I either have zero thoughts or too many thoughts.
Bear with me!

47. Whose Side – 10

Drakken had a black eye – well, blacker than usual – but a smug grin on his face.

"That went well," he said merrily, holding a Freezee to his eye as he strode out of the 24-Seven with his accomplice beside him.

"Yeah? Was it worth it?" Shego sneered over, glaring. "Are you proud of yourself?"

"Very." He took a sip and returned the icy drink to his eye, but Shego pulled it away to check the swelling before letting go with a scoff of frustration.

"That was so underhanded."

"If she can cheat, so can I," argued Drakken calmly. "Besides, it was hardly cheating compared to her methods. I was merely having a conversation with you." An invisible ball was an unconventional way to cheat, but so was egging on his opponent into making a foul the way he had – he liked to think he was within limits, however.

"Mid-game. About who owes who a favor," hissed Shego, still peeved. "You insinuated we – that I – that the loser—"

Drakken waved a finger in her face before Shego could ramble on in her own fluster. "Don't put words in my mouth. I only said that if you lose, you owe me a favor." He shrugged nonchalantly before adding, "And that I'd tell you once we were in private."

"You winked," grumbled Shego. She crossed her arms and glared away from him, but Drakken leaned over to take a peek at her flushed face before stepping away to get into the van.

"My apologies. I thought we were in the same book."

"On the same page," corrected Shego bitterly. She slammed her door shut, taking up the driver's seat since Drakken's vision was impaired with skewed glasses and a Freezee to his eye.

He dismissed the correction with a grunt. "If that pink parasite loses it over a little flirting, then what's the harm in using that to my advantage?" It had been the girls' conversation about their friend's bloody lip that had given him the idea. The pink one seemed to be awfully envious, but in hindsight he probably shouldn't have tested that theory.

It wasn't hard to pinpoint the moment fire rose beneath Shego's skin, crackling traces of her agitation seen on her hands and even her blushing face seemed to take on a greener hue. She took a deep breath and the glow ebbed, her fire recalled before her own Freezee could do more than steam a little. "The harm is she's going to spread rumors about what it is I get up to with my boss," she retorted. "That might hurt my chances of getting into—"

"I thought you weren't going?" Drakken interrupted, his attention and concern snapping back to her.

Shego fidgeted with her hands and her drink. "I'm keeping my options open," she grumbled.

Drakken was silent for too long, too preoccupied studying her through blurry vision. "That school is for henchmen. They're beneath you," he finally said. As if she didn't know that already.

She gave a meek shrug and grumbled something about courses. Then her frown hardened and she turned on him. "So what was so private, huh? What do I owe you that was worth embarrassing me like that?" she snapped.

He flinched back from the venom in her tone. Pulling the Freezee back to his eye and slouching against his door, Drakken frowned at the dash. "The favor I wanted to ask was if you could test the Bebe sisters in combat. I only wish to see how they fare."

Shego was sour for another moment before turning the key in the ignition and rolling her eyes. "Sure, but don't hold it against me if I plasma blast the creepy things to bits."

"Please control yourself," sighed Drakken. "They're still learning."

"Learning?" The look she shot him was met with a sheepish smile. She groaned and shook her head. "Whatever."

As she navigated back to the lair, Shego convinced herself to look on the bright side. Drakken had irritated Priscilla into throwing the match herself and in doing so they were able to leave sooner. The less time spent with Miss Priss, the better.

Drakken had fixed his glasses and forgone pressing ice to his sore face when they pulled up into the hangar. He was composed and ready to face his crew shuffling about inside, if not for his lips stained bright red from the tropical punch beverage he'd been nursing. Out of petty spite for embarrassing her on the court, Shego debated letting him leave the van looking as though he were wearing lipstick, but she caught him by the shoulder and flipped the visor down to show him his reflection in the mirror instead. Drakken's face twisted and he grunted and began to wipe desperately at his stained mouth to clear away the fruity dye.

Shego caught herself staring too long at his lips and hopped out of the van before she could need a new Freezee. She slung her go-bag over her shoulder, ready to stay the night with all of her own provisions. It was tempting to pull on the stifling gloves she'd brought along, but she feared it would give away her lack of control. She wondered if there would be time to burn off some excess energy out back before Drakken was ready to test his robots.

She might have asked if she could go out for target practice first, but when she turned to speak to Drakken, the friendly henchman Lux was behind her instead, easy to recognize from the rest for his shorter stature and plumper figure.

"I believe these are yours," he said, holding out her jacket from last night and the stack of tapes she'd forgotten in his Beetle.

"Uh. Thanks," muttered Shego, taking her belongings.

