A/N: This...is my 150th Drakgo fic, AND...today, publication day, is my birthday. (My 150th Kim Possible fic overall is A Knotty Situation for anyone curious, and it's hilarious; this one is KP fic 153 overall.)

I honestly never expected to write for this fandom at all, let alone write so much. Thank you to those who have supported me from the beginning, both those still in the fandom and those who are enjoying other things now. I cherish you all.

An extremely special thanks to everyone who has ever drawn fan art for me. That's a special honor that I treasure deeply.

And now, on to the story... Evil date nights for Drakken and Shego are...unique. Hope you enjoy.

New Heights

Despite the tight seal on the dome of the hover-car, Shego could feel the ominous chill of the air up higher in the atmosphere than she could recall having ever flown before in such a small craft. She couldn't help herself but to look down into the dark, the Earth below too distant to be seen, and layers of clouds so far they appeared as puddle-like lakes hovering somewhere above the planet's surface.

"Doc... Are you sure this is worth it?"

She hoped he couldn't hear the anxiety in her words, but, for how often Murphy's Law seemed to follow them around, she couldn't help but voice her caution. Especially when looking back up was just as frightening as looking down. It was a sea of inky blue emptiness in all directions, distant stars revealing themselves as pinpricks of light twinkling through the vast curtain. Perhaps, if the more familiar glow of civilization was visible below she would have felt more at ease. But Drakken had insisted on flying far out over some rural state, to a place with minimal light pollution.

"You won't be sorry, Shego. These cold plasma phenomena are like nothing you've ever seen. And if we're lucky, we'll see multiple types of transient luminous events."

Shego blinked across the seat at Drakken, the starlight reflecting in his eyes and his giddy grin.

"Come again?"

"There could be various sorts of transient luminous events. Of course, the stratosphere isn't necessarily the best place to view all varieties, but for these specific ones the conditions are perfect. Oh, I hope the dash cam is working... Did you charge the battery before we left?"

Shego blinked and shook her head, both in confusion and marveling at Drakken's perfect rattling off of the complicated words.

"Yeah... Yeah," she answered, still a bit stupefied as he continued to ramble about short-lived electrical-breakdown phenomena in combinations of words she didn't realize he was capable of and didn't fully understand herself. Meanwhile he was using a remote control to adjust the angle of their camera, aiming it upwards in the sky. Below them in the lake-like clouds, a brief flash of lightning illuminating the irregular shapes proved that the world still in fact existed below them.

"...And of course, there is always the possibility of elves and ghosts, but they are less common."

Shego tuned back in as his science talk switched suddenly to the fanciful.

"What? You mean like...like...?"

"We might be able to see a troll as well. There really isn't a chance for pixies and gnomes, but from here we could definitely see—"

"Doc, you've totally lost me."

The excitement in Drakken's eyes didn't wane, and he merely lifted a finger in a gesture for patience as another distant flash below heralded a building storm. She wanted to question again the safety of flying above what would be a turbulent event, since that was apparently needed for whatever it was Drakken was insistent upon showing her in the upper atmosphere. But for all he was going on about, whether it be science or whimsy, none of it was making sense.

She was internally debating insisting they just leave, concerns about the dome failing, asphyxiation, and even lightning strikes (if it could reach that high), rattling her nerves. But before she could open her mouth to voice any of her objections, Drakken set his arm around her shoulders and her thoughts were arrested. Suddenly all she could see was the deep of his eyes staring down warmly into hers.

"The sprites are the most beautiful."

"Sprites?"

"I think it's a ridiculous name personally, along with the rest. But one must stay on theme, I suppose. It leaves out jets of course, they don't fit. But they are the most obvious of the TLE's after all."

Shego shook her head and moved nearer to him, her brow twisting in confusion and worry. She couldn't see below anymore, the vast blue emptiness that faded to black above overtaking her vision. It was unnerving, seeming to be suspended in nothingness, the hover-car a mere speck that somehow was still operational some 50,000 feet above the planet's surface.

Her stomach turned, and she desperately wished for what wasn't feeling at all like an evil date to be over, despite the smoldering of feelings Drakken's look had ignited in her chest. She needed further distraction.

"Tell me more about these...what are they? TLE's?"

"Which ones?"

"The uh... Whatever we're up here to see?"

Drakken held her shoulder more tightly, smiling happily.

"It's really quite simple, Shego. A large polarity change in the electric field after a lightning strike sends an abrupt negative charge into the stratosphere..."

He was going too fast, and she still couldn't keep up with his scientific chatter. Part of her wondered if he was making it all up, but the precision and rapidity with which he rattled off the complex and detailed explanation suggested otherwise.

"The imbalance from the top of the storm and the charge in the ionosphere are the ideal conditions for these TLE's," he said, as if in conclusion, but then he took another breath and continued.

Shego rested her head on his shoulder. Listening to him speak with such excitement and confidence was, she realized, gradually calming her nerves. And she couldn't help herself but to be pleased seeing him so happy. Amid their seemingly endless defeats and failures, it was rare to see him so thrilled and with absolutely nothing standing in the way of his joy. This wasn't a world domination plan that hinged upon tiny, variable details. It was just a date, which she had agreed to without hesitation, and he had promised her the show of a lifetime.

