~Part 4 (of 4) of Shego's origin story. In which I attempt to answer the age-old question: Why Drakken?
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! :D~
Okay, so this is getting monotonous.
And Shego had never done monotony well.
For the past couple days, it had been as predictable as a sitcom: show up at a villain's lair to interview. Demonstrate qualifications. Get hit on. Get mistaken for a secretary. Get disregarded. Even meting out the well-deserved tail-kickings was becoming way too routine.
Shego pulled back HenchCo's magazine to peer closer at the ad in the dim hotel lights. Dr. Drakken, notorious mad scientist, seeks sidekick and/or bodyguard to help him with his ultimate goal of world domination!
Dr. Drakken. Far as supervillain names went, that was actually kinda nicely ominous. At least it wasn't your standard Go City I-can-guess-your-schtick-without-even-looking-at-you. He lived on a "haunted" island in the Caribbean.
Housekeeping would be here in an hour, but Shego went ahead and yanked the sheets back up and tucked them into the corners of the mattress just to have SOMETHING to do with her hands besides ignite them.
If this didn't work out. . . she didn't even wanna think about it.
Sure, she was still in contact with HenchCo, who were either not smart enough to figure out that she'd been the one to make off with their absentee helicopter or too desperate for a decent client to care. Hench was still oozing slimy encouragement, telling her that "all was not lost" - as if he were Shakespeare or something. That there was a villain seminar coming up, and surely she would catch somebody's eye there.
That was exactly what Shego was afraid of. Why would she have wanted to attend a how-to on stuff she already knew inside and out just to be in the company of a bunch of creepos? And why would she want to be stuck to Hench's imported-leather soles like a wad of gum for the rest of her career?
Shego snagged her key card and slipped it into her leg pouch, which you'd need to have kamikaze instincts to even approach. At the door, she stopped and turned back to give the room one last, lip-curled look. With any luck, she'd have a job by tonight, have some money coming in, maybe be able to rent one of those cute little apartments she'd always wanted.
Nah, strike that - I'll get that cute little apartment no matter what. Shego's feet slapped down the hall, out the door, and across the parking lot in their own miniature catfights. Even if I have to rob a bank myself.
Her oldest brother's head-wag of disapproval popped into Shego's brain as clearly as the pictures on the jumbo-screen in Go Tower that had been one of his lamer ideas. Shego, I thought I raised you better than that, she could almost hear him saying - with the sadness that always turned her stomach into a pickle jar.
But now Shego grinned to herself as she climbed into the pilot's seat. All of Hego's mom-and-dad-and-apple-pie-even-though-we-don't-get-any-of-the-above ideals had laid down a pretty solid framework, all right. The perfect mold for creating a villain.
Shego had always loved irony.
And she'd always wanted to visit the Caribbean.
Dr. Drakken's "haunted" island turned out to be about the size of Go City High, but you couldn't miss the boxy shape of his lair, popping in silhouette like an amped-up version of some little boy's pillow fort. Shego had tripped over a few too many of those in her growing-up years.
Even at that, Shego's heart still jumped, ever so slightly, as the lair towered into focus. It was immense and menacingly dark, with only a few bright windows peeking out. And, of course, the whole thing stood over a sheer cliff that led straight down into a roiling ocean. If there were such a thing as ghosts, this would be the type of place where they hung out.
Shego liked this guy's style already.
And the fact that he had a more-or-less-paved runway carved into the grungy sand that ran parallel to the building. Shego eased the helicopter to a stop on it, cut the engine, and inspected her hair in the glass door while she worked on settling her expression like cement.
She had no idea what she was about to get herself into. Not that she couldn't find her way out if it came to that. But - dang - she hoped it wouldn't.
Then again, she'd been stupid enough to hope before.
Shego swung herself out the door and strolled around the building, looking for a way in. The place was studded with tons of doors - most of them knob-free and bolted into the wall, easy for an untrained eye to skip over - not to mention skylights and air ducts. She was about to just give up and pick an entry point at random when she tripped over a stiff straw welcome mat that'd been defaced to read, YOU'RE NOT WELCOME. GO AWAY.
A little immature. But I can appreciate the sentiment.
Shego slowly lifted her head and found herself staring straight at a roundish object with a long raised slit in the middle stuck to the wall. It looked more like a dragon's eyeball than a doorbell, as far as Shego was concerned. She rang it anyway and followed it up with a knock.
