VEILS OF SECRECY
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Escape
~~~~~~
Disclaimer: KP does not belong to me, yadda yadda yadda.
ADRENA-LYNN SAT HUDDLED in the corner of a cold, dank jail cell. She pressed her knees to her face and huffed out a small breath. She was in a foul mood, but her cameraman was in a separate cell and she had no one to boss around until she felt better. This was all the fault of Kim Possible and that Ron Stoppable person, for exposing her. Sometimes there were things that nobody was supposed to know.
A commotion down the hall startled Adrena, and she leapt to her feet to peer through the grille in her door. She could see nothing, but she heard scuffling and sounds of hand-to-hand combat. It was over quickly, and light footsteps tapped a staccato beat on the stone floor.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a long-haired figure slunk into view. Adrena jumped back with a small gasp.
The figure wrapped ten fingers around the bars of the grille. The figure was a girl, with a thick, wild mane of ebony hair, and unnaturally pale skin. Her nails were long and tapered, lethal-looking. Her eyes were wide, the color of leaves you might find in the jungle, and her lips were painted black. Adrena gave the girl another quick once-over. She didn't recognize her.
"You're Adrena-Lynn." It wasn't a question.
"Who wants to know?" Adrena snapped.
The girl gave a slow smile. Adrena decided to drop the snippy act. You never know; this girl might be here to help.
"Me," she replied. She curled her fingers inward, and bright-green plasma flares erupted around her fist. Involuntarily, Adrena drew a sharp breath.
The black-haired girl responded to this with a low, disarming laugh. "I won't use my powers on you." She gave a sweep of her arm, and a sizzling hole appeared around the lock. The door swung open.
"Who are you?" Adrena breathed as the girl stepped into the cell.
"It's really none of your business." The girl checked her nails casually, as if this was a laidback, normal conversation. "But my name is Shego." Her face was inscrutable.
"That's a name?" Adrena scoffed.
"It's *my* name. And you should talk; you're named after a hormone."
The few shards left of Adrena's pride demanded that she change the subject. "And...what do you want?"
"Some help. With a certain annoying red-haired cheerleader."
"You mean Kim Possible?" Adrena's hands bunched into fists. "I hate her! She's the one who got me stuck here!"
"That's what I thought. Now, let's get out of here before those guards wake up."
"You're helping me escape?"
"Doi. Why do you think I melted the lock? Because I wanted an autograph from an ex-TV star? I could have done that through the bars."
"I'll come with you."
"Then move." Shego seized Adrena's wrist and pulled her out of the cell. Shego closed the door and carefully re-melded the lock together.
"What are you doing?"
"If Kim Possible can't find any traces of me, she won't know I helped you. I fed a loop through the security cams, too. Just in case the guards have an IQ over forty, I jabbed them with an amnesiac so they won't remember me. All we have to do now is bolt."
"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get out of here and crush that irritating cheerleader. FREAKY!!"
"That's the spirit. Now let's go."
~~~~~~~~~
"So how are we going to smash Kim Possible?" Adrena asked eagerly, outlining Shego's profile with her eyes.
"Calm down," Shego laughed, flipping a few switches on the dashboard of the hovercraft. "When Kim Possible finds out you flew the coop, she's going to look for signs that you're trying to get your show back on the air. She'll track you down, try to stop you, and I'll be waiting in the wings."
"You won't let me get in a few blows?"
"'Course I will, after I break her arms." Shego laughed. "You're certainly more fierce than I expected. Which I like."
The words were on the tip of Adrena's tongue.
"It's good to know I won't have to do everything myself. I always had to when I worked for Drakken." Shego continued. She reclined and crossed her legs over the dashboard.
Adrena's original sentence withered in her mouth. She cast about for something else to say. "Who's Drakken?" was what she came up with.
"My old boss. I was tired of his cluelessness and completely lame plans, so I quit. And I thought I'd enlist your help."
"What's in it for me?"
