until it was not.

Until the sister finally burned all that she used to care for. Until her pain stopped being her pain, and became her fuel to live.

Mother and Father, you ask?

They...They died.

Kim leaned on the wall she stood near, internalizing the story she had just heard. There was something about this entire thing that just struck a familiarity to her. A detail she thought that she recognized.

Then Ron, with a broken and hollow voice, filled in the blanks for her…and for himself. "Hego. Mego. Wego...The sister was Shego. Wasn't it?"

Hector raised his head slowly from his hands. "How...You know of my sister?"

Ron answered with a soulless, sarcastic remark. "Oh yea. We are on a first name basis. Which reminds me, what is her real name?"

Kim cut him off. "She...she works for a bad guy named Drakken. Under contract, and all that."

Hector shook his head. "Never heard of him. Never heard a peep from Shego after she left Go City. So, she finally did succumb to the call of evil."

That drew out a derisive snort from both Ron and Kim, in Titan form. The big man looked at them. Ron sighed as he turned his head down, exasperated. Kim remarked. "You do not have any idea what true evil is. Believe us on that. Shego is..." Kim struggled to find words. After hearing the story, it was harder not to view Shego in a more sympathetic light. "Just Shego, I guess."

Kim paced around a little in the waiting room. "This Aviarius. If he wants all your powers, he will hit Shego next."

"He'd need to find her first. Drakken's hideouts are super easy for Wade to find, but not so much for many others." Ron watched Rufus stare back at him with sadness as he spoke with that same soulless tone.

Ron's watch activated all of a sudden, scaring Hector. "Unless she races up to him herself. Guys, there is a supersonic heat signature closing in on Go City, and will be there in less than ten minutes!"

Kim and Ron shared a look, and they knew. "Shego. She must have seen the news."

Hector seemed pained as Kim spoke. Then he exclaimed with panic. "Last time something like this happened...Shelly...Shego...She killed an entire street gang...Burned them to their bones."

Kim desperately wanted to know, but she didn't have the time. "Why is she coming back to Go City? Is Aviarius somewhere close?!"

Hector nodded. He pointed to a tall mountain overlooking Go City. "He has a lair on top of Go Mountain."

Ron snorted again, his voice progressively getting darker every time he spoke. "Let me guess. 'The Nest'?"

Hector nodded. "Yes."

Ron's fist struck the arm of the chair he was sitting on. "And this guy has my power. This fucking maniac."

Kim looked at the mountain, then spoke after touching her earpiece. "Location of the supersonic heat signature?"

Wade's voice filtered into her ear. "She'll be there in four minutes. The heat signature is going straight for the mountain."

Kim's face darkened. She turned to look at the other two, and shook his head. "She will die." Then, in one move, she opened a section on the spacious windows. "Stay here." She got ready to jump out and fly away.

Hector spoke loudly. "You need help to fight Aviarius!"

Titan turned and looked at him. "Fight him?" She looked at the man. "There is no fighting him like this. Aviarius has his powers." She pointed to Ron. "Coupled with your glow powers, he will be nigh invincible. No." She swallowed her panic. "I need to get Shego out. And all of you need to stay away."

Ron didn't even look at her as she left via the window, flying to Go Mountain as fast as she could. The blond felt numb to the world.

The top section of the Nest exploded in a blinding flash of green plasma. The debris showered the floor below, raining some down on Aviarius, who was trying to find out where Shego was.

He wasn't disappointed when he turned back and saw a maddened, unhinged Shego looking at him from across the spacious area in his lair.

"AVIARIUS! I WILL KILL YOU!" Shego's hand burst into green, and launched her upwards. Then the blast turned upwards and launched Shego directly towards Aviarius, in a considerable speed.

To Shego's horror, Aviarius caught her in midflight. She found that the man had punched her across the room, with blue glowing hands. Her body impacted the wall as she flew backwards, making her spit blood. She fell on the ground in a heap, realizing that two of her ribs were broken in the first blow. She heard a slight crackle of electricity, and found Aviarius standing right above herself.

Letting her anger loose fully, Shego's hands burst into green plasma again, swiping at the villain. Aviarius dodged the blows, and rained down about fifty punches in a second as retaliation. Shego spat blood again, and the pain she felt intensified.

She didn't know what was happening. Aviarius seemed to have Hego's power, but the superspeed was something else entirely. She tried to stand up, only to be knocked down by a shrunk down Aviarius, whom then caught her foot and threw her away as he grew back to full size. The ex-hero turned mercenary villain flew away and fell on the ground again.

For the first time in a long time, she felt true fear. She had come into the Nest fully intending to rip Aviarius into a million little pieces, fully resolved to kill again in vengeance. Instead, she realized that she would die, and no one could save her.

She heard the footsteps of the bird themed villain. "You dared attack me. I remember how it used to be, dear Shego. I remember how it was you that pulled those misfits together, kept them focused. How it was you that I suffered most from." He kicked her to turn her on the ground, then grabbed her with blue glowing hands, from her neck. "Oh, I remember it all. And I will enjoy making you hurt, in any way you can imagine."

In his murderous, torturous and frankly somewhat rapist glee, Aviarius didn't hear the approaching danger. All of a sudden, someone pulled Shego out of his hand, and then he saw a fast approaching first. He wasn't using the speed power from the scepter at that time, so he couldn't react as the fist collided dead on with his face, breaking his nose and most of his jawline, on top of sending him across the room, and through the wall.

"I think you should monologue less than a cartoon villain, bird brain." Titan exclaimed as she put Shego over her shoulder. Then she heard a humming.

Out of the sockets in the walls, robotic hummingbirds which kept flashing red light poured out. It didn't take rocket science to understand that these were loaded with explosives. "Time to get outta here!" Titan launched off into the air and flew out of the hole in the roof of The Nest. She kept hearing the hummingbirds still. Turning her head, she saw a slew of the robotic explosion machines following her. And they seemed to turn with her.

She kept trying to ditch them to no avail. Sooner or later, the swarm would catch up.

"They...they're...Heat seeking!" Shego sputtered from Titan's shoulder, nearly blinded by pain.

In the rush, the explosives chasing her and her villainous rival on her shoulder, Kim felt like she back in the old days. Without realizing, she commented. "So, heat's the sitch!" Looking down, she got the idea she needed.

Blasting downwards away from the mountain, and to the Team Go Tower on the coast, Titan gained speed as hummingbirds gave chase. She had to fly low over Go City to keep away from them. Weaving around some buildings, she heard explosions as parts of the swarm collided on high rise buildings. Not slowing down to look, she kept on her course, gaining flight speed as the coast grew closer in distance.

Getting one more bright idea, she suddenly turned upwards in air as they reached the shoreline. Stopping at a higher altitude than most buildings, she watched the swarm get close. Shego screamed and fainted with pain as the immediate stop jarred her injured insides. Kim didn't pay her any mind. She needed all the concentration she could muster right now.

She willed herself downwards, full speed. She swerved right to avoid one part of the hummingbird swarm. Then she immediately swerved left and made two smaller swarms collide. Explosions threw her off, but she didn't lose grip on Shego. Going full speed, she dove into the sea as the rest of the swarm followed.

As they dove deep with the momentum, the robotic swarm of hummingbirds exploded or malfunctioned as they reached water.

Kim waited for ten seconds before resurfacing to make that they were in the clear. After that, she blasted out of the water, with Shego in her arms.

Kim exited the medical room in the Tower, with her mother trailing. She locked the door with the keypad near the door, effectively sealing it. The original purpose of the room wasn't detaining the patients, but it was a necessary measure.

What with Shego being the patient in question and all.

Wade was hard at work on a full body scan on his workstation. Ron was just sitting silently at the table, Rufus throwing worried looks at his owner. Hector Rayner, also known as Hego, wasn't too different in stature, also sitting silently near the circular center table.

Hector's head rose and looked at Anne for information. The neurosurgeon sat down and sighed. "Your sister has almost all her ribs broken. There are medium to severe soft tissue damage in almost all her extremities. There are multiple hairline fractures in her legs and arms. Grade Three concussion at her brain from intense acceleration and deceleration, aside from the physical trauma."

Hector's head dropped back. Anne continued. "On the other hand, she seems to have an increased healing factor? Am I right?"

Hector just nodded slowly. "Yes. All of us with the glow powers have..." He corrected himself. "Had increased healing. Hers is strongest. She usually just shrugs off injuries in a day or two."

Anne smiled slightly. "Well, in light of medical evidence, I estimate that she should heal back fully, though the time it'd take for her to fully heal, I cannot really say. Can be a few days, can be a week." She got up and stood near Wade, looking at the full body scan. "Any help I can offer dear?"

Wade shook his head. "Sorry Mrs. Possible. This..." Wade pointed to the screen, and then discreetly moved his head towards Ron's direction. "He is physically fine. More than fine, in many aspects. It's the energy readings."

Anne looked intrigued. She was well-versed in almost all medical disciplines. Biomechanics were one of them. "Do you have a reference reading?"

Wade just pulled up an older scan of Ron's. Then he switched the view mode to show electromagnetic spectrum. Even Kim could see the difference from where she sat. The reference reading was a cornucopia of electromagnetic fluctuations, and the most recent one only had a few disturbances in the spectrum.

"There used to be a massive amount of bioelectric energy in his cells." Anne made an observation.

"And now it almost all gone. Only traces of it remain." Wade puffed. He had been researching the mechanics behind Ron's power from day one, and only progress he had made was in detecting how it affected Ron's cells. That was until Ron had described his experiences using it.

"No biologic system can produce that much energy on its own. No matter how hyper metabolic it may be." Anne made the observation. She turned to Ron. "Ron, how were you using this much power?"

Ron shrugged, answering without even turning his head. "I siphoned the power off from... somewhere. I don't know. Some sort of source, that I couldn't see, but only feel within."

Wade supplied. "Lately, the speeds he had been running at, they generated way more energy than even this reference reading." He pointed to the original image. "I detected massive electrical buildups from the suit sensors, especially more so whenever he passed Mach Five or above. He is accessing a source of energy."

Kim shook her head, not understanding the mechanics. "How can he access something that no one else can feel?"

Wade sighed. "It's... Look, it's a lot like a..." He searched his mind for a good analogy. "The Force."

Ron snorted. Kim rolled her eyes. "Wade, what does Star Wars fictional mumbo jumbo has in common with this?"

The genius answered. "Well, Ron is like a Jedi, in the sense that he accesses and uses this 'Force', and expels the energy back out into the world. The lightning he generates when he runs is that excess energy. Ron is a like valve, a conduit for this thing."

Kim pressed on the proposed theory. "So how can Aviarius move with superspeed like that?"

Anne had seemed to get a grasp on the apparent biomechanics of the issue. "This energy... If this man stole it from Ron's system, he is using only that amount he stole to use superspeed. Theoretically, it should run out, without a 'conduit' to access more, as Wade put it."

Kim nodded along, but as she had no formal training in these disciplines, she had questions. "One thing that bugs me. If Ron was using this..." She looked for a more appropriate name for the energy. Ron looked at her for a second. Then both of them said the same thing at once. "Speed Force."

Ron smiled for the first time since Go City. "Nice one."

Kim, glad that he was finally picking his mood back up, smiled back. "Yes. Anyway. So, if he was using Speed Force, why does he need to eat so much, and has hypermetabolism? It doesn't make sense."

Ron nodded. "That has been bothering me lately as well. The energy comes from somewhere else, so why is my body trying to produce so much on its own?"

Anne pulled up the latest scan. "You still have slightly higher metabolism and have some of this foreign energy in your system. Obviously, your body was trying to fuel your increased healing factor. Your genetic make-up is still the same... You just cannot access this Speed Force as of now. Why? I cannot say." The neurosurgeon shook her head sadly. "This is where science stops making sense and my medical expertise ends."

Wade had a theory of his own on that. "You need a certain amount of energy to 'open the valve', as it were. I think that's why your body was working at such a high rate. Bioenergy unlocks the access to Speed Force through your cells, due to genetic mutation."

Kim wondered aloud, trying to get to the crux of the matter. "Is there any way we can... recharge him?"

Wade looked at her, the readings, then Ron. "I mean..." He bit his lower lip. "You know, I need to check a few things on that."

Kim sighed. "Shego is down, Aviarius is loose... We can't do this without you." She reached across and held his hand. "Just... don't lose hope."

Ron sighed. "Look I'm... I'll be fine. Don't worry. It's just a shock, losing all that speed." He looked at his hands. "I didn't know that it was such a big part in my life."

Hector slowly nodded, being in the same predicament. "You only notice when it's gone."

Anne took her bag from a nearby stand. "I need to pick the boys up from their soccer practice. Kimmie, don't forget the evening."

Kim looked at her mom with an empty stare. "Tonight? What's tonight?"

"Don't you two have to be at a birthday party?" Anne asked, looking at both Kim and Ron.

Both the teens' heads shot up. "Bonnie's birthday!" They exclaimed at the same time. "We can't go when we are in a sitch like this!" Kim exclaimed. "We got an injured supervillain in our medbay!"

"People will ask why you are not there if you don't go." Wade commented. "Actually, you should go."

"But Shego-" Kim started to argue, but was cut off by Wade.

"She's injured and locked up. She won't wake up for the next forty eight hours, according to your mom."

Hector stood up. "I'll stay with her in the room. It'll be fine. " He looked at the teens. "You should go, have fun."

Wade nodded. "There is nothing we can do for now. We need to wait at any rate. I'll look into recharging Ron."

Ron shrugged. "Might as well. Felix has been calling me on my cell for the last hour. Can't really chicken out now."

Kim shook her head slowly. "Fine. I need to call Mo." She exited the Tower with her mother.

Hector walked back to medbay and entered it after Wade unlocked it remotely. The genius and the blond teen shared a look. Ron asked. "Do you think I can use the Speed Force again? Honestly?"

Wade looked at him, then smiled. "Kim's mom is right. All the components are there, just the energy is gone. I honestly think it's going to work out fine." He pointed to Ron's suit stand, which was lined with frosted glass. "Might wanna take a look."

Ron looked at the display case. "What's in there?"

"What do you think?"

Ron walked and opened the case. His breathing stopped for a second, then he sighed. "Damn. You finished it."

"Thought it might... whet your appetite."

Ron's eyes glowed with new resolve. He touched the new suit with affection. Then he looked at Wade. "Find a way to recharge me. I need to fix the fuck up I caused."

Wade didn't say anything, just nodded. Then he turned to his workstation. "Go have fun."

Ron let Rufus jump on his arm, then walked to the exit. Wade commented loudly as he left. "You owe me one for the Jedi analogy!" Ron just grinned as he left.

Ron led Felix through the front gate of Bonnie's sprawl of a residence. He had been here before, but only briefly when dropping off Bonnie. The place was at the edge of downtown Middleton, at what could be counted as the most prestigious residence area in Tri City, excluding the Upperton mansions area.

Felix was impressed by the size and the luxurious walkway to the main door. "Well, her family must be loaded."

Ron shrugged. "Quite so, from what I understand. Never really asked about that." They were greeted by Bonnie's mother, a very friendly, motherly looking woman, quite the contrast from all her daughters. She led them to the back, where a swimming pool was located in a garden area. Ron had no idea how big the plot really was, and Felix was just impressed. They dropped off the modest gifts they had brought on a sizeable pile.