Some Mozart-wannabe notes trilled out of the eyeball. That was followed by a clamber and a thud from inside.
Well, THAT sounds promising.
"Who's there?" a man called on the other side of the door.
It suddenly seemed like the stupidest question in the world, and Shego couldn't handle another moron. When her "Pixie Scouts" came out ripe with sarcasm, she could have passed out in relief.
Footsteps pounded toward the door. The knob was fumbled, and then the door swung open.
The guy who answered the door was medium-sized and baby-faced, nobody she would've given a second look - if it weren't for the sunny-sky-blue of his skin.
Shego's jaw wasn't even tempted to drop. Half the people she knew looked like they all belonged in a box of crayons, too.
With his gaze glassy and faraway, his spiky black ponytail boasting a DIY haircut, and the oversize lab goggles resting on top of his head, the man appeared every inch the mad scientist. Definitely not the too-neat Dementor.
And right now, that 'do was cocked to one side, studying her. "Where's your beret?" he said.
Shego felt herself blink. "What?"
"And aren't you a little old to be a Pixie Scout?"
He was so not serious.
But the straight, expectant line of his body told Shego he was. She facepalmed, and a groan slipped out.
"Not that you look old, ma'am!" the man blurted. He sounded so apologetic, Shego spread her fingers to find his flailing at the air. Social outcast was practically printed on his smooth forehead.
"Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Stop." Shego held both hands up like roadblocks. "Relax. I'm not a Pixie Scout. That was sarcasm."
She seriously thought the guy was going to melt into a puddle. "Are you Dr. Drakken?" she added.
He gave her a suspicious squint. "Who wants to know?" he growled.
Shego couldn't resist an eye-roll this time. "I do." She pulled the magazine from under her arm and flipped it open, jabbing a finger at the ad she'd circled. "I'm answering his ad."
To Shego's surprise, the man broke into a smile so wide and bright it could've blinded you. If there'd been even a trace of malice lurking behind it, he would've had the Joker-thing down pat. As it was, she wouldn't have pegged him as a supervillain at all, despite the getup.
"Yep, that's me," the man said, sticking out a hand that was strangely small for the size of his arms. "Come on in, Miss. . ."
His big dark eyes stayed on her face, didn't roam the length of her figure.
Shego let herself exhale. "Shego," she said, accepting his hand. "Just call me Shego."
"Right! Well!" Dr. Drakken pulled back from the shake and bowed low in the creepy doorway. "Certainly, come in, make yourself at home. . ." Now the grin turned a shade of menacing to match the surroundings. "Welcome to my evil lair."
For such a lanky-looking guy, he had a heck of a gravel voice. One Shego hadn't really noticed when he was being a doof about Pixie Scouts. He could raise goose bumps on some do-gooders with that alone.
Drakken squeezed away from the door to let her step inside. Shego's boot had just crossed the unwelcome mat when Hego seemed to plant his big dopey self right into her path, hands rammed on his hips.
Stop right there, sister! he would've been exclaiming right about now - or something similar. Something all drama-with-cheese. How many times have I told you never to enter a supervillain's lair without backup? Yes, even now that you're seeking evil employment! You don't know this man! Who knows what -
Shego marched straight through his memory and slammed the door shut on it. For a second, all she could see was Dr. Drakken standing beside her, balancing his weight on a foot that also looked weirdly tiny, arms thrown out so that he resembled some Broadway actor. Then her eyes adjusted enough to the lack of light that she could see the color scheme wasn't pitch-black after all - it was maroon, dark as dried blood, somehow that much scarier and more professional.
The floors might've had a shine once upon a time. Now they were cloudy and gurgling with green slime that raced under in tanks underneath them. Drakken picked his way expertly over them, still grinning, sweeping his arm out with a cry of "BEHOLD!"
Stark shadows climbed the walls, all of them dwarfing the mad scientist who stood smugly inside them. At the other end of the room, a door split jaggedly in half to show off a vaguely lit stone hallway that no one had bothered to smother in carpet.
It may have been the first time since preschool that Shego had felt at home.
He definitely had plenty of weapons on his hands. There was a wicked-looking doohickey lurking in every room they passed through. Most of them were in various stages of assembly - or just plain broken - but even then, you couldn't miss their touch-me-and-die potential.
Shego was already sold in that department. She got busy on keeping that from showing.