Shego turned to glance at Adrena. A smile slowly turned up the corners of her mouth, and she crossed her arms behind her head. "I bust you out of jail, promise to help you squash Kimmie, and you want more?"
Adrena forced her eyes away from Shego. "Guess not. Hey...Shego, what did Kim Possible do to you?"
Shego laughed dryly. "Where do I start? Drakken was always trying to take over the world, and Kim Possible always stopped him. I used to work as his assistant, so I got dragged down, too. Let's see: I've been nearly drowned three times, nearly asphyxiated once, nearly crushed once, had hurricane-force winds slam into me once, and been thrown into walls too many times to count."
"Ouch. Well, you know she canceled my show. Did you see the part where she was wearing a jetpack and she picked me up and flew me around until I admitted that I was a fake?"
"No." Shego said, with more softness than Adrena expected. "Did she drop you?"
"She loosened her grip on my arms a few times and I thought she was going to."
Shego winced. "Damn. That was NOT necessary. And she says *we're* evil."
"Does it seem like...everything in your life was going just fine, and then Kim Possible had to come along and ruin everything?" Adrena forced herself to calm down. She was working herself up to hysteria.
Shego tapped her cheek with two fingertips. If she noticed Adrena's near-outburst, she didn't comment. "Never thought about it that way, but when you said it..." she sighed, her gaze boring a hole in the night sky ahead of them. Adrena lightly placed one hand on the older girl's shoulder, brushing back a few stray locks of her silky black hair. "Yes. I could always steal the web from under a spider and get away with it. I was wanted in 11 countries before, and none of them ever caught me--until that cheerleader showed up. God I hate cheerleaders."
Adrena sat up abruptly. "They always think they're so cute! And the ones in my school were total whores. Flashing their bare legs at all the boys during the pep rallies---all the cheerleaders I ever knew would sleep with anything."
Shego laughed. It was the first time Adrena had heard her laugh out of amusement. "Good one, Adrena. Make sure you tell that to Kim Possible so we can watch her shake with anger."
Adrena smiled and let her hand glide down Shego's arm to lie upon her clawed fingers. Shego glanced at Adrena, her expression deadpan. Adrena jerked her hand away. No, she ordered herself. You promised yourself. No.
"It's okay Adrena, I'm not that sensitive. Didn't I say that I wouldn't use my green plasma on you?" Shego's voice pulsed, low and calming. Adrena closed her eyes. Shego gently touched Adrena's short hair, her sharp nails sifting through the blonde strands. "Hey. Are you okay? Let me guess--the mere thought of Kim Possible makes you nauseous."
Adrena managed a laugh. "Cheerleaders make me sick." she agreed. She heard how her voice was strained.
"You're not okay. What's wrong?" Shego removed her hand from Adrena's hair.
"I'm fine."
"Did Kim Possible do something to you that you didn't tell me? You know, something excessively harsh that I might have to break her fingers for?"
Adrena's brain scrambled for an answer. "Just thinking about how great it's going to feel to beat Kim Possible. She almost killed you, I can only imagine how psyched you are." Adrena had a feeling that Shego knew that wasn't true, but she only nodded.
Shego looked constantly, unblinking, at Adrena for a long time, and then dropped her gaze. "We have to make sure she doesn't win again...what happened that made us lose the first thousand and one times?" Shego asked herself, tilting her head to one side. Her fingers danced over the dash, tipping the hovercraft higher and switching the controls to autopilot.
"I think...when Kim Possible beat me, it was sort of my fault." The words tumbled from Adrena's mouth before she could stop them.
"Your ego got in the way, and you were so confident that you would win, you let your guard down?"
The younger villainess felt the color rise to her cheeks. "Yeah...how did you know?"
Shego smiled gently. "That's what happened to me," she said softly. Her voice settled reassuringly on Adrena's shoulders.
The twin fires on Adrena's cheeks blazed. "Oh," she replied quietly, tilting her face down so the longer hair on one side of her face hid her ruddy cheeks.