Ron had someone touch his shoulder. Turning around, he found Monique and Kim standing nearby, looking very uncomfortable. After exchanging greetings, Felix immediately noticed something was off with Kim and Ron.

"Okay, what is going on with you two? You're acting all cagey and anxious. Why?"

The heroes shared a brief look. They couldn't obviously come out and say what was going on. Thankfully, Monique explained her own anxiety. "We are smack dab in the middle of Bonnie's place. That should make anyone a little nervous."

Kim added, "Ron and I don't usually...do the whole 'teenage-party' thing."

"Why?" Felix was perplexed.

"Well." Kim pointed to herself. "Always a sitch...Or used to be. Also busy...Also..." She hesitated to add, but she might as well not have bothered.

Ron added with a half-proud attitude. "The 'never be normal' usually kept the invites for these things way out of reach for me. And Kim, by extension." Rufus showed his face from Ron's pocket. "Plus people seem to think Rufus is gross. I mean, can you believe it?", showing genuine indignity, which made all three of them laugh.

Bonnie appeared from the gathering and made her way to them. "Hi." She looked troubled.

Felix greeted her warmly, then noted her look. "Well, very nice party. But you seem as mopey as these guys."

Bonnie graced him with half a smile. "I'm not used to such a small party."

The others turned to look at the party. There were at least forty people socializing around the pool and garden. Kim pointed. "You call this a 'small' party?"

Bonnie countered her with a deadpan look. "There were around a hundred people, plus the caterers at my sweet sixteen."

"You for real?!" Monique and Ron echoed each other in shock. Then the blogger continued. "I mean, there should be a limit to being the 'Queen Bee'."

To Kim and Monique's surprise, Bonnie didn't become antagonistic, and simply shrugged. "I'm apparently not such a...'Queen' Bitch anymore." She nodded after seeing the apprehensive look at her guests' faces. "Yea, I know what people really call me." Then she pulled on Kim's arm and excused herself.

Ron, Felix and Monique went into the middle of the guests to further socialize. There were not as many people from football team as Ron expected. In fact, only a few whose girlfriends were cheerleaders were there.

"I'm guessing Bonnie breaking up with Brick wasn't received well?" Monique nudged Ron as Felix was speaking to a cluster of people.

Ron shrugged. "I don't really talk to the guys beyond the football stuff. But there might have been a few choice words spoken about her in the locker room."

Monique looked at the party and softly commented. "High school."

Ron nodded. "High school." He quickly liberated an entire plate of snacks to the side and let Rufus go crazy on it.

Bonnie spoke to Kim with a quiet voice at the edge of the garden. "I didn't hear from you two today or yesterday. I couldn't drop by because of the party either. Is something wrong?" Bonnie threw a worried look in Ron's general direction. "He seems very sullen."

Kim sighed. "Okay, short version. Bad villain accidentally stole Ron's speed. Killed a teenage superhero with it. We are trying to get his power back and lay low while hiding the target of the villain."

Bonnie shook her head and then tried to speak. "Wh...What?" She threw another look at Ron. "His speed...Gone?!" She seemed a little panicky. "Forever?!"

Kim shook her head slowly. "Wade thinks we can recharge him." She placed her hand on Bonnie's shoulder discreetly. "Act normal. But if an emergency call goes out from the Tower alert systems...I'll need to go instead of him. And I might need you to stay on standby."

Bonnie eagerly nodded. "Sure. Whatever you need." She looked back at the party. "We should mingle. This looks a little..." Bonnie pointed to herself and Kim in succession.

Kim knew what she meant. They were still bitter rivals in the eyes of the school population. She was about to let go of Bonnie, then held her shoulder again to stop her. "Bonnie...Are you okay?"

Bonnie was about to wave it off, determined not to show any weakness to Kim, out of old reflexes. Then Ron's advice about opening up rung in her ear. She sighed. "Dad...is still not speaking to me. He is…disappointed."

Kim patted her shoulder lightly. "He'll forgive you eventually. Just hang in there." She pointed to her back towards the party guests. "How are you doing with people? With Brick and all?"

"You know?" Bonnie was surprised, but only for half a second. "Of course you know. Monique?"

Kim smiled with a little guilt. "Well...You are a hot topic at school, I'm told. No one on the squad said anything though."

"I asked them not to. Besides, one of them will probably move in on Brick soon."

"Who?"

Shrugging, "Anyone...I don't really care, Kim."

Kim let that go. "Well, I think you are going to be fine. This is good Bonnie. Don't feel bad about it."

Bonnie nodded. Then with a slight gleam in her eyes, she asked Kim. "How are you doing yourself?"

"What about me?" Kim was slightly perplexed. "I'm fine."

"Really?" Bonnie directed Kim's gaze with her gestures. The redhead saw Monique and Ron standing together, close to a socializing Felix, but talking to each other animatedly about something. "So you are totally okay with that?"

"What do you mean, 'that'?" Kim got a little bothered by the phrasing.

"Come on Kim. You know what I mean. Those two getting closer."

"Monique is our very good friend. I don't know what you expect me to say." Kim seriously was caught unaware by Bonnie's insinuation.

"Seriously?" Bonnie seemed surprised. "Can you really be this blind? She likes him!"

"You are delusional Bonnie." Kim was adamant in ignoring what Bonnie was trying to explain.

Bonnie just sighed. "You know what...You and Ron...Being dense is like an art form with you two." The brunette decided to let go of the issue. "I give up. I'm sure the little clandestine talks Ron has with her won't lead to anything."

Kim had no idea what Bonnie was referring to. "Clandes- What the hell does that mean?! Hey!" Kim's call was ignored, aside from Bonnie waving her hand to the side in a futile gesture while she walked away.

One thing was certain. Bonnie might have been seriously trying to turn her reputation and life around, but her knack for getting on Kim's nerves was no less sharp than before.

She was stewing in confusion and anger until someone touched her shoulder to wake her up from that state. She turned to see Josh. "Hi." He simply stated.

"Hi back." She seemed surprised. "Thought you were not coming?"

Josh smiled a little. "Well... Band practice could wait, I decided. Drinks and food and music with friends.." He trailed off. Then waved his hand to show off a small box. "Where do we drop the gifts? I must've missed Bonnie."

"I'll show you." Kim nudged him. "What did you get her?"

Josh shrugged. "Fancy pen."

"And yet, I've yet to get any gifts for my birthday." Kim stated, joking.

"Don't worry, if we get there in one piece, I've one lined up for you as well."

"Another pen?"

"Slightly nicer gift."

Kim pushed her confusion and worry aside for a moment and kissed his boyfriend. It was nice to have uninterrupted time with him, even if it was at a party.

Felix was a big hit at the party. Aside from a few tricks his super-chair could show off, his smooth style was making him really popular with the ladies.

Monique was checking her phone every so often. Ron noticed that, while helping Rufus disappear a plate of snacks as fast as they could. "What's the problem?"

Monique sighed. "No Flash sightings for the last day."

Ron shrugged, slightly getting nervous. "Maybe he is taking a day off in a beach somewhere. Working on his tan. That red suit can't be good for his complexion."

Monique threw him a sideways look that clearly meant disbelief. "He's not like that."

Ron mumbled. "You'd be surprised."

"What?" Monique wasn't paying him full attention, so she missed Ron's mumblings.

"Nothing, nothing."

Monique showed him a blurry photo. It was a high speed shot of a flying woman in distance. She looked like she carried someone. "They spotted Titan at Go City, after a villain decimated some local heroes." She bit her lower lip. "Online rumors said that the villain had superspeed."

"I'm sure they were exaggarating or something Mo." Ron tried to placate her. He couldn't really do more than that at the given moment, due to his depowered state and unfocused mind.

"I don't know..." She locked her phone and stared at the black screen for a second, before puffing in distress again.

Bonnie felt strained as hours progressed and the tame birthday party started to clear out. Her mother had overseen to people in her specific way, trying to make everyone as comfortable as possible.

She had opened her gifts to find some very nice items, including a pair of personalized cheerleading sneakers that had the whole team pitching in to buy. Ron had gotten her a gift card for twenty grande sized meals at Bueno Nacho, making it a somewhat pricy and very 'Ron' gift to give. There were others too.

It wasn't the party that was straining her per se. It was certain people in it. She could not ignore the fact that Ron was moping half the time with Monique being extremely worried for entirely the same reason, albeit without her knowing it. She could also not ignore how spectacularly awkward Kim was being as she kept checking her phone, trying to hide it from Josh and failing.

Bonnie knew that Kim was doing that to see if anything had come up. She resolved to ask for a communications device along the lines of Ron's watch from the 'Watchtower', as Wade liked to be called in the Tower.

Couple those scenes with most people taking Brick's side in the break-up, she had one downer of an evening. She couldn't lie, she liked being popular. That had not changed. She wanted that to be for the right reasons, but her past would plague that goal for the foreseeable future. She knew that, it just didn't make it easy.

Ron had been right about one thing all along. The entire cheerleading squad had stood firmly by her side, except for that one replacement Kim had to pull from freshman students to replace Tara's spot. Bonnie appreciated how positive Kim's overall influence was right then and there. If it had been the time of Lonnie's captaincy, this entire scenario might have played out a lot less pleasant for her.

Aside from seeing who her real friends were, the party had one other silver lining in the form of Ron's new friend. Felix was a big hit. Funny and charming, coupled with a killer smile and one of the most relaxed attitude's Bonnie had ever seen, the boy was like a highly upgraded, a whole lot less annoying version of Ron.

And he had managed to sneak behind her with his teched out wheelchair. She slightly jumped in her place as she heard his voice.

"That was a great party." She turned to see him smiling. "Except..." He noted her face. "You don't seem to share my opinion."

Bonnie weighed in her answer. Keeping along her new attitude, she answered. "I can't help but compare to before."

The chair advanced near her standing spot in the garden. "Yes, well, for a 'small party'," Felix echoed her words from earlier and flashed another smile. "This sure provided quality social opportunities." He nodded towards her. "My compliments to your mother."

Bonnie squinted at him. "Who talks like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like..." Bonnie searched for a good description. She struggled to do so.

"A gentleman?" Felix supplied.

Bonnie found herself agreeing. "Well.. Yes. It's unusual."

"You mean in an age where people talk in acronyms from social media?" He leaned his head towards where Monique was standing near Ron, both of them waiting for Kim to say goodbye to her boyfriend.

Bonnie grinned at the subtle humor directed Monique's way. "You could say that."

Felix stopped, sighed and looked back at Bonnie. "My dad used to say that the only good way to talk to women was to roleplay Clark Gable from Gone with the Wind." He smirked as a memory came to him. "He made me watch that a few times."

"Creative man, I'll give him that." Bonnie wasn't even sure if she had even watched that movie.

"He was." Felix's tone dropped only slightly, but it was enough to make Bonnie look his way. He didn't comment further. Then he noticed her look. "You never watched it, have you." That statement wasn't intoned like a question.

"You got me."

Felix snorted. "That is downright criminal. What do they make teenage girls watch these days?"

"Mostly vampire shit." She shrugged. "I've never been a big movie watcher anyway."

"That may be so, but I can't sleep knowing that someone so beautiful never actually watched Gone with the Wind."

Bonnie played along. "Well, if you want to sleep well, you could always make me watch it."

Felix glanced upwards at her. "You know, I think I'll just do that." He smiled again, and then noticed Ron waving at him. "We gotta go, it seems." He spun the chair and did a half-ironic bow in his chair. "Watch out for strange men who want to make you watch classic movies."

She just smiled and watched him roll away. The brunette was well aware that some full on flirting was done just then, but she couldn't tell if the boy in the wheelchair was being serious about it or just playing along. Felix was indeed somewhat like Ron in some ways, but unlike the blond, he didn't wear his emotions on his sleeve.

Bonnie was used to reading all the boys she met almost instantly. One significant failure of that skill was Hirotaka. And Felix was proving to be an enigma as well.

Oh dammit. She came to an exasparating realization.

I have a type. The brunette seethed.

I don't do types!

The smell of iodine and medical gauze filtered through Shego's nostrils. Gradually opening her eyes, the world came back into the focus excruciatingly slow. The mercenary metahuman did her best to expedite the process, but it was clear she was being fed some sort of chemical to alleviate pain.

As her sight came back fully, she saw someone standing at the edge of her bed. It was a strikingly beautiful and somewhat familiar face adorned by jet black hair. Glancing around, Shego quickly realized that she was in a small room with a disturbing multitude medical supplies, some looking recently used and disinfected.

Her memory from before returned in a rush. The loss and the pain, the hurt and the rage all came back. Except, she was too medicated for most of those to take hold. The weakened metahuman tugged at one of the tubes feeding her an unknown liquid. "What...are you feeding me?" She sounded at the question through a slurred and heavy tongue, although it felt less stunted as she spoke.

The woman at the edge of her bed spoke. "You are being fed an intravenous analgesic. Doctor's orders."

"What doctor...would that be?" Shego's faculties returned to her as she let go of her effort to move, as that rewarded her with a stinging sensation in her ribs.

"Does it matter?" The message from the woman in black and red was clear. Shego was alive and how that happened came about, for the moment, made little difference to her.

"I guess...not." Shego relented before she started recalling details. One in particular stood out. "You!" Shego's gaze narrowed on the form of the woman.

"I." The woman in black and red, Titan, just looked back at Shego with a determined but calculating stare. She seemed to be waiting for something.

"Why...did you save me?" Shego's voice was challenging, even under medication.

The woman sighed. "Really? You are saved from certain death, and your first reaction is to ask why?"

"I'm not some doe eyed damsel in distress! I've..." Shego stopped to cough as raising her voice even slightly had created an unpleasant sensation at her ribs. "I have my fair share of crimes listed in a rap sheet. Your type don't save people like me."

That took Titan by surprise. "My...type?"

"Heroes! Sanctimonious little bitches…cheerleaders, vigilantes." Shego spewed out some of the bile she always kept in her reserve.

Titan sighed. "I don't know about the other two, but, something tells me you don't know cheerleaders as well as you think you do."

Shego scoffed. Then turned her attention elsewhere. "Where am I? What happened to my brothers?"

Titan paced a little before stopping to answer. "You are in our hideout. And your brothers...Well..." The woman shook her head slightly. "Melvin and Kyle Rayner are in Go City Memorial, under strict police guard, although we don't think it's necessary at this point. Hector was just here, before stepping out to get some sleep."

"Ryan?" Shego's voice didn't break, but it shook for a millisecond. "What happened to him?!" Pain shot up in her chest again, but she ignored it.

"Dead." Titan gave the news to Shego straight. "But you already knew he was." The tone changed. "That's why you rushed in to kill Aviarius."

At the mention of her former foe, Shego's blood boiled. "That useless son of a bitch! How did he get the powers of my brothers?!" Then, the memory of superspeed came to the front. "How did he have superspeed?!"

"Stole it from Flash, just like he did from your brothers. Via some crystal we don't know about."

Shego's heart sank. "You...With all those powers..."

"Yes." Titan leaned her back to the nearby wall and crossed her arms. "Your healing factor is taking care of your injuries. You'll be back to top shape in a week, our doctor says. Until then..." She pointed to the room. "You need to stay here."

"The hell I am!" Shego tried to get up. And failed, spectacularly, as she fell from the bed.

Titan helped her back on the bed. "Yes, you are in tip top shape. Just spa-" The woman stopped speaking. The familiarity with Shego was costing her dearly.