Dr. Drakken's face, on the other hand, was wide-open and readable even in the half-light. Shego picked up every tic jumping in his mega-chin, every hint of ruthlessness that curved his mouth - and every surge of excitement that washed all of it away and left him the spitting image of a puppy who'd just been let out of his crate for the first time all day.
Drakken ushered her into one of the labyrinth of rooms and gestured wildly to a half-formed arrangement of metal that reminded Shego of a paper doll on steroids. "This one I'm especially proud of. Behoooollllldd -" he drawled about six syllables too many into the word - "the Indestructisuit!"
Shego took a moment to snip the snipe out of her voice and then said, "Body armor?"
The smooth cheeks sagged under the black circles too old for them. "Well, yes, I suppose. If you want to refer to it in such mundane terms," Drakken said. "Once construction of the Indestructisuit is complete, I will be impervious to anything - bullets, acid, tranquilizers - you name it, it can't hurt me!"
"Did you get that idea from Iron Man?" Don't smirk. DON'T smirk.
"Perhaps." Drakken wiped his hands on the fabric of his lab coat. The thing was already so splotched with chemical stains and creased into I-slept-in-this wrinkles that it would've been pretty hard to dirty it further. "Rest assured, however, this is all patented Dr. Drakken technology. Thing is, I've been having a devil of a time finding enough metal to complete construction."
Did he just say devil of a time?
Shego ironed her next words flat before she said them - "Could you maybe use some of the metal from rays and stuff that, uh, didn't work out?" It was risky, but the guy had the hunched back of someone who was pretty tight with failure.
Drakken stunned her with a smile. His big eyes were a lot more genial than the grim eyebrow suggested. "Excellent idea; very good, Shego! The problem there is that most my old Doomsday devices aren't made of indestructible materials - otherwise, why would they have broken in the first place? And once they're gone" - he sniffled as if he were mourning a pet hamster - "there's not usually a lot that's salvageable."
"Makes sense," Shego said.
"Ah, but fear not, Shego!" Drakken bounced his left index finger off his right and then swung it up to tap his temple. "I, Dr. Drakken, am far too much of a genius to be bested by a quandary like this!"
Phew. I was getting a little worried there.
Drakken stretched his fingertips out about three inches from her own, and then danced them playfully back to his side in a wave. Shego followed him to the room next door, where an enormous silver-washed magnet was suspended from the floor in an observatory-style seat, its prongs poking defiantly out of an open skylight.
"This - " Drakken poked his chest out like he thought he was Rambo or somebody - "is the Magnet of Malice. It can collect any unused metal in a three-hundred-mile radius."
"How does it know the metal's not being used?" Shego asked.
"Oh, it doesn't." Drakken winked at her. It was probably supposed to be suave. Came across more as though he'd pepper-sprayed himself. "But once it's in the Magnet of Malice's clutch, they certainly won't be using it any longer, will they? So far I've collected so many trash bins and golf clubs, and the other day I even snagged a government satellite! That could come in handy!"
He wasn't playful anymore. The shadowy possibilities that fell across his face ran dark and deep. They buzzed a thrill through Shego.
"No kidding," she said.
"If only I could figure out what to do with it. . ." The shadow scattered, and Drakken shrugged the clearly-padded shoulders so that they nearly reached his protruding ears. "I have so many options and can't think of a blasted thing!"
Ah. Yeah. The whole too-good-to-be-true clause. Shego tried to keep her sighing to a minimum.
Made easier by the fact that she didn't see a lick of surrender in Dr. Drakken. The dude took to pacing as if he were having espresso wired into his veins. A guy this determined - she could throw him a bone.
"Have you ever thought about mind control?" Shego suggested.
Drakken's head snapped up and gave her an I'm-impressed nod. "Brilliant, brilliant idea!" he crowed. His head slumped down to meet his collarbone. "Unfortunately, I have yet to perfect a mind-control device."
"But!" The head shot back up again. How in the world did he not have whiplash? "I have been devising a signal that will knock out every cell phone on the planet!"
Shego had to grin. Nah, it wouldn't win them world domination, but the annoyance factor was far enough up there to be worth it.
Drakken returned it with one his own - which looked like it didn't know how it had gotten there or where it was going next. Shego sucked in a heap of air so she could ask the no-doy thing without snarking. "Do you have a cell phone?"
"Yes, of course, I have a cell phone. Everyone has a cell phone these days. . . " Drakken waved at her, but his hand froze in mid-dismiss. The glaze that had fallen over his entire body visibly cleared into a focus. "Ahhh. . . yes. I should wire mine to be immune, shouldn't I?"