Shego laughed, brushing the hair back almost playfully. "I see that blush. Having...ah...extra pride is nothing to be ashamed of."
Adrena sat up straight. "It isn't?"
The older girl sighed. "Adrena, I can only do this sincere crap for so long. So you've got an ego! Make the rest of the world deal with it."
"My audience always liked my attitude." Adrena grinned. "While I had an audience." Her face fell.
"Adrena, you better turn that bitterness into anger against Kim Possible. Or I may have to take *my* anger out on you."
Adrena flinched.
Shego smiled, and laced her fingers through the younger girl's. "I was kidding, doi. I wouldn't hurt you." Her voice, smooth as a satin ribbon, was tying Adrena up.
Adrena decided not to pull away. "Okay...so let's go over this again. Kim Possible tries to bust me for getting my show back on the air illegally, and you hide, and come in and crush her?"
"That's the plan."
"And her irritating sidekick?"
Shego turned to face Adrena with the slightest of smiles on her face. "You're starting to think like a true villainess, Adrena."
Adrena's blush darkened. "Well?" she asked crisply, trying to use her voice to maintain her dignity.
"I think we can rig a trapdoor for Stoppable to step on and fall--he's such a klutz. While Kim's distracted, I come out of nowhere and pin her down, and then we both can smash her. As for Stoppable, we'll get him out of the trapdoor room and do the same. We can't leave anyone alive who could want revenge--except for their parents, which we can't do anything about. But the parents can't get to us if the police can't, right?"
"Right," Adrena smiled. "Shego? Can I ask you a question?"
"You just did. But you can ask me another."
Shego's slender fingers were warm against Adrena's. Her mouth opened, but she still couldn't bring herself to say it. Maybe later. "How did you become evil?" was what came out.
The raven-haired villainess gave a small laugh. "I was born in Go City. When I was four, a comet decimated the tree house where my brothers and I used to play."
"Brothers?"
"I have four: Hego, Mego, Wego One, and Wego Two."
"Oohh."
"Yeah, it sucked. After five minutes with my brothers I'd be ready to claw my own eyes out. Anyway...the comet. When we went to find out what happened to our tree house, the comet gave us special powers when we touched it. My brother Hego got superstrength, Mego got shrinking powers, the Wegos got powers that let them copy themselves on command, and I got repelling powers--when they're activated, whatever I touch is destroyed or blasted away from me."
"Freaky!"
"Yeah, no kidding. My brothers and I went into the crime-fighting field. Hego was the leader, but Mego and I were always trying to let Hego to let us call the shots. We became 'Team Go.' The lame name was, of course, Hego's idea."
"*Crime-fighting?*"
"Yeah. But I, or course, got sick of it. The Wegos didn't have any time for anybody but themselves, and Mego was so self-absorbed, and Hego was so bossy and naive...they never paid a speck of attention to their sister. And I was intrigued by evil. The wildness of it...doing whatever you wanted, stealing what you wanted, the challenge of eluding the police...and, of course, no irritating brothers. And if somebody pissed you off, you could simply annihilate them. Also, what better way to get back at my brothers than to turn into a member of the force they spent their life fighting?"
"Did you run away?"
"I couldn't right away. I pulled off a few minor stealing jobs and got hooked on the thrill. My brothers, try as they might, couldn't catch the culprit. Can you imagine?"
Adrena laughed.
"I used the money to bribe my way out of Go City and keep my trail covered. I kicked the tails of a few muggers on the back streets of Tokyo, and it so happens that Drakken was watching--he was thinking of taking over some factory there. Said he needed an assistant who could kick as hard as I could."
"What, did you kick him?"
"He called me a 'little lady,' and I HATE being called that. Just your typical job interview, you know? Anyway, the rest is history. But enough about me. What was with you and the whole extreme-stunts thing?"