Shego didn't miss that. Something clicked as another memory just before the fainting rose from the depths of her mind.

"So, heat's the sitch!"

Titan turned away to exit, but that was not to be. "Wait." Shego's voice came across thoughtful. "You were about to say 'spanking' just now."

Titan sighed. She had blown it.

"No...No..." Shego stumbled with the words as pain and confusion blurred in her head. "Pr...Princess?"

Titan stood still, with her back still turned to Shego.

The metahuman with green glow spoke with conviction this time. She panted in anger as she spoke. "Drakken...would miss it...But I wouldn't...You should've known…Princess."

"Guess I should have." Titan's hand went to her neck and removed the choker. The illusion gave way to red hair and a rounder, younger face. "But I think we've been fighting for too long to not see it anyway."

Shego trembled. "You...You have superpowers. You can...Was it always like this?! Did you laugh at me as you pretended to struggle?!"

Kim turned around and Shego saw her real face for the first time in months. This wasn't the cheerleader she remembered from before. It wasn't anything too on the nose, it was just subtle things that Shego recognized. The way her mouth strained, the way her eyebrows had turned just a little more downwards, the way her eyes had the same conviction in them, but with a deeper, scarier feel to them.

Kim walked around the bed and stopped just near Shego's position on the bed. She lowered herself slightly to level a look. "Shelly," The use of her real name shook Shego for a second. "I would really like to say 'yes, I have been duping you all this time.' I would like to say that, because you certainly tried to kill me enough times to make that justified."

The closeness and the conviction in her voice made Shego fear Kim for a moment. And that was a revelation. Shego had never been afraid of Kim. "Then..." She resisted the urge to gulp. "Why didn't you do just that?"

Kim retreated to full height and stared at Shego with an unidentified form of exasperation. "Because I'm going to be honest with you. The things I've seen...Heard...Learnt...Shego, I know world isn't made of black and white, I always knew that. But…there's more to the world than just the shades of grey we've learnt exist between the shadows."

Kim sat on the nearby chair. "There is rage…and anger. There is despair and hopelessness and there is ignorance in all forms." Kim leaned back and crossed her arms again. "And I can't think, for the life of me, why a rising superhero, who just completed her Child Development Bachelor's Degree, leaves her family, starts committing crimes and signs up with Drakken after a few years." Kim sighed. "I don't know where we are anymore. I'm certainly not just a cut-and-dry good guy, and you certainly are not simply as 'evil' as you advertise yourself to be."

Shego scoffed, with more ire than before. "Why? You don't want to know why I changed...You want to know how someone turns into me...from you!" Shego's eyes got even more ferocious a glint. "You and I..." a hand sharply waved between them, "We are not the same...We never have been the same!"

"I never said we were." Kim braved the anger and the ire. There was more to the conversation than just the topic at hand, and she knew that. "I never presumed."

Shego pressed on, venting more long buried, pent up anger, "I was never a cheerleader...My family didn't stay the happy picture of American Dream!" Then she took a deep breath, straining her ribs, "And my best friend left me when I needed her most!", she shouted in pained betrayal.

Kim didn't interrupt. The teenager let the hurt and wounded older woman shout. "Do you think you've seen how the world works?! Huh?! You don't...know!" Shego panted. "You...never had your trust betrayed like mine...You never...", her eyes wild, "Had the authorities turn on you like they did to me!"

That part drew Kim's interest. "You never had a problem with any sort of law enforcement until you left Go City and started tearing through Europe in a crime spree...But what 'authorities'?" The teenager pressed on the issue.

The question cut off Shego's tirade, she lost her voice for a few seconds. She didn't know what to say. "I...The..." The black haired woman took a deep breath. "There are people more dangerous than you can imagine playing this game."

The phrasing of that gave Kim a glimmer of an idea. She filed it away as she stood up. "Rest Shego. Aviarius will be looking for you. Until you recover, rest here." She pointed to a remote near the bed. "There's the remote." Then she pointed to an overhead LCD screen. "The TV. It has Netflix...So...Go crazy."

"You won't let me leave, huh?" Shego was spent and tired, from her injuries and her anger.

"I'm trying to protect you." Kim entered a code that Shego couldn't see on the keypad nearby, and the door lock clicked open. "If you don't believe in anything else, believe in that part."

She closed the door behind her, and the lock clicked into the slot again. Shego stared after her as she shook her head slowly. "Kim Possible protecting me..." She grimaced and balled her hand into a fist as she pounded the side of the bed. "Fuck!" Tears of anger streamed down her eyes.

Kim walked out of the hallway that contained the room they converted to a medbay, to the central area where Wade was hard at work. The genius spared a glance at her. "You okay?"

"Hmm?... Oh, yea, I'm fine." She took a look at the screen. It was Ron's readings, being fed into a simulation. "You have a plan to recharge him?"

Wade gulped. "Yes."

The tone made Kim roll her eyes. "But?" She supplied the genius with his cue.

"No one's gonna like it." Wade swayed his head from side to side as he stared at the simulation. "It's a bit... scratch that... Totally crazy."

"How totally crazy are we talking here?" Kim asked with trepidation.

Wade grinned nervously. "How does Ron being connected to the Middleton power grid sounds?"

"For the record, in case this goes horribly wrong, you have the sole custody of Rufus." Ron handed the mole rat to Kim. "All the necessary details for his habits and care are included in a letter I gave to Wade earlier."

Kim puffed. "Ron, stop being melodramatic."

Ron pointed to side. It was late at night, and they were in Middleton's power transmission substation. Needless to say, they were not doing this legally. "I mean, sure, I'm just going to hook myself up to eight hundred thousand volts worth of a power line. What can go wrong?!" He threw his hands in the air wildly.

Now that he had put it like that, Kim's worries started getting worse. She touched her earpiece. "Are we sure this is the only way?"

"Would you prefer we find a storm, connect him to lightning rod and do it that way?" Wade's snide comment was annoyed, as the genius didn't like it either.

"No?" Kim's answer came low and weak.

"Okay, so here's how it is going to work. The Middleton power grid is the most advanced one in the States, only a few exist in the entire world with this level of technology. It's a cutting edge smart grid, entirely self sufficient if need be, and has the best switchgear in its transmission substation. It can be isolated from Western Interconnection if need be."

Kim was lost. "Uh... English?" Ron, who was listening with his own earpiece nodded along as he was lost too.

"It means that when you expose the insulated switchgear and connect Ron to a disabled line, I'll hack into the main hub and modulate the output voltage. He won't have the full eight hundred thousand volt experience. I will also temporarily sever the connection to the rest of Western power grid, so we won't somehow kill the power for half the country."

Both teenagers gulped at that piece of information. Ron took a deep breath. "Let's do this." With the guidance of Wade's instructions, teenagers exposed a line from insulated switchboards and hooked up extra cables for Ron to hold on to. Meanwhile, Wade was shifting the power grid to isolated mode.

For a second, the entire city lost power. Teenagers didn't know that, but they experienced the momentary darkness as well. "What was that?" Kim asked as the lights flickered back to life in the substation building.

"Uh... Oops. I switched a line just a little too early. No damage." Wade commented sheepishly. Then he spoke again. "Okay. I'm ready to divert power. Ron?"

Ron had wrapped open wires from two cables around his hand. He held them up. "Guess I'm ready to fry myself." He waved weakly to Rufus. "See you on the other side buddy." Rufus nodded from Kim's shoulder.

"Kim, get to the control room to your right. You don't want to be near Ron when this starts."

The teenager took the advice and entered a small booth filled with manual overrides and switches. "Anything I should do now?"

"Just... watch." After thinking for a second, Wade added. "Get that smart fabric blanket in the backpack."

"Uh, what now?" Kim set the backpack down and opened it.

"There is a small clump at the bottom. That thin fabric folds and expands easily. You... might need it."

Kim didn't even ask. They were nervous enough.

Ron took a deep breath and closed his eyes. "Hit me."

"Good luck." Wade's response was crisp and heartfelt. Then the genius started diverting power.

For a second, there was nothing weird going on for Ron. The next second, he was hit with electrical energy coursing through his system. He involuntarily screamed.

"Wade!" Kim's shout was immediate.

"We just started! I'm sorry!"

Ron had not known pain like that ever before. When the lightning struck him, he had fainted immediately, but this was not like that. This one, he needed to see it through.

Or did he. As the pain wracked through his body, teenager's thoughts turned to why they were doing this. Did he need to suffer more? Couldn't he just... be normal?

Never... Be... Normal...

Ron thought he heard that from far, far away. Then his clenched eyelids popped back open and blue light came out of them.

Kim noticed almost everything not nailed to the floor rattling in the booth. Then she heard a monkey's screech. She held Rufus on tight, and looked back at Ron. She could see the electricity's effects on Ron, but she also saw the faint blue light.

"Not this- " A pulse of energy came out of Ron, accompanied by another monkey screech. "—again!" The booth shook with the pulse.

Back at the Tower, Wade knew he needed more power to recharge Ron's energy levels back up. So he cranked up the power even more, to the target zone.

Kim saw the effect of increased voltage as current fluctuated. She also noticed that Rufus in her hands was also emitting blue light.

Through the haze of pain and power, Ron thought he heard something else.

Accept... Who... You... Are...

His body started emitting blue light as well. Kim had to duck as the booth's window shattered, and the incredible amounts of air pushing away from Ron prevented her from getting back up with Rufus. The mole rat's blue light covered Kim for a second as they were threatened to be overwhelmed by the energy, and that protected them both.

The electricity throughout Middleton fluctuated wildly as Wade failed to handle the unforeseen power spike, although he didn't know why it was happening.

The screaming got worse as Kim listened, then it stopped.

A second after, a huge pulse of energy originated from Ron and travelled out from him. The substation building shook to the core as Kim was still taking cover with Rufus.

Then the wind and shaking died down. Wade's voice came with static in Kim's ear, probably due to the incredible amounts of static interference.

"Kim...the situation... Kim... Say som...Repeat... Kim, report!"

Kim rose from the cover while making sure Rufus was safe in her hands. She didn't want the mole rat running off towards Ron until she made sure it was safe. Walking out of the booth, she saw substantial damage on the isolated power lines nearby.

She touched her ear. "There is some damage on the lines. I can't tell how much."

"I'll keep the grid on backups then. What about Ron?"

Kim was trying to see just that. There was a lot of smoke and dust covering the blond's general direction. She entered the thick cloud and strained her eyes to see Ron.

She might as well not have bothered. Rufus instinctively turned in her hand, pointing to the side. Kim followed the mole rat's direction to find the ground zero for the smoke. She kneeled near Ron's prone form, and as smoke dispersed a little more, she knew why Wade had asked her to keep the easily expanding blanket in hand.

Ron's daily clothes were all in shambles, most in cinders, with a few tattered strands barely hanging on. She flung the patch of folded blanket to the side, making it instantly a few more times bigger. Then, being careful not to hurt Ron, she wrapped it around him.

She could tell one thing for sure. Smoke and dust were helpful as she was glad not to have been forced to see her best friend in a birthday suit. It was bad enough to be seeing his chest after some time, as the blond's lean frame was marked by lines of subtle muscle, making his fainted form look that of a teen heartthrob.

She didn't dwell on that long though. The current situation didn't allow for her mind to wander. She lifted the fainted blond and held him bridal style. "He is out like a light, but seems unharmed."

"You better get out of there fast. Multiple police cars are responding to the substation."

"I thought you said this wouldn't attract attention!"

"I didn't know Ron would somehow create a big enough power surge to almost short out all the city!" Wade's tone was one of shock. "Now, just get outta there, and fast. I recommend flying."

Kim looked downwards. She was wearing her white t-shirt with the green Club Banana pants she really liked. Not to mention, no choker or costume. "In plain clothes?"

"Kim, just fly."

Kim sighed, made sure Rufus was safely tucked in the backpack she was wearing, and lifted off while holding Ron.

The cops didn't see the flying teenager disappearing into the night sky.

"Where are you... Witch..."

The deranged voice of Aviarius sounded throughout his lair in Go Mountain. The man was trying to find out where Shego had disappeared to.

Search results didn't exactly turn out the way he wanted to. His attention turned to the other woman, the one who had dared to punch him and run away with his prey.

It was quite easy where that woman resided, city wise.

"Middleton." He sharply breathed in as he read the first search result when he inquired about Titan.

It was a blog.

When the teenage speedster woke up, he found himself being scanned by a device that looked suspiciously like an old Kimmunicator. Kim, who was doing the scanning, dropped it and hugged his form lying on their main table.

"Finally!" She let go of him. "I was beginning to think you had slipped into another coma." Ron noticed just a hint of moisture below her green eyes, but chose not to comment.

"I think I'm not due for another one of those for another year or so." He rose, to find himself only covered by a blanket covered around his waist. "Oh shit. Did all my clothes got burnt?"

"I'm afraid so." Wade had stood up and continuing the scan Kim had just cut off in half. "Not to worry, I've stocked a few spare friction proof undershirts and more than a few spare track pants and hoodies in the dressing room." He motioned for Ron to stand up. " How are you feeling?"

Ron looked at his hand. "No different. Let me see."

They all held their breath as Ron tried to vibrate his hand. At first, tendrils of lightning shot up, but died down again. "No!" The blond tried again, to the same result. "Why?!"

Wade looked at the energy reading that just got uploaded into his mainframe. He pulled it up and commented. "Ron... Your energy levels, while highly volatile, are back to the reference reading. You should have your speed back."

"Then why the hell is it not working?!" The blond punched the table in desperate anger.

Kim's mood fell along as well. She rubbed the naked shoulder of her friend in sympathy, but couldn't find much to say.

Then she felt the day catching up to her, finally. It was past midnight, and they had school in the morning.

Thankfully, at her insistence, two of the rooms were designed for emergency residence. Hector had to go back to Go City, to deal with his brothers, and Shego was sleeping, heavily sedated. She decided she could wind down.

Wade left the hideout, as the teenagers went to sleep. As she put her head on the comfy bed she had forced Ron to buy, she hoped tomorrow would be a better day.

Which was telling, as she had still not learnt not to tempt fate.

"So you lost your speed. How sad."

"Not today man." Ron kept working on filing Home's overdue reports as the man himself sat at his chair, mocking the teenager.

"I mean, it's one thing to get your ass kicked. But to have your power stolen, that's a new low in superhero standard."

"Home, I'm really not in the mood." Ron gritted his teeth as his nerves were already shot.

The morning and the classes at school wasn't really uplifting. All day long, he had obsessed over why his speed had not returned. He had sustained a serious shouting down from Barkin, on the account of him missing a practice. Two weeks before their match with Lemurs, the burly teacher was touchy as hell.

Now he was in the crime lab as his friends were at their elective classes. The girls were all at the photography, and frankly, he needed the alone time. Of course, the forensic analyst from Hell had no intention of letting him have any. Ron thanked God that he had been forcing himself to do most of the paperwork without speed-cheating, and at least that was going all right without his speed.

"You mean, you are not in the mood after last night?" The blond looked at the analyst, and he instantly understood.

The thrice damned analyst knew. He always knew. "D-do I even... want to know-"

"How?" Home leaned back. "Well, I was called to look at the substation yesterday. That was no cat exposing the lines, switching power lines around and electrocuting itself for absurb amounts of electrical power."

Ron deflated. "We were trying to charge me back up."