Shego shrugged. "If that's how it works, then, yeah."
Drakken blinked, then cricked his neck with a sound that was also older than his face looked. He also ran a hand over the wild spikes as if to tame them, but to no avail. Shego had a feeling they had a mind all their own. "Yes! I'll get right to that! I'll do yours, too, if you'll remind me," he added.
As an afterthought. Still felt good, though.
"Oh, but you haven't seen the best part yet!" Drakken cried. He'd reached a level of glowing that'd put professional tour guides to same. "Step into my office. I believe you'll find it quite impressive."
The end of his sentence curled up in expectation. Shego let him show her down the remainder of the hall and prepared herself for the worst as he flung open a scabbed-up door. His "behold!" went way quicker this time.
Well, with her expectations in a ditch, the place couldn't help but surpass 'em. Not exactly spick-and-span. Everything across his desk - from the spill of papers, to the empty, tipped-over glass flaked at the bottom with crusting milk - stopped just short of sloppy. There was something more easygoing, almost-cozy about it.
Or woulda been, if it weren't for the algae-green that glowed between every crack in the wood flooring. And the signs of wacko experiments everywhere - here a battery part bigger than Hego's entire CAR, there a haphazardly-thrown pair of safety goggles. Some satisfyingly deadly-looking chemical concoction bubbled in the curvy links of a doodad straight out of Honors Chemistry. Shego just hoped those flailing elbows wouldn't send it flying. This was a pretty nice lair, and she'd hate to see it burn to the ground before she even got the job.
Drakken sank into a chair in front of the almost-slop on his desk. He looked taller in it somehow, even though the handles extended ridiculously high toward the ceiling and then curved into devil horns at the very top. The corners of his mouth curved to match it, and the goofy mist evaporated from his face.
"This room is second only to my lab," Drakken announced. "And I'm very - err, wait, nnggh. Grrk! Um, should I have offered you something to drink when I saw you in? We have milk, lemonade, iced tea, and - err - water - "
Shego barely withheld a snort. "I don't suppose you have stuff for martinis?"
The curve fell into an O, and Shego let out a much-needed burst of laughter. "I'm teasing."
"Oh, come now, Shego." Drakken shot her a look that had are-you-even-of-age? written at its edges, but the sparkle was back in his eyes as he pretended to chide her with his finger. "Pixie Scouts aren't allowed to drink on duty."
Shego didn't answer that. She just noticed that her muscles were drifting closer to relaxed than they had been in weeks.
"Water's fine," Shego said. Just listening to the guy yak was scraping her throat.
Drakken hopped out of his horned chair and down the hall the opposite direction, toward what Shego guessed was the kitchen. There were sounds of chaos and ice being dropped, followed by a gravel-shout of, "Ohhhh, Snapdoodles!"
Shego bit the inside of her cheek. The dude swore like an eighty-five-year old woman.
Drakken finally made it back into his "office" - hopping on one foot - and slid an almost-overflowing glass of water across the desk to Shego. She picked it up and eyed him over the rim. This was the part where she took charge.
And she'd better do it fast. She was almost starting to hope.
"Okay, before we get started, I have a couple questions to ask you." Shego leveled her gaze at Drakken until he nodded, blinking at full speed. "First of all - do you expect me to be your secretary?"
Drakken's brow went into wedges. "Why on Earth would I need a secretary?"
Shego glanced over at the about-as-tidy-as-the-Wegos'-sock-drawer snarl of papers on his desk, and something sarcastic nipped at her tongue. She held it back, though. This Drakken guy seemed pretty decent and definitely DIDN'T seem like a chauvinist, so she wasn't about to let him have it with both barrels.
Yet.
"Okay, number two: do you expect me to help with the housework?"
Drakken frowned even deeper. "To a degree. I mean, when you can. We all pitch in around here, I and all of the henchmen, so you'd be no different."
Well, it wasn't the answer she'd been hoping for. But at least it wasn't a gender issue.
"Third - those things under the floor? Yeah, I need to know what they are."
Drakken straightened his posture and curled another grin her way. "Those are shark tanks. For the quick and handy disposal of my enemies."
There was something borderline-vicious in the way he said it. A nice surprise.
"And number four: if I asked for a demonstration of those tanks or any of these weapons, would you use them on me?" A picture of Duff Killigan exploded into her mind like one of his stupid little golf balls, and Shego ground her teeth down hard.
