Shego didn't even know what to say about that.
Of course being the sidekick for a so called "mad" genius meant that she too had been through a few close brushes but what Ann described now...
The blood, the pain and the fear the poor red haired girl unlucky enough to be in such a terrible country was feeling in that moment.
Kim's mother had survived even closer encounters with the grim reaper than her much more well known daughter.
And her daughter's entire life revolved around a never ending streak of life threatening missions.
And unable to find the right words in her own mind to describe this phenomenon she had just learned about, Shego stole a quote from a joke book she had perused to while away the time when her boss wasn't ordering her left and right with crazy tasks.
Kim's mum didn't just cheat death the same way her daughter did. Kim's mum actually played against death in his own game and won fair and square.
Though she hated to admit it, Shego was beginning to see why Kim's mantra of "I can do anything" had come from and it certainly wasn't just from beating the much more experienced and powerful Shego time and time again as much as Shego liked to think it was.
...
A new religion: Russia 1987
Something stirred deep within me as the world around me got darker and darker.
Something about how the great future daddy spoke about. About how one day I would make a change important enough to forever change the wicked ways of this cruel world for the better.
It was those words of wisdom which I just happened to remember in time, which all but shouted to me that though I had lowered myself to such a depth it wasn't time to leave the world behind just yet. I just had to keep going somehow.
And though in that moment I might have been a uneducated seven year old bumpkin who hardly knew the basics of reading and writing, I was not stupid enough not to realise that to stop the bleeding I needed a bandage.
Despite my blurry vision and shaking hands, I managed to fumble out an extra shirt from my rucksack and tie it around the arm with the injured shoulder.
It wasn't much but it would buy me a few extra minutes before I lost too much blood.
Little did I know in the next seconds I spent wildly running forward in search of anyone who might find it in their heart to help even me, that the neat trick I had just pulled off would one day be the very thing that would earn me my bread when I eventually gave up my bad habits.
As for that moment, I had to find help and quickly before the last bit of my consciousness left me.
Seeing a clearing in the distance and even what I thought to look like a light of some sort, I ran towards it putting every last bit of my strength into my legs. It was my last chance and already the world seemed to be spinning round and round as my head got dizzier with every step.
I hadn't the time to care what kind of creep would have their abode in a odd and secluded place such as these dark and scary woods. To me that light which seemed so far away even now that I was but a few metres away was my salvation.
Better to die trying to live than simply lie down and give up as tempting as that seemed since even if I lived, it was only a matter of time before I found myself strung up after the events of tonight.
I saw the house where the beautiful and radiant sparkling white light from earlier had been coming from and with my last breath, yelled help.
And no longer able to tolerate the huge loss of blood which the hunter's bullet had caused me, I very grudgingly submitted to the peace of unconsciousness knowing my weak and raspy voice was far too quiet to attract very much attention despite my best efforts.
I tripped and fell as my legs gave way and my face hit the dusty forest floor.
And then silence and darkness as the pain in my shoulder intensified too much for my weak body to bear. But just then the door swung open and standing before me was a kindly man even sweeter looking than the owner of the orphanage who had helped me before.
The glow in his humble eyes and the robes he was dressed in without a word he ushered me inside as he sat me on a bed.
What he did to me in the next hour to sooth the injury I thought for sure would kill me this time, I didn't know.
Though when I would later ask my next caretaker and savior about it he would mention a kind of ointment as well as a special band tied tightly around my arm which would fully curb the bleeding that my own improvised bandage could only slightly slow down.
You could say that back then I was a lot like the opposite of my daughter. Having to be helped over and over again with no power whatsoever to repay the people who helped me. And because i wasn't even popular, not a lot of people even wanted to help me when I begged for help.
The new caretaker introduced himself as Father Istom and asked me why I had come here all by myself.
I would have refused if it were anyone else but his outfit and the way he referred to me as "child" in a gentle and soft way made me spill my guts for the first time in my life that night.
I broke down in tears of genuine remorse as I told him everything.
How I had ended up rushing into this house which had been put here specifically to not be found by those untrustworthy city people as he put it.
About the horrible times I stole in the street for no good reason. Even about how when I was very little I had punched someone hard enough to potentially cripple them for the rest of their life. I did not dare to mention that the victim of a punch had bullied me himself since I was still in my own eyes, the only bully.