Home had listened to the rudimentary explanation on Ron's powers. The man was also a brilliant former doctor, despite Ron forgetting that fact often. "Trying to charge your bioelectric energy via a city power substation is a stupid idea Stoppable."

"Yea, well, it didn't work."

"It didn't?" Home pointed to Ron's body. "You are not burnt to a crisp, so it must have."

Ron groaned. He didn't feel like going over it again, but he knew the man. Home was relentless. "I... seem to have absorbed energy. Wade said that my energy levels were back to normal."

"But you still can't run for my pizza order?"

"Yes! I can't!" Ron shook his head after that outburst. "Can we drop this?"

Home didn't answer, and Ron kept filing reports for a while. Then the analyst commented out of the blue, with a remark the blond did not see coming.

"You dumb bastard."

Ron turned and shot an icy look. "What?!"

Home twirled his cane. "You know what... I'll tell you a... little story I just cooked up. Better listen close."

After shooting a sickly smile, the old analyst continued. "So, there was this kid with superspeed. Not a total idiot, although he really tried hard to be one. Tries the whole superhero thing, as stupid as it is. Anyway.. So. The kid's parents die. Girlfriend too. And a lot of other people..." After a short pause, Home kept on going. "And a whole bunch of other shit happens. And they just keep on coming."

"The kid has his speed stolen. Suddenly, he isn't so super anymore. He doesn't need to run around, answer calls for help or alerts. Suddenly, he remembers what it used to be. What it can be again."

Ron remembered the ghost of a calling from the night before.

Accept... Who... You... Are...

Meanwhile, Home continued. "Long story short, his friends recharge him, spit-shine clean and back into action... Only he still can't run. And the dumb bastard doesn't know why."

Ron wasn't even looking at the analyst anymore. He was staring into distance, his eyes unfocused, mouth slightly open.

"Oh, you are starting to understand."

Before Ron could talk again, the door to Home's office was opened fast. It was Tony, standing there, looking alarmed. "Shit's going down on TV. You gotta see this."

Ron hurried after the college intern, with the analyst trailing far behind with his cane. After watching for half a minute, and coincidentally getting his blood boiling, he declared.

"I gotta get downtown." He rushed out the lab, barely remembering to deposit Rufus in his shirt pocket.

Kim's thoughts turned to one topic she oft spent time on. Ronald Stoppable. Her best friend. The Scarlet Speedster. Holder of an ancient power they didn't understand and the conduit for some cosmic energy they didn't understand either. And by all rights, simultaneously the bane of her existence and one of its greatest joys.

It didn't help that their effort had failed to restore his powers. This was one time when she wished he'd have taken electives with them instead of going to the infernal crime lab.

The redhead, who should have been rightly concentrating on her photography class, lamented, once again, how she hated that new aspect of Ron. The blond had always been prone to bouts of obsessive behaviour, but never before she had seen something keep that obsessiveness firmly on one topic. The forensic science was becoming part of him. Kim had started to fear that one day soon, she'd be forced to accept that would be her best friend forever. Obsessed with finding the murderer of his parents, or just every single criminal in Tri-City in general, that he would live his life surrounded by lab results, evidence boxes and supersuits.

Ron didn't seem to notice, and Monique wasn't privy to his patterns before all the happenings, but redhead could see how the blond was methodically becoming something she never thought he would: Assertive. She just wished it would center around something else.

It didn't help that she was keeping whom was arguably her arch-foe at the Tower's medbay, or the fact that a crazed madman was loose with the hax power of superspeed. She had not seen the danger before, not fully, not like Wade and Ron did. The danger of someone bad having superspeed. All those countermeasures Wade was keeping in his databanks had seemed excessive before. Not anymore, they didn't.

Too bad they couldn't use any of those plans against Aviarius, on the account of the madman having the power to multiply and shrink, not to even mention the super strength part. There was no counter against such a power set, save one. Someone else with superspeed.

Ever since yesterday, that it had been made painfully clear that Ron did not get his speed back, she had been internally debating to call help. All those thoughts eventually came to a stop at the same notion: Any metahuman they could call was in risk of getting their power stolen. They had no idea how that crystal worked.

She had momentarily considered the vigilantes from Gotham and Starling, but she didn't share the same fondness for them that Ron did. Far as she was concerned, they didn't need the help of an unstable murderer or a psychopathic torturer.

Which left her clueless. Ever since day one of their adventures, Kim had a simple system. Identify the problem, use the resources you have to solve them. Except, she had no resources save an injured villainess and a barely trained, headstrong peer with a staff she didn't know how to use fully.

Said peer's glances kept turning to the redhead. It was easy for Bonnie to see that her captain and secretly trainer was distracted as hell. The instructor, a thin middle-aged woman, was explaining how different light conditions required different lenses.

Lenses were the last thing they had to worry about.

Monique wasn't entirely focused either, with total silence on Flash's end worrying her immensely. She had been bold and went as far as to post a personal query on her blog yesterday night. She knew that would tick off the speedster, but she had seen no other choice, with the rumors of another speedster tearing up Go City.

That was a mistake, she knew. Except, she didn't know how big a mistake it was.

Without any sort of warning, the door to their classroom exploded inwards, flying across the room and striking their poor teacher. The force of the door's flight pushed the instructor towards the windows. The woman shattered the glass, but thankfully didn't get blown out of the windows.

Kim's perfect reactions sent her into action before she even knew what fully happened. In a show of athleticism, the cheerleader jumped over two entire rows towards the window and pulled the teacher away from the shattered glass. The woman was lacerated in multiple places, and bleeding. She needed emergency care.

She doubted that she could render it right then and there, as Aviarius walked through the doorway that he had just blasted. Green eyes met teal for just one second of immense panic before Kim and Bonnie both turned their gaze to the man.

The class exploded into screams and tried to get away from said madman. That meant squeezing towards the back of the class. In the panic, Bonnie got swept with the flow, and was trapped in the middle of screaming students. Not that she could help much without her gear.

Aviarius took some exaggarated steps towards the students. In an excessive, over the top dramatic way specific to a certain type of maniac, he raised his right hand towards them. "The girl known as Monique Jenkins."

Monique's blood froze in her veins. The very thing that Flash warned her would happen...was essentially happening.

Kim had no time to contemplate the full ramifications of the first sentence. She began going over her tactical options…and they were very limited.

A cold glare, "Come forward, so I won't kill your friends."

The blogger's thoughts were racing, but her body was frozen. She was left in the front of the mass of students at the back of the classroom. She was essentially right in the center of this maniac's crosshairs.

Then, from off to the side the class heard an unexpected voice speak. "I'm Monique.", shocking their classmates as Bonnie's slender form pushed through some people blocking her; stopping a few steps in front of the frozen blogger. "What the fuck do you want, birdbrain?"

No one could say anything, or protest in the slightest. Aviarius was taken aback by the defiance in the voice and the wording. "Careful now girl. I just need you alive, not unharmed."

Undeterred by his threat, Bonnie kept walking towards the maniac, grabbing a sharp pencil from a desk while passing. She hid it behind her wrist. "For what?" She tried to keep the maniac's attention firmly on herself, hoping that the real heroine in the room would pick up on it.

And Kim didn't disappoint. Seeing that Aviarius' attention was firmly on Bonnie, she crossed her arms, reaching to the edges of her own sweatshirt. She ripped the sleeves off in one move. The sound of that had melted in the whimpering's of other students. Slowly wrapping the torn fabric around her hands, she grabbed two especially sharp pieces of broken glass and held them firmly in hand.

Monique saw that. She also finally realized what was happening.

Bonnie was trying to protect her. She was just about to say something, when she saw Kim firmly shaking her head behind Aviarius.

Bonnie reached the madman in two more steps. Aviarius answered her query. "You'll be bait, my dear. An excellent bait." He reached across with the wing-like covered arm of his.

The brunette chose that moment to quickly bring up the pencil and try to stab the man in his neck. A simple show of superspeed put a stop to that as her wrist was caught in midair. "You bitch! You thought your trick would work on God?!"

"Someone has an inflated sense of ego. Also..." Bonnie flashed a smile though her wrist hurt from the crushing strength of the grip. "No...I didn't think it would.", she smirked. "But that might."

Too late, Aviarius realized the danger, as Kim had put her one tactical option into play. All the powers Aviarius held were tied to the scepter he held. The redhead slashed upwards with her right hand as the bird maniac turned around, letting go of Bonnie.

The speed of his rotation made Kim miss her original target, the scepter hand of birdman. Instead, the upwards slash caught Aviarius right in the face, slicing straight through his left eye. The scream from the man was terrible, but he didn't let go of the scepter as he held his face with his left hand.

Kim didn't relent. She ducked under a wild superspeed swipe by the scepter, courtesy of her training with Ron, and tried to slash the arm after avoiding it, but missed again. Following up her attack, she stabbed both her hands towards the villain, seeing no other option.

Both shards of glass lodged in something, but not what Kim hoped for. Aviarius had just created a copy with the red glow and put it in front of himself. Kim's stabs dissolved the copy almost instantly, but that instant was enough for the villain to go into speed mode and kick Kim across the classroom.

The cheerleader hit the wall of students at the back and fell on the ground. Before anyone could help her, Aviarius appeared nearby and kicked her while still on the ground.

He heard a battle cry and turned around to see Bonnie in the air after a jump, coming straight for his head with a haymaker. The punch was caught, and the brunette was slammed on the ground. Aviarius blurred, still holding her hand, carrying her across and stopping near her desk. He read the name on the notebooks.

"You are not Monique Jenkins. I warned you! But you didn't listen!" His left eye was still bleeding. "You wounded me! You wounded God!"

Bonnie coughed from the ground. "Gods...don't...bleed...asshole..."

Aviarius screeched in anger as he lifted a nearby desk with a blue glow surrounding his hand. His intention to squash Bonnie, all too clear.

Kim was struggling to stand up, so she couldn't prevent what happened next from happening.

"Stop!" A fearful plea was shouted out. Monique came forward. "I'm Monique, let her go and I'll come with you!"

Aviarius threw the desk to the side, and stepped over the downed Bonnie. He grabbed Monique's head and smiled maniacally. It was a grizzly sight with the gashing wound on and around his left eye. "Good call girl."

Monique thought Aviarius would carry her away right then, but the maniac did something extra before that. He took a few steps towards Kim and grabbed her. The redhead found herself being pulled up.

No one knew she had her own super strength, and that included Aviarius. She took another shot at the man as she was held in the air from her neck, and struck the inside of his outstretched arm's elbow with full strength. Shocked from the blow, Aviarius' hand opened, releasing Kim. She grabbed his head and tried to smash it with her knee.

Again, the stolen superspeed helped the man as he blurred backwards. "You maggot deserved death with the first injury, but you are too much trouble to play with." He spoke as he blurred again and appeared behind Kim.

Before getting grabbed from behind, Kim noticed something. She could track the blur much more easily now.

Aviarius was getting slower.

Unfortunately, she couldn't use the information as she was grabbed and thrown out of the nearby window with blue glow's power, smashing through the window and hurtling away in the air.

A silent scream was on everybody's mouths as that happened, but they couldn't even process it with Aviarius taking Monique and blurring away, out the classroom.

Roughly ten seconds after that, students in the classroom exited in panic, showing little regard for each other. About a minute after, some people made inside the classroom, a few teachers helping the downed photography instructor while a few others looking out the smashed windows.

Bonnie tried to get up despite her ribs and muscles screaming at her brain. As soon as she tried to stand on her two feet, she failed to do so. Her left ankle didn't support her and the brunette went tumbling down back on the ground. Or she would have tumbled, if someone behind her had not caught her.

The brunette found herself being held by a strong pair of arms, belonging to an unlikely person, which was Felix. "Easy now. Something wrong with your foot?"

Bonnie grimaced in pain. "I think my left ankle is sprained."

Felix nodded, then all of a sudden, scooped her up from his sitting position, to rest on Felix's lap. Bonnie had just found out exactly how strong his arms were. She weakly smiled. "What are you gonna do, be my ride for the day?"

"At least until we get you to the nurse downstairs." Felix commented, most of his usual jovialness gone. He turned to her as his chair rolled outside the class. "I'm sorry, I wasn't close to this classroom."

Bonnie rolled her eyes. "What would you do, save us all with your magic chair?"

The brunette didn't notice the water in the bottles of their vicinity suddenly rising up, as did the water in a nearby water fountain. Then they crashed back down, succumbing to gravity.

She did however see a cold fury in Felix's set mouth.

Kim had crashed on the grassy hill near the school. Shaking off the dizziness of that took almost three minutes. She felt a familiar anger bubbling up inside her, and rose up in the air instantaneously with her flight power, before dropping down on her feet again. Reaching up in her bra, she pulled out the earpiece she kept with her at all times, in case something bad happened and she needed a direct line to Wade.

"Watchtower, come in!"

Static noise graced her ears first, then the line activated and Wade's panting voice was heard. "This is Wade, reporting from STAR Labs. Every single alert from Tower systems just went off! What the hell is going on?!"

Kim decided to be succint. "Aviarius just attacked Middleton High and took Monique!" She half-shouted, half-reported. Taking a deep breath, "I need you to report to the school that I was taken to the hospital in a few minutes, get every possible camera you can on finding Aviarius, and open the skylight at the Tower remotely!"

Wade's hands flied on his laptop keyboard that was connected to Tower systems as he answered. "Okay on first and last, but what I can do with cameras are limited from outside the Tower!"

Kim didn't prod him for more performance. She knew Wade would do whatever he could. So she kneeled, then blasted off flying faster than she ever had up to this point.

At the top of her arc of ascent, she felt a sonic boom push out behind her, and then focused on her destination.

As the skylight of the Titans Tower opened, she came in hot and landed hard on the clear area designed for landings near their central table. Losing no time at all, she began to change. The main screen activated as she did so, but only streamed an audio feed.

"Kim, we don't need the cameras because Aviarius already took care of that!"

The screen was switched remotely by Wade to the local news. Kim could see the injured visage of Aviarius, holding Monique from behind, at the dead center of downtown Middleton. The footage looked as if it was being shot from a nearby coffee shop Kim knew well.

Her eyes darkened as she saw that. A minute later, fully dressed, she took off again.

Ron was in full sprint for over a minute, and was getting closer to downtown. He had recognized the venue of the live footage as well.

A car screeched cross the street behind him, and then slowed near him. Ron heard a shout. "Get in kid!"

The blond turned his head to see Monique's father Joe driving the car. Without arguing, he just opened the door of the still-moving car and jumped in the front passenger seat.

"So... you... saw... the TV... as well?" Ron asked in between his panting. Oh, how he missed his connection to the Speed Force sustaining him.

"Yes! Why did that maniac took my daughter?!"

"Just a guess... But it might be her blog."

Joe cursed prominently at that. "I told her that was trouble!"

"So did I, but she wasn't listening."

The car swerved across the light traffic to finally arrive at the large city square. Ron didn't lose any time in getting out of the car, as Joe did the same and pulled his gun from its holster.

They weren't the first of law enforcement to arrive. There were already a few patrol cars surrounding Aviarius and his hostage.

Joe shouted. "Let go of my daughter, freak!" His gun was squarely trained on Aviarius. They could see Monique shaking with fear. Aviarius didn't respond to that. He seemed to be waiting for something, looking at the sky.

Ron had enough. He had enough of people close to him getting hurt, and it didn't matter if his speed was gone. Without a second thought, he sprinted towards the madman and the hostage. Rufus showed his face through Ron's pocket as well.