The blonde teenager sighed. "I always wanted to be a daredevil when I was little. I admired the kids who could jump off the high dive at the pool, as stupid as that sounds. I wanted to be that brave. I always tried to jump off the high dive, but I'd look down at the water and panic. I had to climb down."
"So, let me guess...you wanted to show everybody that you weren't a chicken."
"Exactly!" Adrena cast a quick look at Shego, who seemed to be listening. It struck Adrena that this could all be a setup--Shego wasn't trustworthy, and was lying about helping Adrena--but she wanted to tell Shego her story anyway. "I used my college savings to buy air time and equipment. I hired a cameraman, so I could boss him around when I was feeling high-strung...especially, you know, every three and a half weeks."
Shego snickered in a sort of understanding way.
"You weren't the only one to use bribes--I paid people to help me fake the stunts. The show's ratings skyrocketed..." Adrena lifted her head back and gazed at the sky.
"Your eyes are glittering," Shego mused quietly. "You loved that show."
"That show was my life! I couldn't afford to go to college anymore and my show became the center of my freaking existence. And then..." she trailed off.
"I know. Goddamn that Kim Possible!" Shego squeezed the younger female's hand. "We'll get her."
Though she didn't want to, Adrena untwined her fingers from Shego's. "I wonder if she knows what she does to people."
"Cheerleaders have about as much remorse as we do."
"Yeah. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. My cameraman used that line sometimes when I insulted other fake extreme-stunts TV shows."
"Let me guess: you said 'Really? I thought people who live in glass houses should dress in the basement.'"
Adrena smiled. "What's kind of sad is, you just busted me out of jail less than an hour ago and you're the only person who's been halfway decent to me since God-only-knows-when."
"Same here, Adrena. It's a lonely life. But it does have benefits." The midnight-haired vixen smiled to herself.
^It does have benefits.^ Adrena-Lynn spent the rest of the hovercraft ride trying to figure out what Shego meant by that.
~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
So, what did you think? Be honest but not cruel, if you please.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Escape
~~~~~~
Disclaimer: KP does not belong to me, yadda yadda yadda.
ADRENA-LYNN SAT HUDDLED in the corner of a cold, dank jail cell. She pressed her knees to her face and huffed out a small breath. She was in a foul mood, but her cameraman was in a separate cell and she had no one to boss around until she felt better. This was all the fault of Kim Possible and that Ron Stoppable person, for exposing her. Sometimes there were things that nobody was supposed to know.
A commotion down the hall startled Adrena, and she leapt to her feet to peer through the grille in her door. She could see nothing, but she heard scuffling and sounds of hand-to-hand combat. It was over quickly, and light footsteps tapped a staccato beat on the stone floor.
Seemingly out of nowhere, a long-haired figure slunk into view. Adrena jumped back with a small gasp.
The figure wrapped ten fingers around the bars of the grille. The figure was a girl, with a thick, wild mane of ebony hair, and unnaturally pale skin. Her nails were long and tapered, lethal-looking. Her eyes were wide, the color of leaves you might find in the jungle, and her lips were painted black. Adrena gave the girl another quick once-over. She didn't recognize her.
"You're Adrena-Lynn." It wasn't a question.
"Who wants to know?" Adrena snapped.
The girl gave a slow smile. Adrena decided to drop the snippy act. You never know; this girl might be here to help.
"Me," she replied. She curled her fingers inward, and bright-green plasma flares erupted around her fist. Involuntarily, Adrena drew a sharp breath.
The black-haired girl responded to this with a low, disarming laugh. "I won't use my powers on you." She gave a sweep of her arm, and a sizzling hole appeared around the lock. The door swung open.
"Who are you?" Adrena breathed as the girl stepped into the cell.
"It's really none of your business." The girl checked her nails casually, as if this was a laidback, normal conversation. "But my name is Shego." Her face was inscrutable.
"That's a name?" Adrena scoffed.
"It's *my* name. And you should talk; you're named after a hormone."
