Their Good Name

by Frederick Aloysius

Kim and Ron find themselves on the wrong side of the law after a criminal conspiracy frames them. Now, they must find out who is behind it in order to clear their good name. Please Read and Review.

5. Chapter 4: Decision, Decisions

Note: Please see the Foreword for updated Author's Notes

Chapter 4: Decisions, Decisions

Ron Stoppable had been a member of Team Possible since the beginning. He was twelve then, as was Kim, and when they went on those first missions, he had had exactly no combat training, no field experience, and little confidence in both who he was and what he could do. If it weren't for the fact that the only person in the world that he could call a friend found their new hobby exciting, he would have been content to stay home and play video games with his new pet.

That was six years ago and much had changed for the blonde haired hero. He had been around the block a few times, was always there by Kim's side to play his part in Team Possible, and had picked up a few new moves in the process. He doubted that the boy he was back then would be able to believe what the man he was today could do. Like take on eight of Draken's henchmen at once.

But, here he was, standing in the middle of a lab in a military research complex, having taken five of the eight henchmen out of commission. He turned his attention to the remaining three, who looked more like small children now instead of the muscle behind Draken's latest scheme. Yet Ron felt no pity for them. They had chosen their path, just as he had, and this was were the two crossed. "You should have made a better decision," was all the thought he gave the matter before advancing once again.

One of the three was closer to him than the others, so Ron decided to eliminate him first. With speed that even Kim and Shego could only dream about, he crossed the distance between himself and his opponent in the blink of an eye. The other man never knew what hit him, which, Ron supposed, was probably a good thing. Two quick yet powerful left jabs to the man's midsection and one thunderous right hook to his jaw and henchman #6 was down for the count.

Ron paused briefly over #6 to make sure that he really was unconscious and then looked up at #7 and #8. Both men were quietly shaking where they stood, their mouths open in shock, and Ron was sure that, if he could have seen them behind the visors that they wore, their eyes would be wide with fear. A playful smile formed at the hero's lips and he wondered if he couldn't use their fear to his advantage. Instead of rushing at #7 and #8, Ron merely stared intently at them and uttered a single word, low and even. "Boo."

This, apparently, was enough to send the two henchmen over the edge. They both jumped when they heard Ron speak and decided that now was a good time to get the hell out of there. If only they were thinking on the same wavelength, they might have been successful in their escape. But #7 started to run to his right while #8 started to run to his left, banging their heads together in a violent crash. Their collision caused both of them to knock each other out and they both fell silently to the ground, out like a light.

This half of Team Possible was quite pleased with the results of this little sparing exercise. He allowed his attention to remain on the eight bodies that now littered the floor of the lab before he remembered that Draken had brought more than just his henchmen. He had brought Shego as well, who was probably mixing it up with Kim as Ron stood around admiring his handiwork.

Chastising himself for his moment of pride, he quickly spun around and began moving to the last spot where he had seen the two women. But he stopped after only a few steps, realizing that he was now alone in the holographics lab. He simply assumed that Kim and Shego had taken their fight out of the lab and began looking for any sign of a struggle that would indicate where his partner was when he heard a sound coming from his right.

He looked over to the location of the noise and saw the empty doorway that lead to lab's office. Between his henchmen and his assistant, Ron had completely forgotten that Draken was still here and that he had a hostage. The blonde began moving quickly just in case Draken decided to do something desperate and reached the entrance to the office in a moment.

What Ron saw would have been completely comical had it not been for the seriousness of the situation. Draken had been trying to get Dr. Fedor up out of his chair and out the door in an attempt to make his escape, but was having little success. It seemed that the holographics expert had found his courage now that the rescue team was here and he was not about to go anywhere with his blue skinned captor. He had stood up and, despite still being tied to his chair, was able to swing it as a weapon and had backed Draken into a corner.