Ron's instincts kicked in as he reached Aviarius and he jumped high in the air, spinning above the villain and landing on the other side. He had winded up for a big palm strike at the man's back as he landed, and he delivered it. The blow to his back seemed to have awoken Aviarius.

The villain lost his grab on Monique and spun with superspeed to see Ron going for another attack. He made a straight beeline for the teen's head, but inexplicably, the blond had spun around the blow even before it happened.

That was because Ron was familiar with how speed made someone react. He knew the blow was coming before it even was a notion in Aviarius' head. He stopped his spin near Aviarius' side and landed a prominent elbow strike into the man's lower chest cavity. Rufus jumped from his pocket to land on Aviarius' head, promptly biting the stunned villain in his exposed ear.

Monique was just standing there, seemingly frozen. Ron cried for her to run, but the blogger didn't react. A moment later, Ron found himself being beaten mercilessly by a superspeed flurry. Tears streamed down Monique's face as she saw the blond getting pummeled. The mole rat was thrown with great force as well, landing hard near his owner.

Both of the downed combatants, man and mole rat, seemed to be trying to get up. Monique saw Rufus emitting a faint blue light, and Ron opened his eyes while getting on his knees, revealing a very faint blue fire in his brown irises. The bird villain neared them both and charged his left hand with blue glow.

That fist filled with blue glow descended as the TV audience, cops and bystanders all silently screamed in fear for the blond. The blow was caught as the ground beneath Ron cracked. The blue fire in his eyes intensified as he pulled Aviarius and headbutted him the Monkey Kung Fu way, with the dome of his skull.

The blond felt his opponent's nose cracking and tried to press the attack. Rufus jumped from the ground onto the villain's leg, biting a small chunk out of it.

It was the most scrappy and desperate fight of his life. Aviarius' pain seemed wake him up further. He shrunk down and struck Rufus with enough force to send the little mole rat clear across the square, all the way near a cop car. Then the villain grew back up to counter a slow palm strike by Ron, multiplying five copies that proceded to fight the blonde.

Joe Jenkins, having had enough of watching this, unloaded his gun on Aviarius, now that he was away from his daughter. A moment later, the blur of the villain had reached him and backhanded him straight into the window of a nearby clothing store. Monique cried out for her father to no avail. Aviarius casually reset his own nose back into place with a sickening crunch as she did so.

Ron put up a valiant effort trying to fight those five, whom didn't seem to have superspeed, but strength alone cracked his defense as the magical monkey powers seem to leave him as he fought. He took a few big hits before hearing a sonic boom.

Someone struck the ground in front of him to disperse the copies. Looking from the ground, he saw Kim's form clad in her Titan outfit, disguised by the choker.

"Aviarius! You'll pay for all this!" She seemed ready to blast towards the villain, who was now back near Monique.

The villain held up his free hand. "Stay back hero. Stay back, as I already had it with the teenagers in this town. Do every one of your hormone-addled adolescents want to die fighting me?" The villain seemed ready to burst into flame from anger, before he calmed down. "No matter." He pressed a button on his arm.

Beeping and blinking lights came alive on Monique's jacket. Kim and Ron, along with rest of the cops on scene, realized that those were most likely bombs. Kim even guessed the type, as she had a close encounter with those type of blinking lights just recently, on Aviarius' robotic birds.

"Come closer, or try to fight me again, and I'll press this button once more. Then this pretty little thing..." He ran one finger through Monique's hair. "Well, you'll be picking up pieces of her all across this pathetic city."

The question left Titan's lips with great difficulty, through gritted teeth and boiling anger. "What... do you want?"

"You took something from me..." Aviarius' eye gleamed with madness as he spoke. "You took my prey. You shouldn't take a bird's prey It makes him... mad."

Ron had crawled to a leaning kneel near a cop car. He shouted. "You don't seem to need..." He coughed in between. "Any help in being insane department!"

Aviarius threw a twisted smile his way. "Cute." Then he turned back to Titan. "You have twenty four hours to bring Shego to my Nest."

"Why do you even want her? You've got more power than you know what to do with!"

Aviarius' mad smile broadened. "Her glow power... Is the last piece of what I need to complete my ascension. With all of the glow powers in me, I will become God."

His insane statement hung heavy in the air like a poison cloud before he spoke again. "Twenty four hours, hero. After that..." He ran his hand through Monique's black hair. "Well, all these injuries done to my flesh by her friends... I might not be able to contain my... excitement. "

A moment later, he had blurred away with Monique in tow.

Kim shook in anger and desperation, but her perception was still working. She could see Aviarius getting slower.

Anne finished checking up Ron's chest and arms. She shook her head. "Ronald, what were you thinking? Trying to fight a supervillain without your powers?"

Rufus was lying down on his specialized pedestal, having a few bandages on his little chest. The mole rat seemed to agree with the assessment by the neurosurgeon.

"You know Mrs. P... Thought it would make for a badical story... Plus I'm told scars add character."

Anne just smiled at his nonchalance. "Never change dear." She turned to Kim, who was pacing as her mother checked Ron's status. "No broken or cracked bones. Soft tissue damage, none too severe."

Kim sighed in a relaxed way. "Thank God for that."

Anne turned to Ron. "Frankly honey, you should have suffered from a few broken bones. The force you were apparently punched with would crush any normal human."

Kim threw a knowing look the blond's way. "You've used your mystical monkey powers, didn't you?"

Ron nodded. "Think so. Didn't even realize until it started to go away."

"Go away?" Both redheads, young and old, echoed the same question.

"I... It comes and goes... I can't control it at all." Ron took his head in his hands. "And now that maniac has Monique! And I can't do shit!" His head rose slowly and he looked at Anne. "What about Mr. Jenkins? Was he okay?"

Anne sighed. "They treated him for cuts from broken glass and a dislocated shoulder. He should be okay." She looked at both her children, blood and adopted. "Maybe you two should call help?"

Kim puffed. "Who? Tried Diana, can't reach her. Wade gave a call to the Green Lantern, he seems to be off planet. Besides..." She shook her head. "We don't know if Aviarius could steal their powers as well. I really don't want to involve any other meta humans."

Ron continued on with some ire. "And someone forbid me calling for help from billionaires."

Kim uncharacteristically exploded at Ron. "Shut it!"

"You did!"

Kim turned to him, angry and exasparated. "What is two normal humans are gonna do against that?!" She pointed to the main screen nearby, where Wade was working on video footage from the attack and its aftermath.

"Something! Better than us just sitting here!" Ron had stood up, throwing metaphorical daggers from his eyes.

"You used your Monkey powers and barely got away alive!" Kim had taken a step towards him as well.

Anne put an end to their rising ire. Putting one hand on both their chests as she stepped in between, she spoke with a soothing tone. "Kimmie. Ronald. Remember that you two are on the same side."

Their anger dissipated. But Anne could see that there were some lingering disagreements. They'd have to wait.

Kim turned to the screen. "I have a plan."

Wade, who had purposefully kept himself out of all the conversation up to that point, asked. "Are we talking a 'plan' plan or a 'Ron' type plan?"

"Hey!" An indignant tone arose from Ron, but he was ignored, save for Anne patting him on the back.

Kim sighed. "It's gonna require our 'guest' at the medbay."

Rest of them in the room nodded, as that made sense. Kim wasn't done. "... And... I will possibly need to use all of the power within the Spear."

That bit alarmed Anne. "Kimmie, no! That is dangerous for you!"

Ron commented as well. "Didn't you say that Diana forbid you from ever using more than a fraction of the power?"

Kim paced around. "She did. But there is no other way to prolong the fight against Aviarius."

"Prolong?" Shego asked, incredulous at the thought. "Why would you want to prolong the fight?!"

Hector, who was in the medbay as well, seemed to agree. "Seems to me that a swift justice would be best in this case."

"Except we can't do it. I already tried to take the scepter from him. He will be more careful about it now." Kim commented as she looked at Shego dead straight in the mercenary's eyes.

Monique was chained to a wall in the most medieval villainous setup one could imagine. She watched the maniacal man take the crystal out of the scepter.

"No reason not to make my ascension easier." He smiled at the chained teen as he rose the crystal in the air, then slammed it square on his chest. Lightning and various glow colors exploded as Aviarius' screams filled the villain's hideout.

"Then what is your brilliant plan Princess? Bore him to death?"

Kim smirked. "Well... In a way." She raised her hand towards the TV in the room, which flared to life as Wade streamed footage. It was showing Aviarius. "We know that the power he stole from Flash was limited, and it is running out. He is getting slower."

The footage stopped at the part where Aviarius multiplied himself five times to fight Ron. They could see the clones moving normal speed. "They didn't have superspeed. But the first clones he used against your brothers back in Go City did."

Shego's eyes lighted with inspiration. "He was trying to conserve that speed energy when he fought Stoppable!"

"Yes."

"We outlast him.." Shego seemed to understand.

Kim finished the train of thought for her. "We beat him. Take the crystal away once he loses the speed, return the powers, and he can face justice."

Shego's face darkened. "That, he will."

Kim didn't have the time or energy to argue with her. "We need to move out soon. Our twenty four hours will expire tomorrow afternoon. We leave in the morning. My mom will check you over one last time before we roll out."

"How will we get to Go City?" Shego asked. Kim pointed to Hector.

"Your brother flew your team's old jet to bring you here. We will use that. Apparently, you are the best pilot of Team Go."

Shego smiled. "Oh, believe me Princess. I am."

Wade had left for his place downstairs, as did Anne and Kim towards the Possible household. Ron had stated that he felt a little bit too sore to move, so Anne had let him sleep in the Tower.

Except, Ron had lied. Because he had a suspicion. The big screen activated, confirming his identity and user privileges, which were just one notch below Wade's own. The genius had insisted all three of them to have access almost all the necessary systems.

Which was paying off for Ron now. Using Wade's automated surveillance tapping systems, he gained access to a few street cameras near Jenkins household.

He had suspected correctly. Joe Jenkins was gearing up for a trip. His car was being loaded with what Ron thought extra guns. He moved out as soon as he saw the detective hug his wife.

Rufus was fast asleep from his own injuries as the blond left the Tower. He didn't want Rufus going into danger with him against Aviarius, when the mole rat had already been injured.

As Joe Jenkins drove out of the suburbs and turned towards the freeway, he saw Ron sitting on his old scooter, looking expectantly at the road. The detective slowed down and stopped the car near the blond teen. He got out of the car, looking intensely at the teen.

"What are you doing here?"

Ron stood up and pushed his scooter behind some bushes. "Waiting for you, Mr. Jenkins."

The detective watched the teenager attaching a lock on the tires of the scooter. "You should be resting, sleeping off your injuries."

Ron finished securing the scooter and walked back towards the car. "Not really injured."

"Ronald, go home."

Ron sighed. "And let you charge into Aviarius' place, no backup, nothing?"

"What are you going to do?!" Joe simmered. "I'll get my daughter away safely, and I won't risk another teenager's life doing that!"

Ron shook his head. "Look, I care about my friends. I also happen to have more combat experience than almost all teenagers in this country, save one. Like it or not, I'm coming with you."

Joe looked and saw the conviction in the blond's eyes. He rubbed his forehead, which had been getting bald the last few years. He seemed conflicted. Ron pressed even more. "Plus, Monique hates when I go into danger, and this will piss her off so much."

Joe chuckled as he opened the car door and got inside. "You want my daughter angry at you?"

Ron had no humor in his voice as he spoke. "That'll keep her alive." He sat on the passenger seat and put on his seat belt. He wasn't going to clarify that statement.

Joe didn't know what to say as he started the car. He looked at Ron's backpack, which was sitting on his lap. "What's in the bag?"

Ron looked down at his backpack. He spoke, after a short pause. "Change of clothes."

The car moved out onto the highway. There was a long way till Go City, and they needed to make it under fifteen hours.

Wade just looked at the empty glass case that used to hold the new Flash suit. He was lost for words.

Kim was not. "What the hell is that goddamn, brainless, blond haired pain in my ass thinking?!" She half-screamed as it was clear that the blond was gone, with the suit and without Rufus. A fact that seemed to drive the mole rat crazy as well. However, due to the injuries inflicted on him the previous day, the mole rat wasn't capable of much movement.

Wade activated the central screen to pull up user logs. He immediately deduced what Ron had done. "He was watching the Jenkins' place." A few more lines typed afterwards, and he clarified. "Joe Jenkins took a personal day. His car seems to have left Middleton late at night." He turned to Kim. "Almost half an hour after we left the Tower yesterday."

"So Ron goes with him?! Why?! With no speed and a power he can't control?!" She pointed to the empty case. "Why did he take the suit?!"

Wade answered. "I don't know. I can tell you, however, that suit is not in use."

"You can tell that how?"

Wade snorted. "I made one of the most sophisticated pieces of clothing ever, of course I lined it up with various sensors and GPS. Not to mention the hearing enhancing implants, the vision-mode eyepiece and the defibrillator."

Kim threw an incredulous look. "Defibrillator? Really?"

Wade waved it off like nothing. "On the new Flash insignia."

Kim shook that off and concentrated on the issue. "Did you handle my school?"

Wade nodded. "I did. You are still in hospital, or that's what I told them. Though, they sent the students home today, seemingly because people are afraid."

Kim grimaced. "Can't blame them." She looked at the medbay. Her mother had not come out yet.

The door to the medbay opened a few minutes later. Shego walked out in her full costume, fully cleaned. She looked a little stiff while walking.

"Are you okay?" Kim inquired.

Shego threw her an icy look. "Mind your own business Princess."

Kim didn't react with anger or ire, to Shego's surprise. She was instead very factual. "We are going into combat together. It is my business."

Anne, who had closed up the medbay, walked to the middle and put an end to a potential early morning clash. "Shelly's bones are just healed, and most of the tissue damage is gone. That healing factor helps a lot, I'd say." Seeing Shego's triumphant smile directed towards Kim, she continued. "But I'd refrain from any combat for a few more days. Muscular damage takes longer to heal."

Kim sighed and threw a blank look at the woman in black and green. "She will have to tough it out then."

Right there, Anne had a mini flashback.

"Mother, I can't keep on training like this!" A young redheaded girl exclaimed to an older, taller redhead.

"Yes, you can. You will just have to endure it."

The Anne Possible of present shivered ever so slightly as this was neither the first nor the last time when her daughter mirrored Anne's Olympian mother so clearly.

Kim stood up. "We need to leave. Now." She turned to Wade. "Is Hego available?"

Wade nodded. "He is dressing up."

Shego looked around the Tower central area. "Where is Stoppable? Or did you stop taking him along once you got superpowers?" The black haired mercenary was trying Kim's patience. "I mean, Princess, I wouldn't count him out. He did thrash Dementor and his men all by himself while you were auditioning for 'Sleeping Beauty'."

All Shego got as a response was a look filled with pure anger. The black haired woman shrugged. It was clear that Kim was not going to comment.

Monique was swimming in a haze of constant, mild muscle pains and emotional despair. Being chained to the wall from her wrists for over twelve hours had tired her out, the chafing and the muscle pains had eroded her resistance, and she had silently cried from pain a few times now. She was also agonizing on what had happened to Kim after being thrown out of the window, or her father, or Ron who had tried to fight with Aviarius. It was her fault, and she cursed herself more than once for that fact.