Unable to stop myself by then I even told him about my own parents and how they'd lost their lives long before their time.
It was as if he already knew half of what I was going to say long before I even said it when he offered me his sympathies by the end of my confession, and praised me saying that confessions were good for my soul.
Its really not necessary for me to prolong a tale which has already run a great length too long by telling you how lucky I felt in that moment as the realisation that I had been saved from certain death twice slowly sunk in as the injury I felt for sure would be my end began to dull.
Also not necessary are the details of how the next short years which I barely remember by now were the happiest I'd ever lived.
Hidden away from the cold and nasty gazes of the town I'd never been particularly fond of and free from the fear of being picked on or bullied, I vowed from that day forth to be a kinder person who saw life with a brighter point of view.
Giving money to the poor and avoiding unnecessary emotions like anger or hatred were just the start of my newfound life goals under Father Istom's comfortable yet strict conditions for me. Any time I lived on by now was borrowed, time I was not supposed to have.
More than ever because of the extraordinary circumstances I had been through though I had yet to celebrate my eighth birthday even by now, I nodded as hard as I could and listened with all my heart during the sermon's my saviour would hold daily for me.
Sermons that blasted the other supposed religions for forgetting the entire purpose and reason of what at least he thought a religion was supposed to do in the first place, and by extension what at least he thought the entire purpose of the short and difficult struggle known as life was meant for.
Sermons that were not in the least afraid to insult the failings he believed that every church in town were guilty off in his eyes.
How he could no longer stand that with all the money the other priest's had managed to collect together to build such grand and impressive monuments which were furnished with such fine decorations like statues and stained glass windows, they could have put it to a far better cause than the misguided one they picked.
How he was appalled with how his fellow robed ministers cared so much more about hunting a so called group called "heretics" than they did about helping the homeless man down the street.
To the former pastor who had long fled to hide here in his old home hidden by trees from the corrupt and greedy town, only one cause was acceptable as a purpose of life.
Only one rule if followed made for an acceptable and pure religion to follow to the end.
A rule that soon became my purpose of living and to this day the one rule I have valued above all others be them laws of justice or otherwise.
The one purpose of religions and by extension life itself for me, was to prevent the loss of life and of happiness.
To always choose the option that would result in not only the least loss of the valuable treasure of life, but also the least loss of happiness.
Anyone whose goal was minimising pain while maximising happiness for others he told me, was to be valued as a close friend regardless of their gender, name or background.
It was the first rule in the religious scriptures he would read to me each morning. The religious scriptures of his newfound faith which he had found which he warned me was highly frowned upon by the many despite its growing popularity.
A faith that did not believe in the man in the sky who could do absolutely anything.
"If he could do anything. Why is there so much suffering and unfairness in this world?" he sometimes shouted when he was particularly angry.
Fluttershy the pony
Father Istom's new goddess and by extension my goddess was a pony.
A beautiful and very friendly pony in a magical world not far from the one we lived in.
A pony whose immortality came not from her immunity to mortal dangers such as fear and injury, but from the selfless acts she lived to perform which would make her well remembered and spoken about long after her inevitable passing.
The pony's name was Fluttershy. Her talent being her kindness and determination to always sacrifice herself for the betterment of others even when they had been the worst they possibly could toward her.
Liked by few and laughed at by many for her apparent uselessness, Fluttershy's demure and gentle nature never wavered once.
Just as eager to help the mean and nasty stallion that had kicked her in the face as she was any other pony, Fluttershy''s role as a deity was to serve as an example of how every person should have been trying to act in both times of joy and sadness.
"My little pony" was the title given to the books that Father Istom now used as his new series of what equated to us as bibles and psalms. The copies he had were very old since the entirety of the remaining copies had long been burned by the government for reasons unknown.
"Perhaps they wanted to stop us from gaining the hope and strength we all needed to begin to put our lives back together", was his only guess when I asked him why anyone would want to burn books this useful and motivational.
...
Shego had to try very hard not to laugh. But the very instant the slightest snicker erupted from the villain's lips, Ann's until now calm expression quickly replaced itself with a look of pure fury that threatened consequences beyond imagination if Shego didn't cease her rudeness at once.
A furious glare that would make even the most morally bankrupt serial killers that Shego had faced in her hero days back in team Go, look like saints in comparison.
...
Russia 1992.