The red-clad henchman spun without another word and returned to the crew working on the final stage of disassembling her family jet, parts separated and catalogued neatly with the senior henchman Lars overseeing. Drakken had swung by to have a word with the behemoth, grunting and nodding and checking the papers on the clipboard, taking inventory as he inspected them briefly before hurrying back to Shego's side.

Shego cocked her head at him. "What was all that about?"

"Hm? Ah. It's good to know what I have on hand to work with."

"That's not all going in a storage room, is it? I don't think there's even any room left—"

"Let me worry about that," he cooed, patting her shoulder and stepping on ahead. "You get changed. I'll meet you in the gym." It didn't sound like there'd be time for target practice.

"Why the gym? Why not—"

Drakken flapped a hand. "If they go rogue, I'd rather they do so in the gym where they can't hurt anything more valuable than a treadmill."

He had a point there, she decided. As she passed through the tech lab, which she noticed was increasingly cluttered with boxes and crates of materials along with the completed incinerator canon, she couldn't help stealing a glance toward the elaborate round work table on which Dr. Drakken regularly operated on his trio of robotic sisters. To her surprise, all three were fully assembled, not a single spare screw left out of place.

The man was humming happily to himself, despite squinting from taking a basketball to the face earlier, as he circled the table connecting what looked like jumper cables to elements inside androids' open chest cavities.

Distracted with looking over her shoulder at the giddy madman, Shego tripped over a stray pipe on the floor. She heard his curious grunt but hoped she'd swung around the corner before he could see her stumble, and no sooner had she breathed a sigh of relief, sure he hadn't seen, did his low laughter come to her attention. It didn't sound like was laughing at her.

She'd just been about to hazard a peek back around the corner when a white light flared from the lab. Even from her position of indirect exposure, Shego raised an arm to shield her eyes from the flash, the tell-tale buzz and crackle of electricity arcing felt in her very bones.

She didn't return to the lab lest another power surge finish blinding her. Regardless of the racket that sounded like a disaster, Drakken's explosive laughter echoed after Shego until she shut her door behind her, still blinking away spots as she found privacy in her own quarters.

Sitting on the edge of the bed to rub away the spots that had been seared into her vision from the flash, she barely noticed the mattress had been replaced. It was only after a few moments had passed did she realize the bed wasn't as firm and crispy beneath her. Her eyes flew open and she turned her gaze down to study the bed, which had been made up just as she'd left it, with plain white bedding and a simple teal throw she'd left behind.

Drakken must have ordered for the mattress to be replaced, Shego realized with mild disappointment. She sighed to herself, unsure if she should take it as a kind gesture or a sign he didn't want her crashing on his couch anymore and potentially scorching it.

Her cheeks heated at the memory of how close she'd been to scorching his couch earlier.

With a disgusted groan at herself, Shego upturned her go-bag and shook out her uniform to get dressed.

It was as she was buckling up her boots that she heard a peculiar sound passing outside her door. Drakken's voice was distinguishable from the grind of mechanical components accompanying the shuffle of heavy feet unlike any henchman's. She paused to listen, a chill sweeping through her at the very idea his robots were up and operational. It wasn't until the rogue doctor's delighted yammering had faded away along with the inhuman footsteps did Shego resume preparing herself.

She stood before her mirror for a moment to tie back her hair and mentally prepare. She'd seen the robots lying dormant and in varying states of assembly, and she had once seen one flick its eyes open and twitch its fingers as though it were trying to overcome the nature of its own programming – but that wasn't the same as facing a trio of active androids.

Strolling through the lair to the gym within its depths, she wondered if the imminent encounter would be like meeting them for the first time. She'd been around enough – would they recognize her? And how much data did they have in the fighting department of their programming? It wasn't just a ruse to gather data on her fighting ability, was it? She hoped she was only overestimating the risk artificially-intelligent robots might pose.

Shego was scowling as she crossed the rattling metal catwalk through the gym.

Drakken was below, pointing and giving orders for the robotic sisters to clear an area of the floor. They seemed to be following commands well enough until one of the robots clearly decided it was more effective to pick up a hefty barbell off the floor and fling it into the vicinity of the rest of the workout equipment, leaving a dent and a crack in the earthen wall where it struck. Drakken squawked his disapproval, fearlessly storming up to the android, but it remained unblinking and unapologetic to his chastising.

The other two androids ceased tidying and turned to him. Shego's nerves spiked with the suspicion they weren't merely coming to stand with him and their sister, but advancing on him with hostile intent.

Without thinking, Shego hopped over the railing, leaving her stomach behind as she dropped. She landed in a crouch near Drakken and sprang to her feet, ready to fight if need be.

Drakken was reasonably startled, jumping back from her. "Shego! What are you—?"