Aviarius had no concern for the well being of his hostage, that much was apparent. The man had gone to sleep after a while, and was not in the big room where Monique was chained. He had fused the crystal of his scepter on the middle of his chest, and the process seemed to tire the man out. On top of all other stuff, the big hole in the dome roof of the Nest was making that room very chilly at the early October. The poor teenager was in serious trouble.

Then, through the edge of unconsciousness, she felt someone fiddling with the locked chains on her wrists. Forcing herself to look, she was greeted to a frustrated and tired looking Ron trying to free her.

She felt tears of relief welling up, and wanted to thank Ron, but the blond saw that and closed her mouth with his right hand. He pointed to the nearby door to another part of the Nest. He was apparently trying to keep a low profile. Monique now felt fear, and not just for herself. There was no way in hell that Aviarius would let someone free her like that.

And she was right. As Ron gave up on trying to unlock her and started using a little laser cutter he pulled from the backpack he was carrying, she thought she heard a faint alarm sound deeper in the hideout. Not ten seconds afterwards, Aviarius appeared behind the blond, who had freed one of Monique's arms.

"Didn't I make myself clear when I thrashed you yesterday?" The villain took the teenager into a stranglehold, one that Ron couldn't shake off, thanks to blue glow superstrength. "You really want to die, it seems."

Failing all other solutions, Ron threw his head backwards and hit the villain's nose. loosened the grip, allowing Ron to roll away. Aviarius didn't scream in pain this time, but seemed downright pissed. "I've had enough of you." He blurred and caught Ron off guard with a superspeed punch.

That sent the teen across some distance, rolling on the ground. He stood up shakily, showing a defiant grin. "That's what she said." The blond threw out the juvenile joke. Despite the bleak circumstance, Monique found herself half amused, half exasparated by the attitude of her friend. That turned quickly into a new kind of fear as Ron paid for that comment by getting pummeled into the next room.

Monique screamed for help, but that died down as soon as she saw her own father come running into the room from the access tunnel into the Nest. The police detective didn't say anything as he just pointed his gun at the chain holding Monique's left wrist and severed it with a well-placed shot.

Aviarius heard that shot, naturally. He was busy hitting the blond teenager at that time. He turned around to determine what was going on. All of a sudden, the teen that he had discounted after the beating jumped on his back. "You are not going anywhere birdboy!"

Aviarius found himself being unable to pry Ron off of himself. Somehow, in spite of his super strength blue glow, teenager was holding on to his back and applying a chokehold. He sped around, hitting the walls with his back turned, effectively pummeling Ron.

Monique shouted for him as she saw what was going on. Turning to her father, who was in the process of dragging her away from the Nest, she despaired. She might as well not have bothered. The villain finally shook off the blond, throwing him way over their heads and towards the dark corridor of the access tunnel. A few seconds afterwards, Joe was also punched towards there.

The villain cackled in mad glee. "Such a pathetic rescue effort! I wish you'd make this a little more amusing for me!"

He raised his hand to presumably strike Monique down in the same maddened state. Then he was blasted away by a rather a large blast of green plasma. Something hit the ground hard near Monique.

"Be careful what you wish for." Titan arose to full height near the dark-skinned girl, where she had landed high speed. Monique looked to the side to see Shego walking through the hole she had made with her plasma blast.

"Time to vaporize your face." Shego's voice had none of her usual brand of cocky, playful demeanor. Her features were set into a shape of fury.

"Back for round two, hmm?" Aviarius got up and seemed to be very amused by the arrivals. "And you think this time will be different, with your new friend here?" The maniac wagged his finger at them. "Rash as always, dear Shego." They could see a glow under his jacket, giving a clue as to where the crystal was now.

Shego's hands shot forward as she walked forward and shot continuous jets of green plasma. Aviarius blurred away from their path, but was followed by the stream as Shego tried to burn him to a crisp.

A moment later, Aviarius was charging at her. Just as he was about to reach the plasma-firing woman, he became aware of a spear making its way towards his intended destination near Shego. He pulled back at the last possible moment to avoid being skewered. The spear flew back after missing, to the hands of Titan flying towards Aviarius.

Kim engaged Aviarius at close combat, with the Spear fully extended, and she had already begun accessing minute amounts of power contained within. After a short engagement of ten seconds, Aviarius had to retreat a few meters to look shocked.

"How are you keeping up with me, even if shortly?!"

Kim smiled under her magical disguise. "You are a cheap, fake speedster. That crystal being in your body doesn't matter, you'll never be as fast as the one who really owns that power." Then her eyes shone with silver light as she spoke further. "And I'm the last person you would want angry."

She slammed the Spear on the ground in front of her as Aviarius tried another charge. The villain was thrown back, with Shego running up to the position near Titan to let loose her plasma streams again.

Aviarius was pushed back as he was bombarded by the plasma. The feathery attachments on his arms burned as he protected himself. Half a second later, he had shrunk to mini size, avoiding further damage. Shego tried to track his shrunk form, but that form went into superspeed and bolted around the two women standing side by side. Shego kept missing as the tiny form moving at relatively high speed didn't help with targeting. The villain suddenly surged towards them and grew back as he did. Kim, waiting for something like that, swung the Spear down in an arc intercepting the growing form.

Aviarius took the hit and got flung back. He had a new cut in his shoulder, albeit a shallow one. His face distorted into a furious visage as he multiplied by five.

Even though it'd be bad short term, Kim was hoping for speeding clones. But they charged at the women normally, dashing Kim's hopes for expending the Speed Force energy in Aviarius' system as quickly as possible. As the attacks started to come in various angles, heights and powers, two women danced around them with evasive flips and spins.

Kim kept evading until she found an opening and punched one clone clear across the room, dissolving it almost instantly. Shego caught another clone with a plasma-covered fist and drove it to the ground. The pace picked up as the functioned like an experienced team, testament to both knowing how the other one fights due to an entire year of fighting each other.

Ron finally shook off the dizziness and became aware of his bones and muscles hurting all over. He had taken another beating, and the on-again off-again Monkey powers had only kept him from serious injury. He saw Joe trying to stand up by leaning on the nearby wall. He struggled to get up as well.

Ron managed to stand, though on very shaky legs. He hobbled near Joe and saw what he saw.

Titan and Shego were fighting against an unending army of clones that were being generated by the original Aviarius standing away from them. Monique was furthest away from the two observers in the access hallway.

Ron nudged Joe. "We need to get her away from the fight!"

Joe pulled his gun. "I can end this. I only need a clear shot at that maniac."

Ron held the bigger, older man's arm. "As long as he has that speed, you can't hit him with a bullet."

"He's distracted kid, he won't see it coming!"

Ron pointed to Monique. "Just get your daughter out of here! The others can-" He was cut short by a loud sound of Shego overloading a plasma blast and trying to hit the original Aviarius, who avoided that easily.

The endless onslaught was tiring the two women out. Kim called on for more power from the Spear, and the familiar resistance stemming from her human side started to surface. She grit her teeth through the increasing pain as the Spear transferred more and more power. Shego's blasts were getting weaker too, as both her mental and physical state degraded.

In hopes of getting a reprieve, Kim struck the ground with her fist, breaking the balance of nearby clones. Then she sent the Spear flying to one of them, and as soon as it hit, she called it back to her hand. She did that a few more times as she destroyed remaining clones.

Aviarius seemed to be having no trouble maintaining that. He clapped their performance. "Bravo! I believe I have never seen Shego so determined, so powerful! And you.." His gaze narrowed on Kim. "You live up to your alias!" Then he took a few steps backwards. "But time to end this, however fun it has been."

Aviarius visibly strained himself as he glowed red and started multiplying. When he stopped, panting, there were a total of twenty or so clones, all staring with mad glee at the two women. Kim and Shego went back to back as they were surrounded.

"That plan of yours is not working Princess."

"You got a better idea?"

Shego didn't answer.

Ron and Joe were cut off from Monique by the Aviarius copies circling the fighting women in the middle. The detective couldn't decide on what to shoot, as it all seemed pointless to shoot the clones, and the original was now behind a wall of them. Ron started to despair as he couldn't see any way out of this predicament, for no one involved.

The clones rushed in and attacked at the same time. Kim twirled the Spear around like a staff, fending off a good five of them, before she started taking hits from a shrunk clone that had jumped at her from close range. She took a blue-glow hit from that clone, sending her flipping back, seperating her from Shego. Said metahuman was spewing all too much plasma from her hands, trying to put up a defense, but her now exposed back took a hit from one of the clones, doubling her on her knees.

The original Aviarius blurred and caught Shego suddenly, slamming her on the wall. The remaining clones all rushed at the cheerleader in disguise. Kim put up her absolute best defense with all the teachings of Amazonian demigod and those styles Kim copied by herself. It was valiant as she twirled and blocked, and even dissolved a few clones with the bladed rear-end of the Spear, but she was also fighting back of the increasing pain from using more power from the Spear than she could safely handle.

She failed to block one clone, and that blow to her stomach made her go down on one knee. She failed to cover back her flank and rear while pain radiated through her whole body, allowing more clones to rush her and grab hold of her arms, and one of them her neck. She struggled to fight back, but all the clones flared the blue glow within them, barely keeping the half-Olympian girl in check.

Ron and Joe became aware of someone running behind them. They turned to see Hego, in his blue-black outfit running. Before they could interject, the man ran past them and into a full dash towards Aviarius holding her sister. That didn't even faze the villain.

Suddenly, another clone appeared and backhanded Hego, sending him hit the wall nearby where Shego was held from her neck. He tried to get back up, with his left arm seemingly injured and useless, before the newly created clone pressed its foot on Hego's chest and kept him on the ground.

The original Aviarius slammed Shego on the wall again to weaken her squirming. "Once a stupid idiot, always a stupid idiot, eh, Hector?" He turned to Shego. "Oh, the humiliation I suffered because of you... Does it hurt you to remember? Your brothers, down or dead?"

"You.. You were..." Shego spoke through the gasping. "Sad... pathetic... creep... You will... always be one!" She tried to blast Aviarius with her free right hand. The man caught it with his own left hand and squeezed, making the black-haired woman scream in pain.

"You know... With the crystal on the scepter, I thought I could only take your glow powers." He ripped his colorful jacket off of himself to expose his chest. Shego could see the crystal glowing with various colors in his chest. She could also tendrils of weak lightning dance around inside. "But now that I have this crystal one with my flesh, I can feel what I can take from you."

His free hand tenderly caressed the woman's cheek like a lover, making Shego shiver in disgust. "Your power.. Your life force... I can feel your own brothers' powers calling to yours. Powers want to be united, don't you see? And I will make it so..." Then Aviarius stopped abruptly, as his eyes glazed over for a second.

"What is this?" Aviarius seemed to be looking somewhere far away in the distance. "How can this be?" His eyes focused back on Shego. "It's not just your power..." He leaned in, so close that Shego could feel his breath on her face as he spoke again. "There is someone else with these glow powers!"

Hector looked with shock at his sister. Shego seemed to squirm even more and tried to get out of the vice-like grip on her neck. "I will kill you!" Her screaming threat was cut off as Aviarius squeezed her neck.

"You won't tell me, will you? Oh no, the great and powerful Shego would be too prideful for that." Aviarius sighed. "No matter. I will just hone in on this new power I feel and find it after I take your power and kill you." The maniac grinned. "It looks like I'll have to have my fun with the sweet little teenager I took hostage instead of you. Shame."

Kim had listened to the conversation as she was kept down, but clones were distracted. As soon as Aviarius stopped speaking, she threw two clones holding down her arms and tried to jump towards the original. The one clone who was holding her from the neck didn't let go easily, and it grabbed the choker as Kim leapt. One of the clones she shook off violently flew and hit Monique, knocking her out momentarily.

The cheerleader realized too late as her magical disguise dissolved. She landed some ways from Shego and original Aviarius, and glanced at Monique for just half a second, who was trying to shake off the dizziness from her collision with a clone. Kim didn't stop and tried to rush Aviarius as fast as she could. The clone holding Hego down got in between she and her target.

By the time she punched that clone, the others reached her and she was pummeled by a rain of punches.

Aviarius didn't even look back at that. He kept his gaze firmly on Shego. "Time for my meal, and for you to die." The crystal in his chest glowed and Shego started to scream with immense pain, a green glow slowly leaving her body.

Kim was going down due to being overwhelmed. Joe was shaking, not knowing what to do. Hego couldn't even get on his knees due to being slammed on the wall. Monique was still dizzy. And Shego was flat out dying.

Ron's gut twisted in anger. Anger at himself. For being a coward. For trying to deny who he was.

But he should've known who he was already. Tara had told him that. He remembered.

Tara smiled as her eyes gleamed with pride. "Because you are The Flash."

It was high time he stopped being an actual coward and got back to his old self, where he would be scared a lot but was never stopped by it.

First, he felt the foreign feeling of Monkey powers flare up for just one second. His eyes flashed blue for just a fraction of that second. Then they were filled with tendrils of yellow lightning buzzing inside, as the familiar and exciting feeling of energy filling up his cells came back to Ron.

He exploded into a bolt of lightning streaming forwards as time slowed down considerably, like he was used to.

Aviarius stopped feeling good while stealing Shego's power and life, and found himself being blasted backwards from some unseen blow. The clones in the room all got blown back and dissolved as well.

Joe looked around, failing to see Ron nearby as that happened. He looked back a few meters inside the dark access tunnel to see the blond with lightning dancing around him. He was holding his backpack. Ron looked at the detective, knowing he would know now. It couldn't be helped. "I will put you and Monique at the road near the mountain where we left your car. Get as far away as possible." Then he didn't let the detective say anything as he opened the backpack and exploded into a flurry of speed.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Called Some Friends for Help – Blake Neely

XXXXXXXXXXX

Monique was trying to understand what had happened before she felt someone grab her. She saw the Flash holding her bridal style, and for the fraction of a second, his face was not vibrating. Then it started to do so as the speedster looked at her. "I'm sorry about being so late." She saw he was wearing the new suit. Her own design.

It looked like the yellow linings on the suit were alive, crackling with lightning themselves as energy danced around Flash. The dark skinned girl felt that tingling energy seep into her as well, if only by a fraction. His new mask had two prominent lightning bolts on where his ears were covered. The suit had added layers at the shoulders, and the gloves looked a bit more armored than she had intended. But most of all, the lightning bolt on his chest was now in the middle of a white circle, and bigger.

Monique knew it was kind of self-congratulatory, but she freaking loved the new look.

Ron didn't want to risk Monique seeing Kim's face with the obvious alter ego clothes, so he didn't give the teen blogger time to fully regroup her senses.

Then, the moment ended as Monique was swept away by speed. She found herself outside, near a road, where her father's car sat dormant. Another whooshing sound later, and her father was standing nearby. She looked at the mountain to see the blur covered in lightning travelling upwards and inside the Nest.

Aviarius shook himself as he stood up. He saw a man in a dark red suit helping the metawoman in black and red. The man's frame was blocking his vision of Titan. Ron put the choker back on Kim's neck himself, reapplying the magical disguise, making sure that Aviarius had seen nothing of her identity.

The Flash looked at the madman after helping Kim up. She seemed to be spent and not in a good shape, probably due to all the power she used from the Spear. His mouth curved into a sneer rather than his usual jovial look.

"You used my power... my powerto kill someone." There was no joking around, no banter. "You are a monster. And I will stop you."