She tuned out the actual words, giving up trying to understand the science he was explaining while equally impressed that he knew so much. She fully believed of course that he was a genius; he couldn't invent and build all of the devices he did otherwise. His sudden frequent shifts into nonsense words and talk of ridiculous things like gnomes and pixies would always confuse her, but...as he talked animatedly about whatever it was he had determined was worth risking their lives for an evil date, she found herself smiling.

In truth, she loved hearing him talk. Not that she would ever let him know.

"...And the higher in altitude, the nitrogen will excite red. But it would show up blue and even perhaps purple if excited lower. Should we see any green, that of course is oxygen. And—"

"Are you sure this is safe?" she interrupted after a faint rumbling of thunder reached her ears from below.

"...It'll be worth it," Drakken said, his smile not faltering.

Shego turned her head and looked at him.

"Drakken."

Before another word could be spoken, a flash of lightning revealed Drakken's reason for bringing her up into the sky.

It was over in an instant, but it was impressed upon her mind like a photograph. A massive wash of translucent glowing red that overtook the sky like a dome but without borders—a three-dimensional presence that seemed real and non-existent all at once. Bright beads and tendrils fractured down and away from the dome like lightning, only far more delicate like the roots of a flower. At their tops they seemed attached to the dome by a cone, and at the very lowest tips of the wire-like structures that sizzled in the icy air was a faint purple glow.

Shego rose up and bumped her head on the hover-car's dome as she peered down in attempt to see the full extent of the thing, but it had vanished like a vapor, the star-studded indigo skies filling her vision once more. She had scarcely taken a breath when another of the red wonders flashed in the sky, further away but no less magnificent. And then another, and another. Each the same, and yet each unique as they came to life and then danced away before she could even fathom what they might be.

She sat down again, Drakken's arm ready to receive her, and laughter bubbled delightedly from his lips as he stared wide-eyed with boyish excitement at what had clearly been his reason for flying her up there.

"What are they?" she said, the words sounding alien as they seemed to come from some other source than her mouth.

"Sprites," Drakken said, holding her closer, the continuing flashes of red making his skin look purple when she glanced at him.

A lingering green mist appeared above the next otherworldly flash before vanishing in a seeming swirl, and Drakken let out a gasp of excitement.

"That one is a ghost! You know, they were only recently officially discovered—"

"Ghosts? Sprites? Who names these things?" Shego asked with a mild scoff, still watching in fascination as the show continued, the phenomena appearing and vanishing across the vastness of the ocean of the sky, seeming almost like animals bobbing up out of the seas to reveal a secret before hiding themselves away again.

"Hn... Scientists, I suppose," Drakken replied.

"They look more like jellyfish," Shego declared as another appeared and then blinked away, another tiny trail of purple and even blue faintly showing at the bottom of the tendrils of light with a boundless dome-like mist at the top.

"You know, Shego, you're right," Drakken said with a smile.

"Seriously, who thought sprites was a good name? They look exactly like...creepy jellyfish out of some nightmare. Jellyfish lightning."

"Ah, but it isn't lightning, Shego. It's more of a cool plasma phenomenon."

"Whatever," she said, moving nearer to him as a rumble of thunder followed a particularly bright red flash, topped again by a green ghost. She couldn't think of a better name for those, so kept her mouth closed on the matter.

They watched the display in silence for several minutes, the dancing of the strange red lights making it seem to Shego they had left the Earth for some place far more wonderful. And with Drakken's arm warming her against the invasive chill of the upper atmosphere, she found she didn't mind anymore having been brought up into the heavens. It was dangerous, risky, and beautiful—everything an evil date should be.

Drakken peered down over the side of their tiny craft through its protective dome as a rumbling of thunder lasted especially long that time, and then he smirked and hummed to himself in amusement.

"What?" Shego asked.

When he turned back toward her, his expression showed that his next words would cause her to either laugh or hit him, and she wasn't sure she wanted to hear whatever thought had entered his mind.

"You know, since we're renaming things..." he began, barely containing his mirth, "clouds are really just...fluffy water."

She stared at him as he held back his laughter, waiting for her response. Red flashed above them again and he glanced away to the skies.

"Shego, you're missing them! Shego...?"

She threw her arms around him and kissed him, as suddenly the only danger and beauty she was interested in was further opening her heart to the mad scientist who both calmed and fueled her flames.

He kissed her back, but after a moment broke away to look desperately into her eyes.

"But, Shego! The sprites!"

"Guess we'll just have to come back during the next storm," she said with a grin.

Drakken's smile returned as revelation reached his eyes, and it was but a moment before they melted into each other's arms and she gave herself up to the passion she too often held back as his lips caressed hers while around them, the lights still danced.

'Transient luminous...whatever,' her mind tried to fill in from Drakken's earlier intellectual talk, but all of it had fled in favor of memorizing the feel of his mouth upon hers and his fingers kneading her flesh. And as she glimpsed the red flashes turning his skin purple once again she couldn't help herself but to chuckle into the kiss.

That night, all she would remember was fluffy water, jellyfish lightning, and the love in his touch.