The few shards left of Adrena's pride demanded that she change the subject. "And...what do you want?"
"Some help. With a certain annoying red-haired cheerleader."
"You mean Kim Possible?" Adrena's hands bunched into fists. "I hate her! She's the one who got me stuck here!"
"That's what I thought. Now, let's get out of here before those guards wake up."
"You're helping me escape?"
"Doi. Why do you think I melted the lock? Because I wanted an autograph from an ex-TV star? I could have done that through the bars."
"I'll come with you."
"Then move." Shego seized Adrena's wrist and pulled her out of the cell. Shego closed the door and carefully re-melded the lock together.
"What are you doing?"
"If Kim Possible can't find any traces of me, she won't know I helped you. I fed a loop through the security cams, too. Just in case the guards have an IQ over forty, I jabbed them with an amnesiac so they won't remember me. All we have to do now is bolt."
"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get out of here and crush that irritating cheerleader. FREAKY!!"
"That's the spirit. Now let's go."
~~~~~~~~~
"So how are we going to smash Kim Possible?" Adrena asked eagerly, outlining Shego's profile with her eyes.
"Calm down," Shego laughed, flipping a few switches on the dashboard of the hovercraft. "When Kim Possible finds out you flew the coop, she's going to look for signs that you're trying to get your show back on the air. She'll track you down, try to stop you, and I'll be waiting in the wings."
"You won't let me get in a few blows?"
"'Course I will, after I break her arms." Shego laughed. "You're certainly more fierce than I expected. Which I like."
The words were on the tip of Adrena's tongue.
"It's good to know I won't have to do everything myself. I always had to when I worked for Drakken." Shego continued. She reclined and crossed her legs over the dashboard.
Adrena's original sentence withered in her mouth. She cast about for something else to say. "Who's Drakken?" was what she came up with.
"My old boss. I was tired of his cluelessness and completely lame plans, so I quit. And I thought I'd enlist your help."
"What's in it for me?"
Shego turned to glance at Adrena. A smile slowly turned up the corners of her mouth, and she crossed her arms behind her head. "I bust you out of jail, promise to help you squash Kimmie, and you want more?"
Adrena forced her eyes away from Shego. "Guess not. Hey...Shego, what did Kim Possible do to you?"
Shego laughed dryly. "Where do I start? Drakken was always trying to take over the world, and Kim Possible always stopped him. I used to work as his assistant, so I got dragged down, too. Let's see: I've been nearly drowned three times, nearly asphyxiated once, nearly crushed once, had hurricane-force winds slam into me once, and been thrown into walls too many times to count."
"Ouch. Well, you know she canceled my show. Did you see the part where she was wearing a jetpack and she picked me up and flew me around until I admitted that I was a fake?"
"No." Shego said, with more softness than Adrena expected. "Did she drop you?"
"She loosened her grip on my arms a few times and I thought she was going to."
Shego winced. "Damn. That was NOT necessary. And she says *we're* evil."
"Does it seem like...everything in your life was going just fine, and then Kim Possible had to come along and ruin everything?" Adrena forced herself to calm down. She was working herself up to hysteria.
Shego tapped her cheek with two fingertips. If she noticed Adrena's near-outburst, she didn't comment. "Never thought about it that way, but when you said it..." she sighed, her gaze boring a hole in the night sky ahead of them. Adrena lightly placed one hand on the older girl's shoulder, brushing back a few stray locks of her silky black hair. "Yes. I could always steal the web from under a spider and get away with it. I was wanted in 11 countries before, and none of them ever caught me--until that cheerleader showed up. God I hate cheerleaders."
Adrena sat up abruptly. "They always think they're so cute! And the ones in my school were total whores. Flashing their bare legs at all the boys during the pep rallies---all the cheerleaders I ever knew would sleep with anything."
Shego laughed. It was the first time Adrena had heard her laugh out of amusement. "Good one, Adrena. Make sure you tell that to Kim Possible so we can watch her shake with anger."