"You'll pay f-" Aviarius' claim died in the middle as he was punched square in the jaw within a blink. He was blasted back by the power of the punch and crashed near his own makeshift throne.

The other two fighters in the room watched as the Flash asserted his speed and power with a single move. But Aviarius would not go down easy. When Flash tried to kick him again while Aviarius tried to stand up, the mohawk haired villain shrunk down and avoided the blow. As the scarlet speedster was momentarily confused by the missing strike, Aviarius grew back up and tried to land a blue-glow empowered punch.

Ron reacted in superspeed and evaded the blow, with only part of it grazing his shoulder. That was enough to make him spin and stagger a few meters back. The speedster rubbed his shoulder after that.

"Do you think you will win just because you are faster?! Witness my power!" Aviarius glowed red and multiplied himself, creating ten copies of himself.

Kim noticed something. The crystal in Aviarius' chest had finally stopped expelling small tendrils of lightning. But the clones all seemingly had that quality in contrast.

"Go City will fall! Destroy them all!" Aviarius pointed outside, towards the nearby city. The clones blurred away outside the Nest.

Ron spared one glance Kim's way for just one tiny moment. The cheerleader was decisive. "Go stop them!" He didn't need more incentive. The red blur followed suit.

Aviarius laughed maniacally as he watched Flash give chase to his clones, then turned to the two women. "He was your only shot at beating me! Now you are mine!" He got ready to charge them both as he broke into a dash.

But when he reached Shego, his blow was blocked by the other woman. Her magical disguise reapplied, Kim smiled grimly. "Looks like you have used up all the energy." She slapped the extended arm away and landed a spinning kick, sending Aviarius back again. "No stolen speed anymore... And pretty soon, you won't have any stolen powers."

Shego added her own two cents as she realized what Kim had figured out. Her furious resolve was reignited. "And you know me Aviarius. You know what I'll do to you."

Kim just glanced disapprovingly, since she needed to focus on the immediate fight, not a potential one afterwards.

Aviarius spat blood as he stood up. The wound on his eye was reopened and bleeding, but that didn't seem to deter him. "I will still win. Your cheap speedster can't hold my clones off for long."

Kim answered with equal confidence. "He won't lose. He will never lose."

Then she charged along with Shego.

The mountain scenery rushed by him as Ron sped downwards, making his way to the Go City a few kilometers away. He could see the copies of Aviarius in the distance doing the same, just slower. With luck, he'd get to them before the clones could wreak much havoc.

The clones didn't immediately disperse after entering the city, much to Ron's relief. They seemed to go for the downtown area, where they could do most damage, Ron presumed. Seeing no choice, he went supersonic to catch up.

Go City had been under a sour mood for the last few days. Their police force was powerless against the empowered Aviarius and their protectors had all fallen. No one was ready for a score of the maniac's clones coming to tear the city apart.

A traffic light on the way to downtown was suddenly ripped out of its place, then thrown to an oncoming bus from other side of the road. The driver swerved out of its way. Unfortunately, that was on a collision course with a biker. Just as the disaster was about to occur, the driver and the passengers on the front spied a blur of red and yellow lightning pass by, and the bus ran over an unoccupied bike.

Similar thing happened as the blurs travelled further and broke signs, traffic lights, even damaged cars themselves. As they passed by causing mayhem, the lightning bolt trailed after, saving people and preventing the worst of disasters.

The blurs appeared in the city center, the big square that also housed the new Mucho Grande Bueno Nacho. People turned their phones on to film the event, much to Ron's dismay. He arrived half a second after the clones did. More people started to turn their phones towards the square. Some began to transmit live via smartphone apps. Others were photographing furiously.

One of the clones spun slowly in his spot, shouting to the people. "Go City! Today, you will learn not to resist me! Look!" It pointed to Ron in his suit, watching the clones for any sudden movement. "They come from across the country to stop me! But I will teach you all to obey me!"

Flash cut in, equally shouting, making sure to vibrate his vocal chords for impact and concealment of identity. "People, get away! Stop using the damn phones and run away!" His plea went unheard by most, as only a few sensible people heeded him and started to run inside buildings, or generally away of the square.

Another clone laughed with mad glee. "It's useless Flash! They all want to see how you fall to me! They want to be ruled by me!"

Ron's irritation and anger grew at the incredible arrogance of the villain, that seemed just that worse when multiplied by ten. He turned to the clones, with lightning starting to dance around him again. He didn't say anything this time, but suddenly charged at them.

Clones dispersed as soon as the attack begun, but the middle one that spoke first got hit by the first charge. It bounced backwards on the street once before crashing into a parked car. The rest of the clones saw that, hissed, and then promptly tried to swarm the Flash with numbers.

A battle of blurs broke out as people in the buildings could see how the multi-colored blurs of Aviarius clones were intertwining with the red-yellow storm of lightning. The entire street filled with sounds of quickly displacing air, violent crashes and screams. Windows exploded and car alarms got triggered, forcing those brave or foolish enough to stand outside on the street into the buildings.

Ron circled the around the square as he intercepted attacks and charges from the clones. He was fending them off with aerial moves that he was performing off vertical surfaces. The clones didn't have the necessary speed or aerodynamic control that allowed Ron to easily traverse vertically.

He spin-kicked one clone off a jump from a building, descending on the street while spinning to fend off another three incoming clones. The air current blew back those, but two more charged from opposite sides. Ron's eyes glowed with yellow lightning as he saw them both, with another flash of momentary blue in them.

He spun around himself as both clones reached him, avoiding their strikes simultaneously and catching them with his arms at their necks. The clones kept coming as he stood more or less in the middle, fending their attacks and countering with very powerful Monkey Kung Fu moves, palm-striking at very high speeds and delivering spinning kicks that would make Monkey Fist envious in their power.

Clones were battered as half a minute passed with Flash proving how fast and powerful he really is. One of them had the bright idea of trying to take a hostage. As soon as it moved to grab someone hiding inside a nearby coffee shop, the lightning cut it off. Flash was standing right there, the energy dancing around him, his eyes almost fully covered with yellow lightning.

"I don't think so." He exclaimed as the clone seemed to groan. The facsimile of Aviarius charged, only for Flash to evade under the blow and grab it from its necks.

Ron saw that other clones were about to try the same thing, with other stores and business places in the square. He realized he needed more speed, and he instinctively reached inside for more Speed Force energy.

That's when things got weirder. The clone he was holding from its neck suddenly fell powerless, and Ron realized he had suddenly received a boost of energy, but not from inside as it usually came. Then he deduced what had happened.

While touching the clone, he had stolen back the Speed Force energy in the clone's body. His energy spiked as that added to his own, and his eyes turned to orbs of yellow lightning.

He smiled, and the clones that could see that suddenly felt true fear. He speed-punched the clone he was holding just once, sending it tumbling away to dissolve into air, then turned to the rest.

"Oh, this will be fun." He mostly said to himself before blasting off.

He caught one of the remaining clones while it tried to hide behind a parked car. Avoiding the relatively slow attempt at defending itself, Ron grabbed its arm, to again suck the Speed Force energy back to himself. It worked, again, adding more temporary power to him.

He did that three times in succession to eradicate almost all the clones, save one. That one understood what was going to happen, and tried to run away by speeding off from downtown. It didn't even make it out of the city square as the lightning storm caught it from behind, pinning it down on its face, and then promptly taking its Speed Force energy.

Ron finished the fight with a simple palm strike at the back of clone's head. He rose to full height, with more Speed Force energy than he ever felt circulated in him. After breathing heavily for a few seconds, he realized that people were cheering around.

People off the stores, from windows in business offices all around, from customers now leaving nearby Bueno Nacho... They were all cheering. He finally felt okay after the nightmarish few days of feeling powerless.

As Ron took his breather, he heard a rather violent explosion in the distance, along with the rest of Go City.

Kim flipped in the air to land a downwards kick on Aviarius' head. The madman blocked it with a blue-glowing arm just as the kick was about to connect with his mohawk.

Shego charged in from his left, blinded by the injured and bleeding eye on that side. A concentrated blast of green plasma launched the villain backwards, impacting him on one of the nearby walls.

The women kept the pressure on. Kim descended on Aviarius again, but this time, the man shrunk down to avoid the hit. He rolled under Kim and dove for Shego as he grew back. Shego, tired and bruised, couldn't react in time as she got hit in the stomach, skidding back on the ground a few meters. Kim spun around to attack again, but her kick was blocked by the blue glow power again as Aviarius caught her leg. She reacted fast and kicked with her other leg, spinning in the air.

Aviarius got hit by that clean in the left side of his head, getting blasted backwards again. Kim landed on one knee. She stood up, ready to charge again, when she faltered.

Her body was too battered to keep up fighting. Using the power within the Spear had cost her in short term, and she was paying the price now. Glancing sideways, she saw Shego wasn't doing too hot either.

Aviarius, on the other side of the room, found fighting almost impossible in relative to when he had superspeed. So he used his aces in the hole. "Release the heat seeking hummingbirds!"

Holes opened in the walls to shoot the blinking, small robotic birds again. Kim and Shego groaned simultaneously. "Not those again!" Kim forced herself to backflip to avoid the first wave. Shego blasted some before they made it to her, but she too was forced to perform acrobatics for evasive action.

Kim flipped and rolled until she made it near Shego. Then promptly punched into the floor, cracking it prominently. With no time to spare, she ripped a large piece of concrete off the floor and used it as a shield. The hummingbirds lodged in the other side of the ripped concrete. As soon as that happened, Kim threw the concrete piece towards Aviarius, who barely dodged it by shrinking. Resulting explosion sent him reeling.

When he got back up a few seconds after, he was pissed. Beyond comprehension. "Release all the heat seeking hummingbirds!"

This time, it wasn't just one section of the walls that opened. Holes appeared all around them, and in the ceiling, revealing an unhealthy amount of the exploding robot-birds.

Both women realized, escape would be impossible this time. Kim called the Spear back to her hand, intent on using its power to shield herself and Shego, even if using the power again was very dangerous.

Just as the Spear reached her, both she and Shego felt an extremely strong wind blowing from behind them. Hummingbirds lost trajectory and scattered all around. Both women looked behind to see Drakken descending from the hole in the dome ceiling. Kim saw his hovercraft just outside the Nest, and Drakken seemed to be using air currents expelled from his hands to slowly fall down. He landed on his feet with his usual attitude of superiority on full display.

Shego was perplexed. "Dr. Drakken?"

Drakken seemed almost relieved. "That's right Shego. Some anonymous computer hacker told me that how you were at the mercy of a villain! One that killed your brother, no less!" He flexed his hands and Kim felt the air move around in the room. "Where is this Aviarius?!"

Shego pointed right towards the confused Aviarius watched the newcomer. "That's him!"

Drakken smiled, sporting one of his half-evil half-funny grins. "Good to know!" His arms shot forward as twin blasts of compressed air targeted Aviarius. The bird maniac got hit immediately, blowing him back all the way backwards to his makeshift throne. Aviarius screamed as he pressed some buttons on his belt. "Hummingbirds, all attack!"

The downed robots all took flight again, blinking with a sure trajectory. Drakken had arrived near Shego and Kim. Shego screamed at him. "Doc, that move we practiced!"

"Which one you are tal-" As Shego put her arms forward and moved just in front of Drakken, the blue skinned villain got what Shego referred to. "Oh, that one!" He moved right behind Shego and put his arms over Shego's shoulders, pointing to the same direction she was.

"Now!" On cue, Shego let loose one of the strongest green plasma streams she could ever produce. Kim couldn't see clearly, but Drakken seemed to create twin wind funnels that combined with Shego's plasma, creating two deadly, outwards-expanding green colored blasts.

The combined effort caught all the hummingbirds and sucked them towards the centers of the wind funnels, exploding them with plasmatized energy. An immense series of explosions ripped through the Nest, sending Kim to the ground to cover her ears, and the villainous duo to be blasted backwards a good ten meters.

Smoke slowly settled as Shego moved on top of Drakken. She groaned as she got off and stood up. "We need to work on this if we don't want to kill ourselves Doc."

"Agreed." Drakken also stood up and dusted his blue coat off.

The Nest was in shambles. It's load supports were all damaged, and Kim didn't think it would hold for a long time. It didn't seem to start collapsing immediately though. They saw Aviarius also getting up at the other side of the room.

Sound of crackling lightning and displaced air turned their attention back to the almost destroyed wall showing a morning scenery of Go City. Flash had arrived, standing there with lightning almost rolling off of him in waves.

"The clone army is defeated, with extra benefits, oh yea." He commented as he took in the scenery. "What the hell just happened-" Then he saw Drakken standing with Shego. "Oh." He slightly tensed as he blurred nearby Kim in her Titan disguise, not sure what was going on. "What did I miss?"

Kim answered in bulletpoints. "Exploding robots. Drakken's air blasts. Shego's plasma. Big boom."

Ron nodded as he shrugged. "Makes sense."

Shego looked at them, and recognition bloomed in her mind. Before she could contemplate further though, Aviarius screamed again. "I've had enough of this! Release the- Flamingo of Doom!"

"Say what?" Shego commented.

A large bunker door to one of the side areas slid open. It revealed a huge, pink robotic flamingo. It bellowed as soon as it activated.

Flash pointed to the robot. "That is the second biggest flamingo I've ever seen."

The giant flamingo tried to step on Ron and Kim. The robotic bird claw didn't even come close as the red blur carried Kim away. Ron asked. "So what's the plan to take down the giant flamingo murder bot?" He stopped for half a second, then commented. "Yet another sentence I'd never think to utter normally."

Shego pointed to Aviarius, who seemed to be running towards the exit tunnel. "Don't let him get away!"

Ron spared one glance at Kim, who simply nodded. He surged forwards, passing by the flamingo and overtaking Aviarius. He stopped between the maniacal villain and the exit. "You can't run away from me."

"Let's make that double for me!" Aviarius looked behind to see Titan land from a high jump.

Shego, seeing that the object of her current enmity at least blocked off, turned to the flamingo, and released a unified pillar of green plasma from her hands. The intense plasma wore down the armoring on the robot's chest area. "Doc, finish this!"

Drakken's face distorted into a grin again. "Gladly!" One of his hands pointed to the devastated ceiling, and they could all see clouds converging on the otherwise clear skies. His other hand pointed to the flamingo.

A few seconds later, as everyone in the room watched, lightning struck down from the converged clouds directly to Drakken's outstretched arm, and continuning on towards the flamingo from his other arm.

The bolts of lightning struck down the flamingo a total of four times, before it malfunctioned and went backwards, collapsing on the floor.

"Woah, Doc. Didn't know you could do that." Shego commented as she looked at her boss with a small measure of newfound respect.

Drakken commented haughtily. "I'm capable of many things Shego, you'd do well to remember!"

Aviarius glowered with anger. "No! I won't lose this time!" He got ready to clone himself again as he heard Flash speak.

"Actually. You will. And it will hurt. " Flash blurred forward, punching Aviarius. Titan, who was standing behind Aviarius, caught the villain reeling from the blow and threw him back. The red blur circled again while Aviarius was airborne, this time catching him from his feet, and pushing him down on the ground on his back. Aviarius impacted on the ground heavily, knocking the breath out of him. He opened his eyes to see Titan descending on him from an earlier jump, Spear in hand.

The Spear struck the crystal in the villain's chest dead in the center. Aviarius screamed as the crystal glowed violently and exploded.