"At your service, Dr. Drakken," she shot back wryly, throwing an untrusting glance around at all three robotic sisters. They had halted, and though each bore a perfectly blank metal face incapable of expressions for Shego to read, she was certain they were sending silent messages to each other. On the ride back to the lair, Drakken had spieled about his modifications – upgrades – to the hive-mind programming they'd stolen back in Go City, which he'd used as a building block in their coding. Now instead of assisting a swarm of robotic insects, the filched tech allowed his androids to orchestrate their individual movements to work with each other as one toward their collective goal.

Which right now seemed to be Shego.

A metal grip wrapped around her wrist, cold and pinching where the plates met. It was reflex to curl her free hand into a fist and draw it back, but before she could slug the android, another had appeared before her to catch her fist. The stainless steel fingers locked around her knuckles and refused to budge when Shego tried yanking free, the android's carapace giving a metallic rattle.

"Ladies, ladies, calm yourselves," chided Drakken as he stepped up to defuse the potential fight, practically brushing the robots away and shooting a glare past Shego at the third which must have still been calculating its part in the confrontation. He rubbed his chin and glowered over Shego's shoulder at the unmoving robot, muttering, "There're still some bugs to work out. I'll need to get on that." When his eyes dropped to ponder on it and do his own mental calculations, he must have realized how far in Shego's space he'd been standing because he jumped away with a choked noise of apology and made for the benches against the wall.

Shego realized then that she should move too, shaking out of her stupor and inwardly chastising herself as if it would help force the heat from her cheeks. She took a few strides towards Drakken, but stopped short and set her hands on her hips. "So, where do you want me to start?" she asked as the rogue doctor sat himself down and crossed his legs.

Drakken pulled his little notebook from a pocket and skimmed it. He tapped his pen on his chin and hummed. "Try knocking them off balance," he suggested.

"You can't test that in the lab?" Shego's brow furrowed.

He was hesitant to reply, chewing on the end of his pen for a moment. "I could…but there's more to it than standing them up and pushing them over," he explained as Shego turned to the nearest. "You see, they don't want to be—"

Shego made the mistake of finding out the hard way when she made to give the android a shove. For something with such a jittery stride, the Bebe managed to duck before she could lay a hand on its carapace, stooping into a wide stance – and Shego let out a yelp in the same instant as a bruising grip nearly pulled her arm out of socket. She was yanked off her feet and thrown overhead only to crash down on the robot's other side.

Taken by surprise, she'd landed flat on her back, wincing as she struck the stone floor. She hissed and swore and rolled over, reaching for her shoulder to make sure everything was still in place. It was, but she'd be feeling it in the morning. For a split second, she missed the physical therapies that came as perks to the hero gig.

Drakken groaned wearily and was kneeling beside her then. "As I was saying. They don't want to be knocked over."

She shot him a hostile glare. "Coulda told me in private instead of giving them that nice little heads up," she spat.

"Yes, well, no one's perfect," he grumbled, and suddenly Shego's gaze snapped up to the robots as she realized he'd been holding out a hand to signal them to stay back. She barely heard the blue man having the audacity to ask, "Are you okay, Shego?"

"What do you think? Your robot just attacked me—"

He stuck up a finger to correct her. "No, she defended herself. It's part of the self-preservation." He hefted himself up and offered Shego a hand, but she ignored it, thinking twice about swatting it away lest the robots see it as another threat to Dr. Drakken. Her displeased groan as she held herself earned an apologetic smile from Drakken. "Do try again," he pleaded sweetly. "I know you think they're just hunks of scrap metal but please don't underestimate them, Shego. I worked very hard on these beauties."

"Not my definition, but beauty's in the eye of the beholder," grumbled Shego with a shrug.

She heaved a sigh and rolled her shoulders, ready to take on the robotic triplets in earnest. Now that she'd had a taste of them, she knew for herself not to underestimate the rigid androids. Knocking one over without resorting to her alien fire was easier said than done, the frustration bringing to mind a rigged carnival game. As inhuman beings, the robots had no need to worry about stamina – meanwhile Shego had worked up a sweat, annoyance over the impossible task fueling her inner fire, and in the end she was left breathing heavily and glaring at the infallible Bebes.

Which Drakken was ecstatic over.

She tried not to be so irked by it – it meant he'd done his job well after all. He'd better have, considering how long he'd supposedly been developing the things.

"So they aren't just hunks of junk," admitted Shego, straightening up. She had to give him that. Each of the robots had managed to dodge her or otherwise work together to intercept her, doing whatever it took to stay poised and on their feet. Either they were pretty decent or she was rustier than she thought. She hadn't liked Drakken repeating an order for the Bebes to remain in defense mode however. She wondered if he hadn't, if they would merely go into a neutral standby mode until given orders or begin making their own decisions to deal with the situation at hand. She had the sneaking suspicion of the latter.