Everything on Drakken did a full hike toward his hairline. "Absolutely not!" he cried - with a dainty little gasp. "Even supervillains have some standards! Why would I do that to a potential employee? Especially a lady."
THERE it was. Shego gritted down harder.
Before she could lash a word at him, though, Drakken's eyes were already cringing. "Ngggh. Should I not have said that?" he said. The fingertips began their dance again. "Are you Woman's Lib? That's good, good, not a problem! But my mother did raise me to be a gentleman."
It was so totally dorky, it was almost charming. Shego felt only the corners of her lips twitch upward.
Shego slanted back against the wood. "Okay then. I guess that'll do for now."
"Wonderful!" Drakken said. Head-bob. "Now. . . I'd like to proceed, if I may."
"Knock yourself out."
"Thank you. Um. . . what are your qualifications?" Drakken massaged his wrists as if he were the one here for a job interview.
"I'm taking college by correspondence." Shego straightened her spine so that it matched the chair's. "I don't have my degree yet, if that's what you mean."
For an instant, Drakken froze as if she'd just dropped an ice cube down his shirt. The laugh that finally spewed from him was like that truck engine that some show-off just had to throttle at every red light. "Pshaw, who needs a degree?" he said. "It's not indicative of your intelligence at all!"
Huh. Not what she would've expected from someone as I'd-be-right-at-home-in-a-pocket-protector as this guy.
"Now, errr, gnn, which position are you applying for? Sidekick or bodyguard?" Drakken said.
See, that was probably the question he shoulda asked FIRST. There was no sign of Dementor's finesse.
Shego considered that for a second. She didn't know exactly what a "sidekick" did, but it had to be head-and-shoulders above "secretary." It definitely wouldn't be a bumming-around job. This Dr. Drakken guy obviously had enough energy for about twenty mad scientists. Even now, the dude was squirming around in his seat like a little kid who'd had to pee for the last two hours.
But bodyguard? As in, a paid-by-the-punch job?
"Either or. I'd love to be both," Shego said. She let her lip snake up, just a notch, at the corner. "Believe it or not, I can fight."
"Believe it or not, I believe you." Drakken's eyes crossed, like he'd just blown out his own brain circuits, and then he chuckled. "Would you mind giving me a demonstration?"
Would she mind getting Coco Banana's autograph?
Shego scanned the room and let her gaze wilt on the Sesame-Street-wannabe puppet thing propped against one cavern-type wall. A dead face - Xs for eyes and a flopping-out tongue - had been crayoned onto its cloth head.
"You expect me to fight that?" she said.
Drakken flipped his head toward Shego. The wild spikes of hair looked ready to take flight. She stifled a smirk. "Wha?" turned into "Ohhhh" as he followed her point. "No, that's for my henchmen's practice. They, err, can't hit a moving target yet."
Shego swallowed the Can YOU? Even from here, she could see that Dr. Drakken had the upper-body strength of a Polly Pocket.
He didn't look like much to contend with - but, then, she probably didn't either. It had worked to her advantage several times; Shego could teach this Dr. D how to make it work to his.
"No, I'll have a simulation whipped up for you in a jiffy. Won't take but a moment!" Drakken sang out, his fingers clacking on the keyboard that Shego wished weren't so darn close to the next Black Death - or whatever Drakken was making in his chemistry set. He seemed the super-brainy, not-much-common-sense type, so she would sort of counterbalance that.
Shego was surprised by what a realistic replica of a Global Justice agent flickered into existence in front of her, brandishing a sickening good-guy smugness and a laser-blaster that Shego was all too happy to dodge the first two blasts of. It came as natural as breathing to her, and that left her mind to work like a VCR.
Straight up hand-to-hand combat. No plasma. Not right now. That super-nerd might put you behind glass.
"Now, this being a simulation and all, no blows he lands can hurt you." Drakken shot her a lopsided look. "Of course, it can be quite enjoyable to clutch your heart and fall to the floor and do a dramatic death scene."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Shego ducked and sped and sprung herself back up when she was two hairs short of a collision with the agent. His start gave her time to sweep his feet right out from under him. Shego wrapped it up with a kick to the face that made the hologram spit a tooth, gore-free, onto the floor.
Her muscles flexed in a silent cry of, Oh, yeah!