Draken, his henchmen gone and Shego no where in sight, now had all the danger of a bug bite and he knew it. He was cowering in a corner of the office when Ron walked in, and Dr. Fedor, having recognized the blonde as one of the good guys, was content to let Ron take over. The teenager walked over to where Draken was shaking and looked down at the supposed criminal mastermind. "So," he said with an even voice and his eyes trained on Draken like lasers, "just what do you have to say for yourself this time, Draken?"

The mad genius looked back at Ron with a mixture of fear and defiance in his eyes, albeit a lot more fear than defiance. Draken knew that he was trapped, that his henchmen were gone, that Shego was probably being beaten by Kim Possible at that very moment. He looked around the room desperately, not wanting to believe that his latest plan had been foiled and that he was captured, not by Kim Possible, but by Kim Possible's buffoon of a sidekick! And so he played the one card that he had left; he cried out for help to Shego.

Shego, for her part, was having much more fun on this mission than she could ever remember. Not only had she found whatever stupid toy Draken wanted for his latest scheme, but she also had an unconscious and completely helpless Kim Possible at her disposal. Slipping the small Mirage device into her jumpsuit pocket, she strolled over to where the redhead laid. Shego wanted to savor every aspect of this moment; after all, she was only going to get to kill the heroine once.

It took the villainess only a second to cross the room over to where Kim was. She stood over the cheerleader with a poisonous grin and malevolence in her eyes. "It's too bad that you're not here to enjoy this with me, Kimmie," Shego said, her voice dripping with poisonous honey. "Then I'd get to see the look in your eyes." The older woman then called forth every last bit of green energy at her disposal, raised her right hand to strike down her foe once and for all, and struck with all her might.

But her blow never landed. Just as Shego had begun to bring her hand down to put the finishing touches on Kim, she was snapped out of her moment of joy by the sound of Draken's shrill cry for help. For a second, she considered leaving him to whatever fate had in store for him but then thought better of it. He did sign her paychecks, after all, and, deep down, she had been with Draken for a long time and felt a small amount of loyalty and friendship towards him (although she would never admit that to anyone, especially Draken).

"Kimmie will still be here when I get back," she reasoned with herself and, turning off her glowing hand, she dashed from the hidden room and back into the main part of the lab. After a quick glance around the room, she realized with no small amount of shock that Kim's bumbling sidekick had taken down Draken's henchmen. Alone. She pushed her confusion from her mind as she refocused on the task at hand. "He must still be in the office," she silently decided and moved to where she had destroyed the door only a few minutes ago.

Looking in and taking stock of the interior of the office, Shego couldn't decide if she should be enraged, tickled, or worried. Part of her was enraged because the sidekick was freeing the hostage and Draken wasn't doing anything to stop it. Part of her was tickled because her employer was cowering at the sight of the buffoon and an old scientist. But part of her was worried as well, because she noticed that the blonde had taken down the henchmen without so much as breaking a sweat.

She simply shook that last bit off. "Draken hires the worst help on the planet," she thought. "Just because he can take them down, doesn't mean he's any match for me." And the thought of being able to tell Kimmie that her little friend was gone right before Shego eliminated her as well brought a delicious smile to her lips. The brunette noticed that no one in the office had seen her yet, so she crossed her arms and leaned up against the door frame. "Well, well," she casually announced her presence, "looks like you've been busy. Too bad none of it is going to matter after I'm done with you."

Ron, who had been busy untying Dr. Fedor, was caught a little off guard when he heard Shego in the doorway. He had assumed, incorrectly he now knew, that Kim would have captured the older woman and that it was a simple matter of calling in the cavalry to haul them off to jail. Now, instead of preparing to wind down after a successful mission, he was forced to face what was, in his opinion, the most dangerous villain that Team Possible had ever come across.

But his fear for his own safety was quickly replaced by a sudden dread at the though of Kim. He knew that if Shego was standing here, arrogantly baiting Ron, then Kim must be in some real trouble. Fighting not to bring some horrible mental image of what had happened to his girlfriend, he forced all his attention on the dangerous beauty in front of him. He squared his shoulders and brought a calm and confident expression to his face before replying to Shego, "And just what makes you think that there is anything that you can do about it?"