Drakken ordered the Bebes to stand down when Shego approached him. She didn't like that he had to remind them again, but she accepted the bottle of cool water he held out for her. "If you're tired, we can finish this some other day," he offered. She wondered what more there was left to finish.

Shego sucked down half the bottle quick and gasped for air before reaching out to snatch his notebook. His finger had still been in it to hold his place, and she quickly opened it up to take a look at his notes. "Mobility, reflexes, self-preservation, balance, compliance, Bebe Three's processing speed," she listed off points he'd made to himself to watch for in his diagnostics of the Bebes in action. She looked back at the three androids standing stock-still, indistinguishable from one another, and wondered which was Bebe 3 and if its lag had made much of a difference.

Shego shoved the notebook back at him. "What's left to test?" she snorted. "Only way I'm gonna get the upper hand on one of these is if I fight dirty." She sucked down the last of her water and tossed the bottle for the nearest receptacle, barely making the basket. "I don't get it. If you have these around, why do you need me too? They seem capable." She didn't realize how bitter she was until she tasted it on her own tongue at the sight of Drakken recoiling from her words.

"Well…" He fidgeted a moment but held up a hand as if to tell her a secret, whispering, "They aren't…perfect. Yet."

"You mean you just haven't gotten around to installing that feminine touch, right?"

It took him a moment to catch her drift, but then Drakken grimaced and blushed deeply, a glare quickly replacing his discomfort. "Everyone assumes that – I understand why, I do – but believe me, I'm not that desperate and that isn't their purpose." She'd heard him sing that tune before.

"Yeah? Then what is their purpose?" challenged Shego at his back as he skulked away to leave the gym.

Drakken flinched, his shoulders hunched, but then he composed himself and stood tall. He swept his hair back and gave her a level look. "I'll show you," he said evenly, before barking harshly at his robots, "Bebes, with me."

The robots standing around with their cybertronic eyes trained on her suddenly turned away from Shego to follow their master up to the catwalk in a single-file line. Shego wondered if the robot taking up the caboose, walking a step behind the rest, was number three. She wondered what other defects hadn't come to light.

"Those things give me the heebie-jeebies," she decided, finally following after them. The weight of a new dread growing in the pit of her stomach couldn't go ignored. Drakken's robots seemed fully functioning – too good to be true, as far as home-made robots went. So what was the catch? And if they were so exceptional and nearly-perfect, then what did he need her for? There had to be a drawback.

As she reached the top of the staircase leading from Drakken's office, she hollered down the hall that she was going to shower and change. He grunted and waved to acknowledge her, though the Bebe at the tail of the line rotated its head to watch Shego duck through her door.

She didn't like that the same blank robot was still at the end of the hall when she appeared a moment later, a fresh change of clothes in hand. Shego was braced for it to attack as she neared it, but the Bebe merely watched her silently until she slipped into the bathroom. She heard Drakken call for it, sounding none too pleased that it had hung back.

As she was showering, she swore she heard the sound of music unlike any she was used to hearing playing softly through the lair or over car radios. She swore to herself that it was her imagination, that the water pipes or ventilation system was playing tricks on her, but when she was dried off and dressing into a comfortable change of pajamas to call it a day, she was sure she heard the distinct tooting of horns.

The symphony grew louder.

She hurriedly smoothed out her top and shook out her hair, practically storming out of the bathroom as the volume rose. The thought crossed her mind that while she didn't know the difference between Bach and Beethoven, she was sure her mother did, and it was enough to kindle a fire she wasn't expecting. If she knew the location of every loudspeaker the man had throughout the lair, she might hunt every one of them down to blow them out herself.

Shego made a beeline for his computer mainframe, the clear source of the music, and though tempted to destroy it or at the very least close the program playing the waltz, she cranked the volume down to a more bearable level.

She whirled then to glare around the lab, finally spotting Drakken moving among his Bebes. For a split second she feared the possibility of them turning on him, considering maybe she shouldn't have left him alone with the androids, but then the sight before her sank in. A pair of Bebes were practically interlocked, hands on each other's waist and shoulder and held together and feet shuffling to the melody. Drakken meanwhile was occupied with the third Bebe sister, happily waltzing along with it and smiling broadly as he seamlessly exchanged dance partners.

His feet never stopped moving, though he pulled a screwdriver from his back pocket and adjusted something in the shoulder of his present dance partner. "All better," he muttered to himself, tenderly caring for his robot and sending it to another dance partner while he observed and evaluated the next. He dipped the android and briefly rested the back of his hand against its forehead as if checking for a fever before sighing and standing the android up. Shego heard him mutter something about overheating and coolants.