Shego glanced back at Drakken, who took a moment to throw his expression together. If that was supposed to be an enigma, he didn't belong anywhere near a game of poker. She'd obviously knocked his probably-worn-straight-through socks right off.
"Yes. Right." There was a throat-clearing, and Drakken's "Very impressive display" didn't SOUND like it had been dragged out kicking and screaming. "You may take your seat."
Shego dropped back into it. Across from her, Drakken folded his fingers into steeples and peered at her over the tops of them. It couldn't hide the arrogance in his eyes - arrogance slathered on over about six different complexes.
"Are you any good with machines?" He rolled his hand at a pile of thingamabobs in the corner. "Or chemicals?"
"Hate to break it to you, pal, but I wouldn't know any of those things from a trash compactor," Shego said. "And chemicals - I can shoot baking-soda-and-vinegar bottle rockets. That's about it."
It was a weird time for Drakken to smile, but Shego wasn't all that shocked that he did. "Wonderful! I'd be a bit touchy about being dethroned as the scientific brains behind this outfit! Tell me, is that why you decided to apply for a job as a sidekick rather than strike out on your own as a villain?"
Shego waited for a zing of irritation that never showed up. Dude - was that actual faith in her she was hearing?
"I guess you could say that. That and I don't really have any schemes of my own." Just saying "schemes" made her feel as lame as Avairius. "I mean, I definitely wanna watch the world suffer. I'm just not super-picky about how it happens." Shego finished with a cold shrug.
The arrogance parted to make way for a wicked gleam Shego wouldn't have banked on. "I love the way you think, Shego," Drakken said.
That was new. And better than Shego would ever admit to herself.
Drakken did some more yammering, none of which Shego caught beyond, "The world will be ours to mold like bread dough!"
She almost couldn't believe how easy it was to picture this self-appointed madman with his sleeves hiked up to his elbows, kneading a wad of flour and yeast like that stereotypical happy housewife that had probably never existed.
"Next question," Drakken said. "Have you ever broken into a building?"
"Tons of times." He didn't need to know it'd been on "hero" work. "And I've never tripped an alarm."
"Excellent!" Drakken scribbled something on the paper that happened to be closest to him and pointed the felt tip at Shego. "Now, my most recent plot, to incite an eruption on Mt. St. Helens that only I would have the power to quell, was foiled -" the hands dropped to his lap - "when I was surrounded by a convoy of Global Justice agents. I couldn't reach my Gravitomic Ray, and the volcano was outside the radius of my remote. What would you have done in such a situation?"
Shego didn't even have to blink. "I'd calculate the odds. If I knew I could take 'em down, I'd go straight into butt-kicking. And if I knew there were too many, I'd mow down the weakest link and get the heck outta there. Grab the nearest vehicle - car, boat, helicopter."
"You can pilot a helicopter?"
"Flew one here." Shego tipped back in her chair again, glad that the long legs she'd spent her whole adolescence tripping over touched the floor. "You should learn; it'd make your job way easier."
The guy planted his hands somewhere on a body that was about eighty percent torso. "As a matter of fact, I have learned!" Head-snap. Nonsense bluster.
Shego took that opportunity to continue sizing this Drakken guy up. Obviously, he had an excess of crazy ideas and lacked even so much as a clue as to how to get them off the ground.
This could work.
"Question Three," Drakken said. "Should I be captured and you manage to escape, will you come and break me out of jail at your earliest possible convenience?"
"Uh, yeah. I kinda need this job." Shego heard the peak in her voice. "And what if the roles were flip-flopped? You'd come get me, right?"
"Without question!" The jumbo-jaw tweaked up as if she'd offended him. Shego didn't miss the neediness splattered on his face.
"All right, moving on," Shego said. She gave her fingers the wave she used to dry her nail polish. "What's next?"
"Next - well, as I'm sure you've noticed, this is a very large lair." Drakken did a chest-thrust that almost sprawled him across the desktop. "So large that I can have my own quarters, the henchmen can have theirs, and. . . you can have yours?"
"Yeah, I'm getting an apartment." Not ALL of Hego's lectures had zero basis in reality. Although she would've loved to have seen Brother Dearest's reaction if she'd accepted.
