"Chapter 2"
Six weeks later.
Kim huffed and puffed. Not so much from physical exertion, but from mental gymnastics.
"Sword and board? That's cute Princess…" Shego smirked a wicked smirk, "But I can do that too."
Putting proof to boast, Shego's hands produced a three foot long flaming blade and a roughly circular platter of green flame.
"You're getting better," the redheaded lantern acknowledged.
Her voice gave no indication how she was struggling to maintain her constructs; a rapier in her right hand and a kite shield in her left, both of translucent green and much crisper than Shego's flaming manifestations.
Dual-wielding was a skill she was struggling to master, while her counterpart's abilities seemed to be growing by leaps and bounds.
With no warning, the taller woman charged forward and clashed weapons with her, green sparks flying where flaming manifestation met guardian construct.
Kim, however, had a leg up on Shego. Well, two actually.
Firstly she had extensive training in wushu thanks to her years of kung fu training, meaning holding a sword was not a new thing to her.
And secondly, her weapons were driven by sheer willpower, and she had no intention of losing to her counterpart this day.
Shields smacked, blades collided, and shards of green energy erupted as the two clashed and spun at each other.
The redhead quickly realized that the long kite shield was the wrong choice for the frenetic combat. It was doing its job of shielding her body from any missed parries, but it was slow against Shego's movements.
The green lantern leapt to the sky, or at least made a ring-assisted jump to clear space, and through another flexing of mental muscle, converted the long triangular kite into a small round buckler similar to what her foil was wielding.
Hitting her feet again, Kim rolled forward, dished with her smaller shield to evade a side strike from Shego's flame sword, and then lashed out with her rapier in an attempt to disarm the mercenary.
The lesson came quick and painfully. The Lantern's sword was a literal weapon, manifested by her mind in a familiar form and clutched in her palm.
The mercenary's sword was instead a beam of coherent energy extending from her closed fist; shaped like a blade and pommel, but nothing more.
Kim's attempted feint and parry passed within a hairs-breadth of Shego's pinky, but never made contact with anything other than a wisp of energy between hand and beam. The thrust left the redhead wide open, and the brunette obliged with a short stomping kick to the solar plexus.
Shego charged right after the tumbling lantern, not intending to give an inch now that she'd seized the advantage.
Kim weaved and slapped at the attacking blade as best she could with her shield from her off-kilter stance. She managed to fend off the attacks from the manic thief, but she was starting to sweat, and not just from the effort.
Shego's blades were a manifestation of her plasma, and as Kim had learned over the years, she could easily switch up that plasma between a coherent kinetic punch and a flaming blow torch, or indeed anything in between the two extremes.
And the more furiously the mercenary attacked, the hotter her sword seemed to get.
The redhead again leaped backwards as best she could on her magical ring-imbued sneakers, and again summoned the kite shield.
This time Shego responded by changing her own tactics. Her flame sword billowed and expanded, growing longer and more barbed, and her corresponding shield shrank, now more of an after-thought.
Sparks became lightning as the mercenary began to pound and batter on the lantern's defenses relentlessly, grunting and barking with each blow and putting her whole body into swings of titanic force.
Kim's shield took the beating, but the edges of the egg-shaped long-shield bean to chip and fracture under the prolonged assault.
Realizing that Shego was going to break through the defense sooner rather than later, Kim's mind whirled. She had her footing back, but she was totally on the defensive; she needed to retake the initiative.
Her thoughts rolled through dozens of different techniques that she might use, but all of them left her vulnerable to the flaming blade for at least a few seconds.
Then she hit on it. Jeet Kun Do. Be like water and flow around the attack.
The redhead summoned a different kind of shield between attacks. The Kite Shield opened up a notch from its rounded top that nearly split the panel in half to her wrist. Maneuvering expertly, Kim allowed the next attack to come right at her.
As she had envisioned, Shego's coherent flame blade slotted down the deep notch in the defense and promptly locked there.
It was only a second, but that was all she needed. Kim spun around the point of contact, counting on her lantern garb to protect her from the flaming quality of the blade in that instant. The windmill was executed perfectly and the redhead brought her rapier right to Shego's throat.
The mercenary couldn't help but swallow at the deftly executed defense and attack. She dismissed the blazing claymore sword to ease the torque between the two of them and grinned wickedly, "Very good Green Eyed Lady. But next time, you might consider a different sword. The rapier is not very good for slashing attacks."
Blowing a breath through sweaty bangs, Kim flexed her mental muscles. The long whip-thin sword morphed into a flexible and curved gongfu blade. "
"Yeah, like that!" the mercenary enthused and ducked out from under the decapitating edge.
"Thank you, Deputy," Kim dismissed her sword and shield back into the ring of power with an exertion of will and wiped her brow with the back of a gloved hand. "I'll keep that in mind next time I'm in a sword fight for my life."