Shego realized her fists were clenched and she must have been wearing a terribly ugly look of disgust on her face. He'd been so near to knocking down the android, and she'd barely been able to knock one off balance enough for it to need to catch itself. She felt foolish now, knowing something like dancing with them could have done the trick. Then again, if the gloves were off, the androids would have been toast. She held on to that scrap of reassurance.

"Dancing? Really?" she scoffed as she crossed the lab. The Bebes ceased their fanciful little waltz and turned to face her. Drakken held up a hand to signal them to stand down. "That's what they're for?" She still had her doubts about his silly pet project.

Drakken's face was flushed and he was fidgeting and shrugging. "Yes, well, no one else ever wants to dance with me," he grumbled, choosing then to clean his glasses to avoid looking at her.

"How do you know? Ever try asking nicely?" Shego shot wryly as she paused within a safe distance of the mad scientist and his metallic robot dancers.

Drakken paused. His face flushed a deeper shade. "O-oh. Uhm." He pushed his glasses back on quickly and looked to his androids all standing ready and honed in on Shego before looking back to her himself and extending a hand with a flamboyant roll of his wrist and a polite bow. "Would you…please…care to dance?"

Suddenly realizing she'd put her foot in her mouth, Shego's smug smirk fell. Her arms dropped to her sides and she glanced back around the lab to be sure they were alone. If a henchman walked in now, would there be gossip? There was already gossip – so what did it matter? Still, she felt watched. She brushed it off as the optics of the Bebes on her.

Eyeing Drakken's outstretched hand, she stepped toward him without consciously intending to, criticism on the tip of her tongue. But before she realized what had happened and that it in fact was not an attack launched by the Bebes, he'd pulled her up to him – or maybe he'd stepped up to her, she wasn't sure. Lips zipped, Shego held her breath to keep a lid on it as Drakken fearlessly and unthinkingly pulled her hand to a rest atop his shoulder and slid his own to her waist without pausing to consider repercussions. It was staggering how bold he could be sometimes for someone so easily flustered into incoherent sputtering.

Her lips came unzipped. "I don't dance," Shego blurted suddenly. She had half a mind to jerk away and storm off to her quarters to put space between them – before she could burn him, if nothing else. She could do without the heat sweeping over her at least as Drakken took her bare hand in his.

"Don't be a pill," dismissed the man as he began to lead, whether she liked it or not. She wasn't sure if she disliked it but, she wasn't sure if she liked it either, too tense to go with his flow just like that. "I've seen you bounce to a beat."

"That's different than. Uhh." She swallowed dryly, staring down to their feet. She felt ridiculous in her pajamas suddenly while Drakken wore his usual blue suit and spiffy shoes that tapped and slid rhythmically with the music playing low now. The thought crossed her mind with a chill that this was the first time since Lady Fate that she'd had a chance to engage with anyone in such a way. But really – did it have to be when she was wearing some goofy sleepy-time owl pajamas? Her face burned and she worried she might burst into flames and ruin her silly PJ's then and there.

Drakken didn't help when he hummed pensively as he led her in a dizzying little circle. She'd been thrown around like a ragdoll in a fight before, yet this was a different kind of dizzy, one that had her weak in the knees and short of breath. She could do without that. She was lightheaded and stumbling after him enough, barely keeping her cool as it was. She didn't need him smirking at her the way he did or unthinkingly popping off, "I didn't expect you to have two left feet."

She was tempted to cease humoring him then and simply return to her room. Instead her nails dug into his shoulder at the sharp reminder she hadn't been to a school dance since she was in braces. So she was out of practice. Big deal. It wasn't like she'd ever had any practice to begin with. "I didn't expect you to go through so much trouble just to build yourself dancing partners," she retorted. She bit her tongue, wishing she'd had something better to fire off.

"They'll serve me beyond that," he assured. When Shego dared to glance up into his face, the unfocused malicious look cast over his features was hard to miss. It was unnerving. She was relieved that he snapped out of it quickly enough and turned his attention back down her, swaying her side to side to make up for the momentary pause. She liked to think she was keeping pace with him.

"Yeah?" she pressed. "How so?" She had to wonder what his plans were with the androids. The distracting thoughts at least staved back the fire roaring beneath her skin and kept the heat out of her hands.

That spiteful look was back, but it wasn't fixed on her. Drakken relaxed again and gave her a brief twirl she barely complied with before returning her close to him.

"I skipped a few grades," he mused sadly. "So no one wanted to dance with a little twerp like me at shindigs – hoedowns, Sadie Hawkins, prom, you name it. If I wasn't too short, I was too young or too geeky. No one ever danced with Drew Lipsky except to make fun or pity him. It wasn't much different at MIST."