Adrena smiled and let her hand glide down Shego's arm to lie upon her clawed fingers. Shego glanced at Adrena, her expression deadpan. Adrena jerked her hand away. No, she ordered herself. You promised yourself. No.
"It's okay Adrena, I'm not that sensitive. Didn't I say that I wouldn't use my green plasma on you?" Shego's voice pulsed, low and calming. Adrena closed her eyes. Shego gently touched Adrena's short hair, her sharp nails sifting through the blonde strands. "Hey. Are you okay? Let me guess--the mere thought of Kim Possible makes you nauseous."
Adrena managed a laugh. "Cheerleaders make me sick." she agreed. She heard how her voice was strained.
"You're not okay. What's wrong?" Shego removed her hand from Adrena's hair.
"I'm fine."
"Did Kim Possible do something to you that you didn't tell me? You know, something excessively harsh that I might have to break her fingers for?"
Adrena's brain scrambled for an answer. "Just thinking about how great it's going to feel to beat Kim Possible. She almost killed you, I can only imagine how psyched you are." Adrena had a feeling that Shego knew that wasn't true, but she only nodded.
Shego looked constantly, unblinking, at Adrena for a long time, and then dropped her gaze. "We have to make sure she doesn't win again...what happened that made us lose the first thousand and one times?" Shego asked herself, tilting her head to one side. Her fingers danced over the dash, tipping the hovercraft higher and switching the controls to autopilot.
"I think...when Kim Possible beat me, it was sort of my fault." The words tumbled from Adrena's mouth before she could stop them.
"Your ego got in the way, and you were so confident that you would win, you let your guard down?"
The younger villainess felt the color rise to her cheeks. "Yeah...how did you know?"
Shego smiled gently. "That's what happened to me," she said softly. Her voice settled reassuringly on Adrena's shoulders.
The twin fires on Adrena's cheeks blazed. "Oh," she replied quietly, tilting her face down so the longer hair on one side of her face hid her ruddy cheeks.
Shego laughed, brushing the hair back almost playfully. "I see that blush. Having...ah...extra pride is nothing to be ashamed of."
Adrena sat up straight. "It isn't?"
The older girl sighed. "Adrena, I can only do this sincere crap for so long. So you've got an ego! Make the rest of the world deal with it."
"My audience always liked my attitude." Adrena grinned. "While I had an audience." Her face fell.
"Adrena, you better turn that bitterness into anger against Kim Possible. Or I may have to take *my* anger out on you."
Adrena flinched.
Shego smiled, and laced her fingers through the younger girl's. "I was kidding, doi. I wouldn't hurt you." Her voice, smooth as a satin ribbon, was tying Adrena up.
Adrena decided not to pull away. "Okay...so let's go over this again. Kim Possible tries to bust me for getting my show back on the air illegally, and you hide, and come in and crush her?"
"That's the plan."
"And her irritating sidekick?"
Shego turned to face Adrena with the slightest of smiles on her face. "You're starting to think like a true villainess, Adrena."
Adrena's blush darkened. "Well?" she asked crisply, trying to use her voice to maintain her dignity.
"I think we can rig a trapdoor for Stoppable to step on and fall--he's such a klutz. While Kim's distracted, I come out of nowhere and pin her down, and then we both can smash her. As for Stoppable, we'll get him out of the trapdoor room and do the same. We can't leave anyone alive who could want revenge--except for their parents, which we can't do anything about. But the parents can't get to us if the police can't, right?"
"Right," Adrena smiled. "Shego? Can I ask you a question?"
"You just did. But you can ask me another."
Shego's slender fingers were warm against Adrena's. Her mouth opened, but she still couldn't bring herself to say it. Maybe later. "How did you become evil?" was what came out.
The raven-haired villainess gave a small laugh. "I was born in Go City. When I was four, a comet decimated the tree house where my brothers and I used to play."