Ron could tell by the reaction of the woman that she was not expecting this sort of response. She pushed herself off of the doorway and moved her feet into a more stable stance, and her bemused smile was replaced with a slight snarl. "Probably thought I would cower and run for Kim," the blonde thought. "Which I might have done a couple of months ago. But not now." This last thought enabled a wisp of a smile to cross his face, but it was gone in a second and he wondered if Shego had seen it.

He didn't have to wait long for an answer. The villainess mistook the meaning behind the teen's smile as Ron dismissing her as a potential threat to his well being. The slight snarl was replaced with narrowed eyes and a grinding of her teeth, and she was unable to suppress the growl that arose from deep within her. None of this seemed to have an impression on the boy in front of her, but she could see a slight trace of fear in his eyes when she brought her hands up in a fighting position and summoned her deadly green energy.

Ron could tell that he had pushed Shego too far and that the woman was ready to attack. That's when he realized that the small office in which he found himself was not an ideal place for fighting. He was pretty sure that he could handle himself in a fight in such close quarters, but he was worried that Dr. Fedor would get mixed up in it and end up hurt. So, instead of fending off Shego's initial attack, he decided that he would have to dodge it and get the fight out into the main part of the lab.

He had just enough time to figure out what he needed to do before Shego made her move. Fortunately, she decided to try and take Ron down with a flying kick to his chest instead of making a grounded assault. The moment Shego leapt into the air, Ron was moving straight towards her. He closed the gap between them in a heartbeat and, timing it perfectly, waited until the last possible moment before he got hit and then slid feet first right underneath her outstretched legs. His momentum carried him out of the office and into the more spacious lab beyond while Shego's momentum carried her into the bookcase along the back wall. Smashing into it, she fell to the floor just before the entire bookcase fell on her.

Once Ron had stopped sliding, he sprung up, turned around to face his opponent, and fell into a fighting stance. He saw that Shego had crashed into the bookcase but knew that the powerful brunette would not be taken down so easily. A second later, the bookcase was violently ripped apart and a furious Shego arose from the pile of wood shards and destroyed books. Ron had never seen her quite this mad before and was beginning to wonder if he had bitten off more than he could chew.

And there was good reason why Ron had never seen Shego this angry before; it was because she actually had never been this angry before. She had expected to land her flying kick right in the boy's chest and send him into the bookcase. Just after she had launched herself at Ron, she saw that he was actually running towards her. She dismissed it as a desperate attempt to save his skin and was confident in her ability to deliver a through beating to the sidekick. She had felt her lips curl into a nasty smile just as she was about to connect her kick when the blonde simply disappeared at the last second. Instead of stopping her momentum with Ron, she continued to sail right over the spot that he had occupied a moment ago. Shego had just enough time to whip her head around and see that he had slid underneath her before she slammed into the bookcase. Her world became black and filled with pain, but there was another emotion floating in the dark. Rage.

It wasn't the fact that she had missed with her attack that enraged her; she had made many unsuccessful attempts against Kim over the years and had come to realize that no one, not even the 'great' Kim Possible, could land every blow and make every strike. It was more the fact that she had missed hitting the buffoon that injured her pride. Although she had never actually gone hand to hand with Ron in all the times that she and Team Possible had tangled over the years, she was sure that she would be able to beat him should the occasion every arise.

But, now that that moment had come, she found herself in a moment of black pain instead of lording over his lifeless body. A distant part of her mind wanted to know just what had happened and the more cautious part warned her not to take Ron as lightly next time. But both these voices were quickly outweighed by the most dominating part of her psyche, her hate.