Sage head-bob that might've worked on someone who didn't give off a fifth-grade aura. "Yes. . . well. . . then. . . You can just use them for extra storage space, or for - for privacy. Your quarters will be completely separate from the henchmen's, and they'll be forbidden from entering. Yours, not theirs - of course. And, I mean, the henchmen are a bunch of big oafs, but they're not - they would never - gnnng -"
Drakken's knife-sharp cheekbones were the color of two strawberry Starbursts. Part of Shego wanted to egg him on, but a bigger part totally did not want to have this conversation, so she let him compose himself - as best as he could - turn the paper around to face her, and say, "Is this an acceptable starter salary?"
The numbers were scrawled sideways, leaning on each other for support. It was about half of what Dementor had offered her.
"Yeah," Shego said.
Drakken tapped the pen against his nose, leaving behind a smear of ink that Shego decided not to tell him about just yet. "Is there anyone you would have me grant immunity. . . to. . . when I conquer the world?"
Shego tucked her fists out of sight and clenched them. Tried to squeeze the life out of the images floating around in her head - the purple face, the dead-pale one that'd turn purple if he knew what she was doing this second, the two little ones that were just starting to lose their kid-chub. She could almost smell the boy-sweat, strong enough to gag an elephant.
"Could I get back to you on that?" she said.
Everything sinister evaporated from Drakken's smile for a sec. "Absolutely," he said. Wasn't hard to see those lips were barely holding back a thousand questions, but at least he didn't needle at her on the spot.
Come to think of it, this entire interview had pretty much been a string of "at least"s. But they were some honkin' huge ones.
"We done?" Shego asked. She'd meant to sound cocky and landed just half a beat off.
Drakken didn't seem to notice. "Almost. You know, overall, I think this has gone very well." The ponytail bobbed again. "Shego, you'd be an asset to my evil fam - team. You're an excellent fighter. And you seem to have a good head on your shoulders."
Imagine that. A guy who was interested in what she had above her shoulders.
"I do have one last question." One Polly-Pocket finger poked the air. "This is probably going to sound a little weird."
Shego let her mouth twitch. "No weirder than anything else you've asked me."
"But - do you have any superpowers or anything? I've heard of villains with powers, and I'm just curious. . ."
It wasn't any challenge to keep her face blank. Way below the surface, only her spirit grinned. Ear-to-ear.
Drakken's fingers had turned from a steeple to one of those pull-back-the-first-ball-and-get-the-last-one-jumping machines that he no doubt had a whole collection of, and Shego knew at that point she wasn't about to become a museum piece. Not that Dr. Drakken was probably above that, but that body language was as disgustingly honest as Hego's. Drakken would come to hate that about himself, if he didn't already.
Shego exaggerated a sigh. "Does this count?" She raised one hand, flared it to life - it was as easy as flipping a light switch by now - and waited for the toothy glimmer to dash her way again.
Instead, Drakken stared at her with fear-swollen eyes. "Your hand is on fire!" he cried.
"Oh my gosh, it is!" Shego looked at her hand as if she'd never seen it before and gave a mock gasp. "Imagine that!"
Drakken propelled his chair back across the room and launched himself from it before it even hit the wall, stumbling over untied tennies that didn't mesh with the rest of the evil-nerd outfit. "I'll call 9-1-1! What's their number?"
Really. He was seriously about to bring a team of EMTs to his secret lair.
Shego did a triple backflip to land in front of him, raised the flame to his eye level, and switched it back off. "Whoa! Whoa! Drakken! Relax. It's okay."
The big brow furrowed. "Your hand. . ."
"Yeah, I can do that. It's my power. I knew it was doing that, 'kay?" she said.
"More sarcasm?"
It eked out as a childish question, and Shego couldn't help but grunt. "It's kinda my native tongue."
After another second, Drakken victory-pumped his arms like he'd just scored a touchdown - though for the life of her, Shego couldn't picture him within five miles of a football field. "It's wonderful!" he said. "Between my superbrains and your superpowers, Shego, we'll make an unbeatable team! If, uh, that is, you decide to work for me."
Something about that slunk up Shego's backbone and swiveled to go right back down. "Yeah, but don't forget - I got some brains myself, D," she said, careful to keep her struck nerve out of it. Unless Drakken could somehow see her neck hairs bristling, he wouldn't have a clue.
"Of course I won't forget." Head-bob after apologetic head-bob. "And I really prefer Dr. Drakken."
Shego picked up on an aggravated huff at the end of it and dangled it with another shrug. "Dr. D., whatever."
Something muttered under Drakken's breath. His arms slouched at his sides until he looked as puppet-like as the GJ dummy Shego suddenly couldn't stand the sight of.
