"The chase of champions, the pace, the pace.

The speed the need, the need to seed.

The chance to die.

Another dead don't cry, another dead don't cry.

You've still got speed, you'll maybe bleed,

But there's less time.

Less time than before, more speed than before.

You're rich not poor, what are you doing it for?

Want more, want more."

"Dr. D, you're freaking me out."

Drakken stopped screaming and waving his hand, straddling the base of a forty foot upright rocket. The warehouse they were in housed dozens of examples like this one, in different shapes and colours. He dismounted and strolled to where Shego watched his antics like a curious zoogoer.

"But Shego, what about Major Kong?"

Shego gave him a dead look.

"Bah, you're too young anyways."

A side of her lip curled. "That was a bomb, not a rocket."

"Rockets are like bombs, Shego."

"No, rockets are like missiles – actually, I don't care. Just hurry up and choose."

"Thanks to those polymer fingerprint casts and that barebones security crew, I have all the time in the world to choose. And I will take my time, thank you every much."

"Ho boy."

"Do you know how one chooses the perfect rocket?"

"Sort by price high to low, first result."

"Wrong and wronger. I weep for the demise of brick and mortar retail," Drakken said, approaching a long navy blue specimen with sharp fins. "It was a trick question anyways. The rocket chooses you."

"You must be kidding."

"From the pioneering days of Goddard and his almost adiabatic liquid fuel jet design-"

"Please tell me you're kidding."

"-to the genius of von Braun and his designs for the Vergeltungswaffen and Saturn Five - and now even Possible with his over-funded UAE moon 'ferries' - rockets have been building off of human ingenuity to surpass the limitations of their previous incarnations."

"No, enough history. Just pick one already."

"The profundity of my speech is clearly wasted on your perfunctory listening."

"What did I tell you about using words to confuse me?"

"Syllable count isn't what life's about. Littler words get the real feelings out."

"I did not say that. What did I tell you about rhyming?"

"Why must you always break me down, Shego?" Drakken said, caressing a stainless steel fin as he passed, "We have but precious little time on Earth; it should be spent encouraging our fellow humans."

"Alright Ghandi, tone down your spirit quest," Shego said, pointing indiscriminately, "What about this one?"

Drakken hemmed and hawed.

"Seriously? What's wrong with it?" She said, looking where she pointed, "I happen to think it's pretty cute."

"Rockets aren't cute, Shego," Drakken said, storming down the aisle, "They're devastating, and ruthlessly efficient. There is no room in their design for 'cute'."

"But this one's stout and shiny green and look, it even has a a big smiley face on it."

"Well, I'll be," Drakken said, before returning to his search, "Still, novelty rockets are for amateurs. This is the big time."

"But how do you know it didn't choose you?"

"Because I didn't feel it."

"Oh come on, who doesn't feel something for that?"

"Not that one. This one."

"This one? The big steel syringe?"

A sleek metal tube with a tangent ogive nose cone and semi-circle stability fins concluded the aisle, dwarfing the rockets on either side of it.

"Actually," Shego rectified, "It looks like a pencil crayon with balls."

"This one chose me."

"Really? Are you positive?"

Drakken gave Shego a narrow-eyed frown.

"No, yeah, OK. Let's load it up and get out of here," Shego said, "There must be ceiling controls around here somewhere."

"Looking for a way out?"

Drakken and Shego spun to find:

"Kim Possible?"

"And," Ron said, bursting in front and raising his hands over and over as if to bolster a response, "And?"

"New sidekick?" Drakken asked.

"No."

"New haircut?" Shego asked.

"No."

"Updated credentials?" A henchman asked from the background, setting up the harness for the rocket.

"None to note." Ron said proudly. Kim's face fell with embarrassment.

"Then I'd say little miss Possible is outnumbered," Shego said, flaring her fists and pouncing forward to engage, "Drakken, Find that ceiling control."

"If you want to steal that rocket, you have to get past me first," Ron said, striking an offensive pose that accidentally engaged a large button on the panel behind him. The ceiling split apart and lethargically rolled open.

"Ron," Kim admonished, jumping and climbing the steel structure with Shego on her tail.

"Don't worry, I can fix it," Ron said, smothering the control panel like a pianist glissandoing. Alarm lights flashed. Autonomous robots activated and began arranging crates.

"I always thought you two were cute together." Shego said, barraging plasma, "Glad to see you stuck it through. So many of those high school couples don't make it."

"What about you two. I thought you two retired and got married or something," Kim said, concerned foremost with dodging and delaying, "But I guess this is what happens when you don't add to that 401k."

"First off, my retirement finances are in excellent order," Shego said, "And secondly, never marriage, and if I did, never him."

"Oh come on, you two must be considered common-law by now."

Shego let out a rageful roar and over-swung, losing her balance from the girder and clinging to the bottom of the I beam. As Kim turned to uproot her assailant's fingers, Shego kicked up momentum to swing and knock Kim off the platform, finding her footing to stand triumphantly. Too late to reach her hairdryer, Kim crashed into a crate carried by one of the robots.

Seeing the new dynamic, Ron acted quickly, aiming his belt buckle towards Shego.

"Grapple belt aw yeah,"

The projectile flew out at high velocity, directed right at Shego, but fell short and landed in the slowly rotating ceiling fan well below her.

"Uh-oh," Ron said, slapping at his stomach as the auto-retract engaged. Losing his footing, the line dragged him over and up towards the spinning blade. Ron cried out, and the line ended less than a foot from the fan, leaving him to hang and rotate with it.

"Come Shego, We've overstayed our welcome," Drakken said, holding a stabilizer fin as the cargo chopper lifted the massive rocket from its storage, "It's been a blast, Kim Possible, and... you."

Drakken's evil laughter faded into the thrum of the helicopter and then all that Ron could hear was his ceiling fan.

"Kim?"

No reply from the bustling warehouse floor. Ron struggled against the bonds, to no avail.

"Seriously not cool."

From the depths of his pocket, Rufus scurried up to click the slow repel button on Ron's buckle.

"How do you always know how to work the gadgets?" Ron asked as he descended, splayed out and rotating, "I guess I should have asked before I took, but it was right by the boots,"

Once back on solid ground, Ron hurried over to examine the broken box Kim lay in. She had cuts and burns on her head, neck, and arms and her left shoulder looked out of place, but her chest rose and fell. Gathering her up, Ron carried her out of the facility, back to the Suburban, not quite sure how to proceed.