"Do you haaaaave to call me that?" Shego whined slightly, "It sounds so… official."
"Well, it's what you are." Kim grinned at having found a nickname that Shego didn't like for once. "Besides, it's good for you to have an official title beyond 'evil lieutenant'."
The mercenary sniffed indignantly. "Just because I agreed to help you out while the Doofus… Erm Ron… is busy training his super-mojo in Japan, does not make me your freaking Deputy."
"Well it would be bordering on nepotism to call you my girlfriend." The Green Lantern smirked wryly.
"Hey now…" Shego cautioned again, a frown marring her face.
Kim sighed at the reticence that Shego showed towards the label, or perhaps to the status.
"Fiiiiiiine, Deputy." The lantern exhaled at the little dance they did.
"Are you even allowed to deputize?" the mercenary flexed her fingers against her hips, "You told me you're like a reservist or some stuff."
Kim smiled brightly, "Well, I'm still like a sheriff for Earth, so I figure, why can't I have a deputy?"
Shego rolled her eyes at the cheery proclamation, but shrugged. It was, after all, this, or go back to working for Drakken; and after five odd years, she'd had her fill of his antics. Besides, this way she got to bust the occasional head open without facing felony charges.
The… arrangement with Possible was just a bonus.
The mercenary was about to pull on her own green trench coat when she heard a tell-tale beeping.
Looking across, she saw that Kim's ring was blinking; a call to duty. A split second after the beeps from the ring, the older kimmunicator sitting on the shelf also chimed in with its familiar four note chime.
"Hmmmm, a double call to action." Shego pulled her long leather coat on, "Wonder who it is this time?"
Kim held up her ring, and a hovering green hologram emanated from it. "Dementor. And DNAamy?"
"Ah, a gruesome twosome if ever there was one." The brunette shrugged her shoulders deeper into the alligator leather trench coat which matched and predated Kimmie's by a few years. "Curious that the ring chose to alert on them, they're usually not A-number-one world threats these days."
The redhead pulled down the kimmunicator and strapped it on her wrist above her fingerless gloves and power-ring. "Go Wade."
"Kim!" the chubby young hacker enthused. "It's been a few weeks. But I just got a major hit on the site. It seems that-,"
"Dementor and DNAmy are working together," the lantern finished for her friend and smiled politely.
"How did you…"
Kim couldn't wave her ringed finger at the kimmunicator since they were on the same hand, but still deigned clue Wade in, "Green Lantern Corps call to action. But, unlike you, it can't tell me exactly what they are doing or exactly where they are, just that they are generally up to no good. So, dish?"
The hacker seemed gratified that he could still be of use to his friend even given her new status as a galactic police officer. "Well, the tip I got says that they are planning to break into the Field Museum in Chicago and steal samples from their exhibits."
"And how do you know that, Nerdlinger?"
If Wade bristled at the nickname, he didn't show it as he slurped at a bottled water, "an anonymous tip. Probably an underpaid henchmen of Dementor's. Money has been tight in the villain circles ever since the invasion, and even the top line henchmen are feeling the pinch."
Kim nodded as she listened to and watched Wade. "Yeah, someone's check bounced and we're the benefactors. Let this be a lesson Shego, always pay the hired help."
"Why do you think I'm such a stickler for a contract, pumpkin?" the mercenary began walking across the floor of Kim's makeshift headquarters and mounted her motorcycle, donning her helmet. "I've heard all I need to hear, shall I meet you in Chicago?"
Kim waved her deputy off with a nod and refocused on Wade on the old blue Kimmunicator watch. It was easier than asking Shego to stay for the full debrief and the two of them start catting at each other, as inevitably would happen. "Got anything else for me, Wade?"
"Just the usual," the round computer expert and inventor shrugged, "Watch out for mutant dachshunds, beware of henchmen who may have been boosted, and don't take any wooden nickels."
The redhead laughed and touched the kimmunicator. It took on a green tone to match her uniform thanks to one of Wade's many modifications, as she couldn't create a construct so complex as something Wade could create for her like the little wrist watch. "Hardy har har. Any idea what their endgame is?"
"Clone Sue the T-rex? That could be a money maker. Or maybe the rare gems?" the hacker shrugged from the small screen. "It's hard to say. The anonymous tip only talked about the museum. Good luck Kim."
Wade vanished, to be replaced by a modified KP screen saver, one backed up by the green lantern symbol and flanked by two arcing circlets.
Kim turned and slid into the driver's seat of the sloth. She had not yet learned how to make jet airplanes or helicopters, and so could travel faster by car. The Sloth, like the kimmunicator, turned from purple to green with the brush of a finger, and a whirring siren appeared on top, casting a flashing green light around the garage. She just hoped that Shego didn't beat her to the museum and create chaos as she was wont to do.