"Brothers?"
"I have four: Hego, Mego, Wego One, and Wego Two."
"Oohh."
"Yeah, it sucked. After five minutes with my brothers I'd be ready to claw my own eyes out. Anyway...the comet. When we went to find out what happened to our tree house, the comet gave us special powers when we touched it. My brother Hego got superstrength, Mego got shrinking powers, the Wegos got powers that let them copy themselves on command, and I got repelling powers--when they're activated, whatever I touch is destroyed or blasted away from me."
"Freaky!"
"Yeah, no kidding. My brothers and I went into the crime-fighting field. Hego was the leader, but Mego and I were always trying to let Hego to let us call the shots. We became 'Team Go.' The lame name was, of course, Hego's idea."
"*Crime-fighting?*"
"Yeah. But I, or course, got sick of it. The Wegos didn't have any time for anybody but themselves, and Mego was so self-absorbed, and Hego was so bossy and naive...they never paid a speck of attention to their sister. And I was intrigued by evil. The wildness of it...doing whatever you wanted, stealing what you wanted, the challenge of eluding the police...and, of course, no irritating brothers. And if somebody pissed you off, you could simply annihilate them. Also, what better way to get back at my brothers than to turn into a member of the force they spent their life fighting?"
"Did you run away?"
"I couldn't right away. I pulled off a few minor stealing jobs and got hooked on the thrill. My brothers, try as they might, couldn't catch the culprit. Can you imagine?"
Adrena laughed.
"I used the money to bribe my way out of Go City and keep my trail covered. I kicked the tails of a few muggers on the back streets of Tokyo, and it so happens that Drakken was watching--he was thinking of taking over some factory there. Said he needed an assistant who could kick as hard as I could."
"What, did you kick him?"
"He called me a 'little lady,' and I HATE being called that. Just your typical job interview, you know? Anyway, the rest is history. But enough about me. What was with you and the whole extreme-stunts thing?"
The blonde teenager sighed. "I always wanted to be a daredevil when I was little. I admired the kids who could jump off the high dive at the pool, as stupid as that sounds. I wanted to be that brave. I always tried to jump off the high dive, but I'd look down at the water and panic. I had to climb down."
"So, let me guess...you wanted to show everybody that you weren't a chicken."
"Exactly!" Adrena cast a quick look at Shego, who seemed to be listening. It struck Adrena that this could all be a setup--Shego wasn't trustworthy, and was lying about helping Adrena--but she wanted to tell Shego her story anyway. "I used my college savings to buy air time and equipment. I hired a cameraman, so I could boss him around when I was feeling high-strung...especially, you know, every three and a half weeks."
Shego snickered in a sort of understanding way.
"You weren't the only one to use bribes--I paid people to help me fake the stunts. The show's ratings skyrocketed..." Adrena lifted her head back and gazed at the sky.
"Your eyes are glittering," Shego mused quietly. "You loved that show."
"That show was my life! I couldn't afford to go to college anymore and my show became the center of my freaking existence. And then..." she trailed off.
"I know. Goddamn that Kim Possible!" Shego squeezed the younger female's hand. "We'll get her."
Though she didn't want to, Adrena untwined her fingers from Shego's. "I wonder if she knows what she does to people."
"Cheerleaders have about as much remorse as we do."
"Yeah. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. My cameraman used that line sometimes when I insulted other fake extreme-stunts TV shows."
"Let me guess: you said 'Really? I thought people who live in glass houses should dress in the basement.'"
Adrena smiled. "What's kind of sad is, you just busted me out of jail less than an hour ago and you're the only person who's been halfway decent to me since God-only-knows-when."
"Same here, Adrena. It's a lonely life. But it does have benefits." The midnight-haired vixen smiled to herself.
^It does have benefits.^ Adrena-Lynn spent the rest of the hovercraft ride trying to figure out what Shego meant by that.
~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~
So, what did you think? Be honest but not cruel, if you please.