"I will agree with you on one thing, though, Drakken," Shego said. She flicked her plasma back on, took a second to warm it up to its deadliest, and slashed the dummy's head straight off its stupid little cloth neck.
It wasn't a holding-back slice. That thing sailed across the room and stopped Drakken smack in the middle of his "What's tha -?" He let out a baritone-screech and flailed his hands in front of his face. The head smacked into them with neatness Shego suspected wouldn't have worked if he'd planned it.
Shego let herself smile. "I think we'd make a great team."
Drakken gazed at her with unabashed awe on his face.
Hmm. . . the guy did show signs of working brain cells, not that Shego would ever tell him, but there had to be somebody around to keep him from walking off cliffs and getting tricked by every e-mail scam in circulation. Had at least some instincts to shield his face when you threw a projectile at it, even if those teeny-tiny hands made it pretty ineffective.
His needs were, like, tailor-made for Shego's skills. And she had to confess she liked that.
"So. . . is the interview over, then?" Drakken asked.
He was really bad at this.
"Well, do you have any more questions for me?" Shego said.
Drakken shook his head. "Then it's over," he said - thankfully before she had to spell THAT out for him, too. "Will I be hearing from you again?"
Dementor and Falsetto and the rest of them would've sooner worn paper sacks than that vulnerable, puppy-with-separation-anxiety look. It was almost enough to make a person wanna trust Drakken - provided "trust" were a switch you could still flip.
Shego hoisted up her bag from the spot where she'd dropped it. "Probably."
"Then I must say, you conducted yourself excellently today! Wonderful meeting you, Shego." Drakken began to pad around for the nerd-goggles he must've forgotten were resting on top of his shaggy mess of hair. "Now if you'll excuse me, I must return to my plot to hijack the human growth hormone."
Man. This guy was driven. Shego made another mental note: won't have to cattle-prod his rear into gear.
She took pity on him. "They're on your head, Dr. D."
"Wha -? Oh. Thank you." A pane of glass had already formed over each of Drakken's eyes before he popped the goggles back over them. "Can you show yourself out?"
"Um, how about no? This place is like an ant farm."
Drakken yanked the goggles out of place again and turned his mildly-ticked-off gaze to hers. It had been all over the place during the interview, but the only other part of her it had strayed to was her burning hand.
"Of course." Drakken creaked the door to his "office" open and led her back down the hallway that could've been stolen from a horror park. At one point, he stepped on a shoelace and yanked the shoe completely off - and instead of bothering to put it back on, he hopped on one foot the rest of the way, muttering the whole time about defective shoelaces.
This guy was at least entertaining. As Shego turned and walked away, she felt a tiny twitch crook the corner of her mouth.
And she left feeling like she'd just splurged on an especially cleansing facial.
The sky was turning pink over the horizon by the time Shego arrived back at the hotel. She climbed from the helicopter's pilot seat and clicked on the invisibility field Drakken had told her almost all of HenchCo's helicopters came with.
Have to remember to thank him for that. This thing was getting a LITTLE conspicuous.
Once she was settled in her room for the night, Shego pulled out the lopsided handful of papers Drakken had given her right before she took off and all but went over her contract with a magnifying glass. She didn't find any legal loopholes, any cover-my-butt policies. It was almost like Dr. Drakken wasn't suspicious by nature.
They'd have to work on that, too.
Shego shrugged at herself. Dr. D could have made a whole freak show all by himself, but he'd seemed nice enough. As supervillains went.
Not to mention she'd already run the salary and what her droning economics teacher would have called her "current cost of living" through a calculator three times - Shego had the weird image of Drakken beaming with pride every time she plugged in a number. She'd have enough to rent your basic one-bedroom apartment in less than two months.
Barring any unforeseen expenses, Mr. Drone reminded her.
Okay, who turned HIM on? She'd rather listen to Drakken.
Dork that he was, the dude had a lot of raw potential as a villain, and it'd be a shame if he got himself killed or bankrupted or shipped to Alcatraz before he got a fair shot at the whole world-domination gig. As soft as those eyes could be, there'd been an unmistakably warped mind hard at work behind them. And Shego wanted to be there when it came out to play.
She pulled open the nightstand drawer. Buried underneath her textbooks and the placed-by-the-Gideons Bible was the list of names Jack Hench had given her. All of them had been angrily scribbled out - except the last one.
Shego circled it in green Sharpie, smirked her way up to a half-real smile, and snapped off the light.