I would gladly have spent the rest of my life living with just a good and simple man and going nowhere else.
There was a stream nearby full of fresh and clean water as well as plenty of animals that were as tasty as they were strong and healthy so we never really needed to go into town.
Most of our days were spent in a similar way. Another story of Fluttershy the pony in the morning followed by morning chores, be it tidying the house or going into the woods to find more food. Having spent most of my life sneaking around house to house like a shadow had made me a very good hunter and it was easy for us to gather enough food for both of us.
The house the pastor let me live in wasn't exactly expensive but it was warm and that was all that mattered for me.
He liked me despite me faults and often thought of me as the daughter he never had.
I had eased the loneliness he thought he'd forever be stuck with since the day he left his church and he was definitely happy to have just one follower of his newfound faith which gave us both the reason and strength we needed to pull through our hard but now tolerable lives.
Each prayer to Fluttershy made me feel a little closer to heaven.
We didn't pray to Fluttershy by silently praying and reading a book but instead by dancing in front of a sacred scarecrow and singing songs that encouraged all the sad and unprivileged friends in the world to live another day.
An ode to the magic of friendship, a concept sadly long forgotten in the dark days that we now lived in.
Worse than a incurable disease drifting through the lands and worse than a thousand bloody wars was the lack of friendship as Fluttershy's teachings taught.
A world without friendship was a world where no one trusted each other any more. Where even allies supposed to be on the same side as each other fought as if they were enemies all because of a lack of understanding.
That moral made all the more meaningful when Father Istom called me friend and begged me to run away one day when he had heard on a rare trip to the town, that war had been declared. I was given few details before that man handed me a bag and told me to get far away from here.
He gave me rough directions to the nearest station and reassured me that there was at least enough money for me in the bag to buy a ticket to somewhere near enough to the beach where hopefully I could somehow board a ship that would take me to some better land than this.
When I asked him to come with me, he only smiled as he told me that it was time for him to stop hiding like a coward and to prove that even if he had been a terrible person all his life, at least he practised what he preached.
The loss of life would be great, he claimed, and the armies were burning down everything in their path as they approached this very town slaughtering every Russian in their way. Especially children.
"Goodbye Ann. May Fluttershy be with you." he intoned as he waved me away desperately.
Knowing that he only wanted what was best for me and that I had made promises which I couldn't keep if I was to die here and now, I ran into the woods and didn't look back. This time without crying.
Sure enough I soon arrived at a small yet very decorated little building by a set of rails where with a heavy heart I handed over the few notes I found in the bag.
My last thoughts as I sat on the nearly empty train which was empty except for me and a couple of uniformed guards who were at least kind enough to hand me a sandwich and a glass of hot coffee after I presented my ticket, I took the time to recite to myself one more time the three most important commandments that I had promised both myself and Father Istom.
Commandment one: Always choose the lesser loss of life when it comes to a choice. And if it comes to a choice where either you or another person has to be sacrificed, then fight to be the one who takes the hit.
And Commandment two: A lot can be said about a person from how they treat those that do nothing for them.
...
"Commandment three is the one I think you should learn Shego. And since I can see you're clearly very tired by now, I think here is a good time to end my story which I can't thank you enough for listening." Ann gratefully announced to a by now yawning and rapidly blinking Shego.
"And what's that?" yawned a very tired yet also very affected Shego who was still trying to stomach half the story Ann had just told her about how the successful mother of three hadn't exactly had it easy either in her own youth. It was becoming incredibly difficult for Shego to hate Kim's mother if not Kim's entire family, but Shego was still determined to do her best not to let this newfound connection she and Ann"Dr" Possible shared to stop her from brutally attacking the red haired agent that was still her sworn enemy the next time they met.
This didn't change a thing, Shego insisted to herself as violently as she could.
"I know you haven't exactly had it easy, Shego and neither have I. But please just try to realise one thing before you go back to beating up my daughter who cares about you as much as I do."
Shego just yawned as she stretched and tried to settle herself to rest. She had heard enough for one night. Had Ann been paying close attention she might have seen a single tear slide down the green skinned mercenary's cheeks when Ann in a pleading whisper spoke her final words for the night before leaving her clearly very exhausted and injured patient to rest for now.
"The end doesn't always justify the means. Shego. Think about if all this is what you really want. You can get what you want through not hurting others."