Out of the shards exploding outwards of his chest, masses of different colored energies flew out. The blue one flew a short distance to return to Hego lying on another corner of the room. The purple and red glows travelled out the ruined Nest towards Go City, presumably to return to the original owners of the powers.

Hego, with his strength back, pushed off some debris off himself and stood up. He was flexing his hand, looking at it with relief and disbelief in equal measure. Kim finally let herself relax, the fight over and the day won. She wobbled on her feet and Ron was there in a blur, holding her up by her arm and shoulders.

"You okay?" The speedster resisted the urge to call her 'KP' at the end of his sentence, only barely.

"Yes.. I just need... Some time off." Kim let herself be supported.

Drakken nodded, satisfied with his own power. "No second rate villain compares to me, Dr. Drakken the Weather Wizard himself!"

Ron turned, making sure his face and vocal chords both vibrating, looking at Drakken. "Seriously? Going with 'Weather Wizard'? What, 'Storm' was already taken?"

Drakken glowered at the hero. "You don't understand the genius of my marketing brand."

"Dude, they are selling action figures of me worldwide. Pretty sure my marketing beats yours."

The usual banter was going to go on full swing.

There was, however, one thing they were all forgetting.

As Aviarius lay, in residual pain and shock from losing the fight and all the stolen powers, he felt someone pulling him back on his feet. He opened his eyes to see a terrifying visage of Shego staring into his eyes with hatred in her own. "You killed my brother... I hate my family, yes, but that doesn't mean I don't love my brothers." Her voice lowered dangerously. "And you killed Ryan. My baby brother."

Her free hand flared with plasma, so intense that looking at her hand was proving to be a challenge.

"You will die screaming his name!" Shego let Aviarius fall to the ground, winding up for the big hit that would burn through his chest.

Then she felt her arm being held. Turning to her side, she saw Flash holding her arm, preventing her from murdering the psychopathic Aviarius. The hero in the red suit slowly shook his head, his face vibrating. "He's not worth it Shego."

Shego trembled in rage. "That's what he deserves!"

"Is it?" Ron recalled what Bruce Wayne had told him once. "Death is an escape for someone like this. You'll allow him an easy way out if you kill him. Only one you'll be punishing will be yourself."

Drakken was far away at the other side of the room, and Kim was not really that close. Shego chose to half scream, half whisper in her rage. "What would you know about punishment?! Do you have any idea at all?!"

Ron contemplated for a second. Then chose what he believed to be right. His face stopped vibrating, and his voice turned normal as he spoke, making sure he was looking right into Shego's eyes. "Someone once told me that taking revenge, killing those responsible wouldn't solve anything. That it'd only hurt me more." He sighed. "That she had tried before."

Shego's eyes grew as her earlier suspicion was confirmed. Team Possible had not retired at all. It had only changed form and scope as the teenagers became metahumans of immense power. Her hand burning with plasma flickered off slowly. She struggled for words as the kind, light brown eyes stared at her under the dark red mask.

"He... killed my brother..." Shego trembled in pain. "And you want me to let him go?"

Flash shook his head, answering with a soft voice. "I'm asking you to let him be punished properly. That you shouldn't be the one to be punished. Not for this, anyway."

Shego stumbled backwards from the downed Aviarius and the Flash. Struggling for breath, she panted as she turned back and walked to Drakken. Kim just watched, not intent on doing anything.

Shego stopped near Kim, speaking in a whisper so no one else would hear. "This changes... nothing. Next time we meet-"

Kim smiled with a grim acceptance. "We will fight again. I know."

Shego nodded. "But.. You and Stoppable... Your secret stays with me."

Kim's eyebrows rose. "Really?"

Shego managed to get one wicked smile out. "I don't want my fun ruined." Then she kept walking to Drakken, who was just watching, confused. "Let's go Doc."

Drakken failed to say anything as he looked at the woman, then to the others in the room. Then he simply called the hovercraft waiting above to descend downwards.

Hego and Shego shared one look as the villains embarked the hovercraft. Hector, under his mask, finally sighed and raised his right hand in a goodbye. Shego didn't say anything as she turned around. The hovercraft left after that.

Aviarius could finally breathe, his imminent doom averted. He spat his words out. "This won't be the last time, I promise you Hego. I will destroy all of you yet! Mark my-"

"Shut up." Flash landed a speed punch on his face, knocking him out.

XXXXXXXXXXX

Ben Harper - Waiting on an Angel

XXXXXXXXXXX

It was late evening in Middleton. Joe Jenkins stepped outside his home. Two teenagers were standing just outside the house's porch. He sighed as he approached them.

"Is she okay?" Ron asked, with a tired and worried voice.

"Yes. She needs rest and a few days off... But she is fine." Joe shook his head as he looked at them both. "I cannot believe this. You two... Metahumans."

Kim gulped slightly as she asked. "Will you-"

Joe cut her off. "Inform the police force about you two?" He shook his head again. "No. Never mind the fact that I owe you two... But I believe someone needs to stand against the dangerous metahumans, and it can't be us cops all the time. This goddamn world stopped making sense some time ago."

Both teenagers sighed in relief. Ron scratched his own neck. "Sorry about the... Well, this whole thing."

Joe nodded. "Don't be. I made Monique tell me all about it. How the Flash was trying to keep her out of trouble, how you went out of your way to prevent her from getting into danger. It's her own fault that she didn't listen."

Kim asked. "What do you want us to do, going forward?"

Joe pointed to them both. "You will keep this a secret. My daughter is already in enough danger as it is. Also..." He took a deep breath, as if he was struggling with himself while speaking. "You should tell me when you two are about to do something crazy in Tri City. Just to cover the things on police's end, if for nothing else."

"Thanks, Mr. Je-" Kim started to thank, but was cut off again.

"Call me Joe, kids. We are really past the pleasantries." He looked at his watch. "You two should better get home. We will talk later."

He got back inside his house as the two teens started a slow walk towards the Possible household. A very uncomfortable silence was hanging in the air.

"You know, no point in delaying this KP. I can feel you want to hash this out now, so let's have it." Ron suddenly exclaimed as they walked.

Kim didn't miss a beat. "When were you going to tell me that you were meeting with Mo in costume? Sometime next year?"

Ron sighed. "I told you. I told you that we should have spoken to her, together. But you kept saying it'd be fine. Well, it wasn't fine. She was going to get into more and more trouble if I didn't do something."

"And yet, she got kidnapped since she thought she could call out to you over a public blog."

"She had promised not to do that. To let me handle things, and she would be safe and out of public eye as just another blogger."

Kim sighed heavily as her hands flew to her sides. "You thought she would keep to that? Have you met Monique?! She can't rest easy unless she digs out every single secret she smells! She's almost as obsessive as you!"

"What would you do?!" Ron was also getting angry. "Keep on the same route like before?! Because that was not working!" They had stopped walking at that point, standing in the middle of the suburban street.

"If it was me, if you had given me a choice, I'd tell her everything!"

"What?" Ron was now confused.

"The only way to stop her is to let her in. If she knew who we were, she wouldn't be going stir crazy with your disappearance of a few days!" Kim stated that as if it was painfully obvious. "You were the one who prevented me from telling her!"

Ron was about to pull his hair off. "Kim! If she knew, she would be getting into all sorts of trouble just to help us! She already thinks that we are out of all this 'hero' crap and that we should stay out!"

"Or she would work with us, and we would know how to protect her better, instead of you half-assing it." Kim shook her head at Ron's paranoia.

"You don't have to make the choices I do Kim! You are not the one that is literally first to every crisis! I had to make a call, and I asked for your help, only you didn't think it was necessary!"

Kim shrugged in annoyance. "So what, am I a burden now? To the great 'Scarlet Speedster', he who that can never be wrong?"

Ron gasped in shock. "Oh my God, stop being so touchy about this! It's not about you!" His voice dropped. "You don't know what it is like for people to get hurt, just because they were close to you!"

"Really?" Kim's anger started to bubble up slowly.

Ron nodded. "My parents? You remember them KP. Good, kind people both. Dead. Just because someone hated me. Not you, not them, not anyone else. Me." He kept going. "Tara. Good. Kind. Loving. Dead. Just because she loved me." He took a few steps back as he pointed to himself. "Can't you see that I can't have anyone else get that close to me again?!" He looked straight into Kim's eyes. "Why do you think I don't want Bonnie doing anything of this sort?"

Kim stood silent as Ron finished. Then a slap caught the blond by surprise. He looked at the redhead with no small amount of shock.

"It's always about you. Your pain. Your guilt. Not once you asked me if I was doing fine. All these months. Not once." Kim's voice was level, but her eyes were getting wet. " I don't know what it is like to watch people get hurt because they were close to me?! I can't believe you didn't think to ask me once, just once, how I felt about Tara."

"She was my friend too. But more than that, she didn't die protecting you. She died protecting me. When it was clearly my duty to protect her. I promised her!" In her anger, Kim caught Ron's shirt and pulled him towards herself, making him look in her eyes. "We were this close when I promised her that I would have her back, always. That I would do anything I could do to see you both happy. She damn well loved you, but you didn't promise that all would be fine! That was me!"

Ron was lost for words. "I...I..."

Kim let him go, taking a few steps backwards herself. "Not once you asked me how I feel. I am tired Ron. I can't tell my boyfriend anything. I can't talk to one of my best friends about how I feel. And the one person that is closest to me flat out refuses to talk to me about his feelings, or mine. Even Wade retreated into his own shell. I don't even get to talk to Rufus as before, because you are never around that much anymore."

She sat down on the sidewalk. "I just don't want to feel so alone anymore... I can't look into Bonnie's eyes because all I can think of is how I get her best friend killed. I can't look into Monique's eyes because all I do these days is to lie to her."

She felt Ron sit near her. She felt his right hand taking a hold of her left hand. Then he squeezed, and didn't let go. "I'm sorry." His voice cracked as he apologized. "I... I didn't know..."

Kim pulled his right hand towards herself, holding it with both her hands now. "I know you have your own problems Ron. I know you are hurting. All I've been asking for is to let me in. Talk like we used to. If I can't be honest with anyone else, I at least want some 'Ronshine'. Some small measure of honesty we used to have..."

"I... understand." Ron sat there with Kim, in silence. Then he decided to speak. "I still love her."

Kim looked at him, expectant. She dared to hope, that finally, he was opening up. Ron continued. "It's sort of sick and wrong, maybe. But whenever I see the cheerleader uniforms... Or the Star of David she gave me.. I remember her... And I hurt around here." He touched around the center of his chest with his free hand. "I remember my parents, and all I feel is that same hurt, except I don't know who killed them. And that is driving me crazy." His head fell forward as he sighed. "I just... I just wanted you to be free of my problems. To be happy. Have some sort of normalcy."

Kim shook her head in a rueful manner. "You idiot. How can I be happy if you are not?"

They didn't need to say anything after that, at least for a while. They sat there, with night sky and the chilling cold settling down on them.

Wade was looking at Kim, with a healthy abundance of suspicion. "You want me to do what?"

"You heard me. Please Wade." Kim's voice was soft. "This... I think I know what happened to Shego."

"You want me to cross reference her first crime spree in Europe with... What was it that you said?"

"International incidents beneficial to United States government."

"Kim, what the hell is going on?"

Kim looked at the giant screen Wade was sitting nearby. She leaned in and pulled Shego's file to the screen, then pulled another. Wade saw them together, and had a moment of epiphany.

Kim declared. "I think... I think Amanda Waller had something to do with Shego's fall."

Hector walked away from the funeral service with his brothers. On impulse, he raised his head and looked to a nearby hill full of gravestones. Someone was standing under the shade of a tree. He had a guess who it was.

Making sure to not attract any attention to himself, he slowly wandered off after making sure Melvin and Kyle, both still recuperating, got into a car that would drive them back to the hospital.

He stopped near the tree he had seen the person nearby. He spoke. "Thanks for coming Shelly."

"He was my brother too." The voice spoke back. "Will Kyle be okay?"

Hector sighed. "I dunno. Maybe if you were here...?"

"Forget it. That time... It's long gone."

Hector sighed. He knew what she meant. She was a criminal these days. Couldn't be with her family even if she wanted to. "Shelly... I need to ask something."

The voice didn't say anything.

Hector turned and looked at the other side of the tree, where Shego was hiding behind the trunk and in between another tree that was nearby. "Aviarius. Said he felt one more with glow power."

His voice was grim. "Shelly... Where is Mom?"

A.N.: There it is. Took some time, as usual. Frigging chapters, growing out of my control all the time.

Here's the gist people. My real life is real busy these days. Liable to be as busy for the foreseeable future. So I'll try to do smaller, more frequent updates, but there ain't no guarantees. Apologies in advance.

I hope you all enjoyed this addition. As always, please review and let me know what you think.

Huge thanks to CajunBear73 who beta read the chapter, along with my real life friend who lent a critical eye as an editor.

Until next time. Here's a little after credits goodie for all of you to get excited about :)

Aviarius was being transported in an armored truck, to a prison he didn't know about at all. He was hurting from his extensive defeat. But he was certain he would bounce back. Come back stronger than ever.

Suddenly, the back of the armored truck was opened, while in transit. He thought he saw an average sized person in a hoodie, standing in the truck with him. A second later, he found himself outside, near the road. He could see the armored truck and the escort was going away on the road. The door of the truck seemed to be close, and no one seemed to be wiser to his absence.

He looked around to see the same hooded person stand nearby. "Thank you for that, stranger. I will reward you well."

"Shut up." The voice was distorted, demonic and scary. "You... wiiiiiillllllll...doooooo...nosuchthing." The speech was oddly slowed and then sped up all of a sudden. The person coughed, he seemed to have done that inadvertedly. He sighed after taking a deep breath. "That's better."

The man who had broke him out of the armored transport seemed to wear a yellow hoodie and black cargo pants. Aviarius couldn't make out the face in the darkness of the late evening. The mystery person seemed to speak with anger.

"You... invaded our school. Kidnapped my friend... Hurt two others. And you killed someone in your own city. Hurt many more. And they are just... going to put you in prison." The voice seemed to belong to someone young, now that Aviarius could hear it with no distortion.

"Look, I'm sure we can come to an arrangement young man."

"I told you to shut up, you piece of shit. Oh... People like you. Leave ruin behind yourselves, and walk away with a slap on the wrist. Not even that, most of the time."

Aviarius felt very odd, somewhat lighter in weight for a second. He saw a stray leaf levitate, and then fall back down.

"Not today. Not after you hurt my friends."

Aviarius found himself knocked down all of a sudden, the sting of some unseen blow ringing in his ears. He looked up to see the person with the yellow hoodie staring down at him.

"Who... who the hell are you?!"

The person slowly removed the hood backwards to reveal a young face with brown hair and blue eyes. He seemed to sneer. "For you?" The air around the young man distorted suddenly as light seemed to die on parts of his face, making him seem like some sort of monster with a face of darkness. When he spoke next, his voice had distorted into a demonic tone again. "Deeeeeaaaaatttthhhhhh..." The voice stretched as the darkness intensified.

Aviarius couldn't even scream as the young man's hand descended with some inhuman speed. His head almost did a full one eighty as the neck broke and blood flew out of his mouth.

He fell down dead. The young man put his hood back on, and the next second, he wasn't even there.

To be Continued in: "Fate is a Funny Thing."