Shego wondered inwardly as he spun her around again how long he'd been dying to let this particular wound breathe, because he barely stopped to take a breath for himself. She could only nod and listen and ignore the fact they were out of time with the music.

"Impressing with scientific inventions was the name of the game, so it made sense to me at the time when I got shafted with finding my friends dates to some mixer. They were going to make fun of me no matter what, but I was true to my word and brought them dance partners." Drakken looked past Shego then to the Bebes and sighed. "They weren't impressed."

Shego nodded back toward the robotic onlookers. "I wager they're not just for dancing now, huh?"

"No," he confirmed. "Once I was made a laughing stock, I made a promise that…well… When I find those men, it's all over for them." He set her hand on his shoulder so he could gesture to his neck and he beamed. "I'll show them what for."

She definitely didn't like the insinuation, but despite her heart fluttering like a bird she couldn't help mirroring his grin. "I don't play into this little vengeance plot, do I?" She couldn't say she wanted to have much to do with the robots anyway. She didn't know if she could stand to be there if he had intent to kill anyone either – and she wondered inwardly if having the stomach for it was a requirement in villainy. Murder certainly couldn't be off the table, but what was the villain etiquette on the subject? Those were probably things one would learn at LHU.

She almost didn't hear Drakken grunt in confirmation to her spoken question. "No." That was a relief.

She couldn't believe she was letting her hands slip over his shoulders to link her fingers safely behind his neck. It brought her too preciously close – but she swallowed those nerves. She'd handled lounging the couch with him earlier just fine. She could handle a silly little dance. "And once you've had your fun with that, you won't need them anymore?" she ventured, hopeful.

"No," answered Drakken like a broken record, but then his face scrunched. "Wait – yes? Maybe? No – why?" It was hard not to laugh that such a simple question could trip up the so-called genius. She hoped she understood him correctly though that once he'd followed through that scheme, the robots would be gone.

"Just…I'unno." She fidgeted with her fingers and consequently his hair at the nape of his neck and wished their feet were still moving. "Making sure you're not gonna kick me to the curb once your robo-chicks are perfected."

Drakken's confusion melted away after a moment and a low laugh shook him. "No," he said once more with a big crooked grin that he had to battle into submission. "There is really no substitute for human company or assistance." He might have been choosing his words with utmost caution, yet it was a foolhardy thing to do to reach up to her cheek. The stroke of his thumb was almost probing, and Shego felt an unsettled flip of her stomach at the realization he was studying her. She hoped she was better than any robot.

Shego gave a meek laugh that failed to take the edge off the awkwardness. "Sounds like we've both had shitty luck with friends, huh?"

"Yes. I suppose so," agreed the rogue somberly. "But luck can change, right? I'm due."

Another moment passed of Drakken quietly examining her, his fingers soft on her warm cheek. With how fast her heart was beating, it felt like it was one moment too long. She felt like popping up on her toes just to give him something else to study so he'd quit looking at her like a subject under observation, but she kept her feet flat on the ground.

She didn't have to do anything anyway it seemed, because it was Drakken who leaned down to her.

A rush of nerves took the helm and she leaned back involuntarily in the same moment the gentle melody of the symphony was suddenly interrupted by jarring hip-hop from the top 40. Drakken's face twisted in confusion as he looked to the mainframe, and irritation quickly masked the flush in his cheeks as he pulled Shego's arms away from his shoulders.

She barely had the chance to be disappointed when a Bebe stepped between them, a hand coming down as if karate chopping an invisible board. Shego's blood chilled when its stiff jaw slackened and a cold electronic voice over a small speaker crackled, "May I cut in." It was scarcely a question and more of a command.

Shego willfully disengaged from Drakken, backing off lest she find out how the android would take a rejection. If she didn't know better, she'd say the thing was jealous.

"I am done dancing," dismissed Drakken clearly, attempting to step around the robot as he glared at the mainframe.

His words did not seem to compute. In jolting mechanical motions, the android began to move in dips and twists the only other way Shego could imagine a robot dancing. She didn't know what it was doing. It wasn't quite doing the robot, but the moves were unfamiliar and unnatural.

"Uhm. Drakken, I think it's glitching out," Shego noted, trying not to laugh at the jittery android.

"No, she just – she doesn't have enough data. Bebe only knows how to ballroom dance and tango…and the can-can." He stood and rubbed his chin curiously as he surveyed the android encroaching on him with bizarre moves like a bird of paradise without the fanciful plumage. "But she can learn. I wonder – could you teach her—?"

A tap at Shego's shoulder made her jump. "Care to dance?" droned a second Bebe.

"No way in hell," she dismissed, taking a swift step away from the dance-prone robot.

"Care to dance?" echoed the third, to no one in particular it seemed, as it had no partner to direct the question at.

"Care to dance?"

"Care to dance?"

Shego's fists clenched, unsure what was happening as the robots sounded off and began to all move in confused jerking movements out of time with the beat. The one nearest her stepped closer, and the one targeting Drakken reached for him.

Drakken barely jumped back before it could catch him. He gnashed his teeth and covered his ears against the droning question now drowning out the vulgar hip-hop, their voices not quite in unison once their voice boxes began to glitch too.

"No!" he roared, storming toward the Bebe's table after smacking the mute button on the mainframe. He clapped loudly for the Bebes' attention, ordering in a booming voice, "Stop dancing! The party is over!" At his command, the Bebes all went still. With Drakken giving explicit orders, they headed for the table where they belonged to power down and recharge. It took ordering the third Bebe twice before it obeyed, and Shego was still frozen in place as she watched Drakken take down another note in his notebook before snapping it shut and stowing it back in his pocket.

She realized her heart was thudding. On top of the alarming encounter with malfunctioning androids Drakken had barely managed to put to bed like children, another concern sent a swirl through her stomach and spurred her heartbeat to kick up a notch again. She warmed over again at the very thought.

Biting her lip and feeling like an idiot suddenly, she wondered just what he'd been thinking when he'd been staring at her. He hadn't really just been about to kiss her, had he? It had to be her imagination. He'd been lost in his own head, and it was hard to tell his motives and intent when he was like that. She didn't like the idea he was probably thinking of ways to give the Bebes flesh and skin. Still, fire-prone as she was, she liked to think she was more kissable than a robot.

Shego quickly shook the notion from her head.

A deep breath and she crossed the lab again to meet him. Drakken was busy plugging in his precious robots to the specialized power ports on the table. She leaned back against it as he worked, watching over her shoulder as he popped open the robots' chest cavities to let their overworked motors cool while quickly hitting power buttons before any could awake from their dormant states to interfere.

Shego breathed a small sigh of relief, reassuring herself. The robots were in no way shape or form going to replace her. They were merely part of a personal vendetta against some former classmates he had a beef with. Their creation and his obsession with perfecting the androids had nothing to do with loneliness, but rather because he had pride and a point to make.

That's what she consoled herself with anyway.

Exhaling hugely, Shego dropped back across the table, almost as if she were just another of the Bebes. Drakken was working on the last robot, having just made his way around it back to her other side. Bebe number three seemed to be in need of some maintenance, because he hovered over it longer than the rest. She watched him work, practically unblinking.

"It's rude to stare," he noted without looking up from his task of tightening bolts and taking some sort of electrical or thermal readings within the robot's power unit built into its chest.

Shego scoffed. "Says you." She looked away though when she caught his ears tinge. She sat up then with a groan. Being thrown on the floor and knocked down a few times herself earlier in the gym was catching up to her. "So. Done with me for the evening?"

He waved her off. "TV's all yours."

"So I can take it back to my room then?"

Drakken grunted and flicked her a disapproving glare. "Har har, Shego. You go ahead. I've got my hands full here. And then I have to go check on the boys, and go downstairs to—"

"Busy night, huh?"

"Well if we hadn't stopped to fool around playing basketball—"

"Yeah, I'm sure that's what's got you backlogged." Shego snorted. "Besides, you made sure that game was over pretty quick." She leaned to take a closer look at his eye once more. It had only been a few hours, but most of the swelling had gone down.

She felt a little sick to her stomach suddenly, and not because she was inspecting his face too closely again. Her involvement with an eye injury years ago made her shudder, but she didn't apologize. The scar made him scarier.

"I take it I'm stuck with cafeteria gruel," she said, accepting that fate as she slid off the table. She would have liked to see what the man could whip up, but he seemed terribly busy suddenly.

Drakken opened his mouth to object, as she knew he would.

No sooner had he uttered something choked did a loud clang announce the lights abruptly shutting off. A few blinking dots of light from the mainframe quickly blinked out of sight, and Shego heard the clatter of tools beside her being knocked off the worktable.

"Shego?" yelped Drakken, bumping into her and earning a rough shove back to arm's length.

With her free hand she lit up her glow to shed a little light. "What did you do?" she snapped over, heavy on the accusation.

Drakken waved both hands in front of him, sputtering nervously in defense, "I – nothing! It wasn't me! S-something must have blown. I – you – wait here. I need to check on something." He pried her clutch from his shirt and stepped back quickly before pausing and striding off into the dark in another direction. Shego stepped forward to follow him, to give him a little light at least as he slammed drawers in a filing cabinet hidden behind crates until he located a flashlight.

"Drakken—?"

"Stay here, Shego." Suddenly his tone was much more stern, not unlike the tone he used to boss around the Bebes or his henchmen. She recoiled back from it. "That's an order." His furrowed brow relaxed and he spun away to head down the hall, calling over his shoulder, "I'll be quick!"

She wasn't sure about the rogue's dodgy behavior, and was tempted to follow him despite his order. She sighed and stayed put in the lab though, leaning back briefly against the worktable and extinguishing her hand to cross her arms in the dark. After a moment, she thought twice about remaining so close to the Bebes. She relit a hand and watched the slumbering robots with distrust as she retreated back to Drakken's quarters to put safe distance between her and them. She had a sense Drakken was barely in control of them – she wasn't keen to meet them in the dark without him there to mediate.

Shego flopped down on the corduroy couch, careful to keep her glowing hand away from the upholstery. She grunted in discontent and kicked her heels up on the coffee table, knowing Drakken didn't appreciate the disrespect for his furniture. The clock on the wall was battery-operated and tick-tick-ticked the seconds away, grating her nerves with each that passed.

It couldn't have been more than thirty seconds before she leaned forward to grab a magazine and a half-spent cigarette out of the ash tray, lighting up a smoke to distract herself as she peeled open the pages to read by the light of her glow. The green cast over the pages made musing over any of the photographs a sub-par experience. Still, she took a stray pen from the coffee table and made a few circles and crossed out a few accessories, going as far as drawing a mustache on a woman and idly doodling a facial scar on a man advertising hiking boots.

Something was off.

She didn't notice it at first. She really should have. She'd made the mistake of letting her guard down, comfortable in Drakken's homely quarters despite the power being out, her mind elsewhere, like on jewelry and if Drakken needed any help.

She tasted it when she brought the cigarette to her lips for the last time.

Cherry.

Shego dropped the cigarette at the sudden realization she could taste fruity lip-gloss on the filter. The glowing cherry of the cigarette scorched a hole in the magazine in her lap, and without thinking Shego slapped her hands down onto it to put it out. Her own glow hadn't extinguished before acting on the reflex, only worsening the situation.

She swore, leaping up with a magazine being engulfed with licks of green and yellow flames. Shadows danced around the room as she sprinted with the flaming magazine to the kitchen. Throwing it in the sink and under the water, Shego cursed at herself and then glared around the dark room as if she could really see Priscilla snooping about in the dark any better than she could in the light. She groaned in disgust with herself and rinsed her warm hands.

The lights flicked on finally, making her jump, and she gave the room a last look before storming out. "I know you're here!" she shouted as she left Drakken's quarters, just in case Priscilla was elsewhere by now. She was fuming though dread curdled in the pit of her stomach. How long had she been snooping about this time? Had she been spying on them earlier? Was she responsible for the power going out?

Shego gritted her teeth and clenched her fists, hoping bitterly the trespasser had had a mishap with the lair's wiring – but then she shuddered at that thought. She didn't really hope that. She just wanted the girl out of her hair. She swallowed bile though, wondering what could have gone wrong to cause the outage.

Down in Drakken's office, Shego checked the CCTV. Half the camera feed was offline, but from what she gathered half the lair was still without power. Everything was calm though. The henchmen in the cafeteria and lounge looked reasonably confused, just beginning to disperse now that they could see. Drakken must have been in a blind spot, she surmised, and shoved away from the desk to go find him.

She didn't like the thought of Drakken running into Priscilla in the dark.

She'd just rounded a corner and was passing by the gym toward the darkened hall ahead when Drakken's voice called to her. She paused and whipped around to face the sound of his footsteps.

There were blackened smears staining his previously clean white shirt and he wore a pair of gloves he quickly shoved into a pocket as he reached her. "What are you doing? I told you to wait—"

"Priscilla's here," she said with certainty, though suddenly she had her doubts about how long that cigarette had been sitting in that ashtray. Could it have been leftover from last time she'd snuck in?

Drakken shut his trap, whatever lecture he had prepared cut short. His lip curled instead and he almost glared back over his shoulder. "I'm aware," he said curtly, crossing his arms. Before Shego could utter anything in surprise, he glared about the hallway and snapped, "Why don't you quit playing games and come out?"

And just like that, the new least-welcomed resident of the oasis stepped out from around Drakken, showing herself and giggling gleefully as if this were all just some funny joke. "Man! I wish I could have seen your faces when the lights went out," she chortled. Shego didn't mean to indulge her when she gawped at Priscilla, and swatted the hand away when Prissy pointed at her. "Yeah, like that! It must've been great. Serves you right for ditching me."

"Do you have any idea the damage you caused with that little practical joke?" Drakken ground out. His fingers curled in the air as if he wanted to throttle the headache invading his lair.

"Hey, no one got hurt, right?"

"Oh, someone's gonna get hurt," shot Shego before throwing herself at the girl fist-first.