Without consciously realizing what she was doing, she had summoned forth the terrible power that the comet had bestowed upon her. Nothing was going to stand between her and proving to the world that Ron Stoppable was one lucky son-of-a-bitch; her ego demanded it. So, she grabbed hold of the bookcase that had crashed down on top of her, picked it up, and tore it in two like it was a piece of paper.

Ron knew that this was going to be the toughest battle he had yet to face, perhaps the toughest battle that he would ever face. All his training in Yamanuchi, the hours upon hours spent sparing with Yori under the watchful eyes of Master Sensei, the meditation to connect with the true power that he had within him, it was all for this moment. He silently wondered just how Kim did it, squaring off with the evil woman time and time again. "I guess I'm going to find out," he thought, and, for the first time since the fighting began, allowed doubt to enter his mind.

But his question would have to go unanswered for the time being. Just as Shego was about to charge and unleash her fury on the teen, Draken stepped into the doorway, right between the two opponents. Apparently, he had gotten over his earlier fear now that he had his right hand woman by his side and was once again the arrogant and deranged madman that Ron knew. What the teen wanted know now was why he had stepped into harms way, right between the matador and the charging bull.

Shego, however, looked like she couldn't care less. He was just another obstacle keeping her from restoring her pride (and answering an annoying doubt that had crept into her mind). But, he was her employer and deserved at least one chance to get out of her way before he was flattened. "Dr. D," she growled through clenched teeth, "you're in the way. I need to show Stoppable here the error of his ways."

Her thinly veiled threat did nothing to move Draken; in fact, he never took his eyes of Ron. The only acknowledgement he gave her was to put up his hand, signaling to her to wait and be patient. The villainess was not about to be patient, and took a step towards the doorway before Draken spoke, "Relax, Shego. There's no need to fight. We were just leaving with the Doctor here anyway." He made his pronouncement as casually as if he were giving someone the weather, but the maniacal grin that he was giving Ron told the hero that something was up.

"And just how do you suppose you're going to go about doing that, Draken? I'm not letting you go anywhere," Ron challenged him. Shego might be a handful, but the cowardly, blue little man that stood in front of him didn't stand a chance. He would simply stop Shego ("if I can stop Shego" he reminded himself) and hope that Dr. Fedor could hold off Draken long enough to prevent the villain from escaping with the Doctor as a hostage.

Draken, however, wasn't backing down from Ron in the slightest. "Oh, I don't have to do anything. In a moment, you're going to be occupied with another matter which will give me, Shego, and the Doctor here ample time to make out escape." He was savoring every second of his banter with Ron and the blonde was growing quickly irritated with his smug attitude. But something in his eyes gave Ron pause; it was as if Draken knew something terrible and wasn't letting on quite yet.

"There is nothing more important right now that stopping you from stealing…whatever it is that you're stealing." Ron had missed the part of the briefing with Millar where he mentioned the Mirage project.

"Oh, really?" Draken sneered at the teen. "So, stopping us is more important than, say, your little friend?"

His last question had stunned Ron. He lowered his fists just ever so slightly as he felt his consciousness slip from the acute awareness of pre-battle into a haze of confusion. The hero couldn't figure out what Draken was talking about. Then, he suddenly felt an apprehension tugging at the corner of his mind as a thought struggled to rise to the surface. He wasn't sure what it was, but as the seconds ticked by, he began to feel as though all the blood had been drained from him only to be replaced with a cold dread. He needed to know what Draken knew and he needed to know now. "What are you talking about, Draken?"

The buffoon was trying desperately not to show the fear that he had just instilled in the teen. The mad scientist never saw a change in his facial features, but he had caught the slight lowering of his hands, the gentle slouching of his shoulders, and the anxiety behind his eyes. Draken was really getting into twisting Ron out in the wind but he couldn't afford to play with the boy's emotions any longer. "Well, I just think it's interesting that you're here fighting Shego all by yourself. I mean, isn't that usually the hero's job?"

And then it hit home for Ron and he knew exactly what Draken was getting at. Kim. He hadn't seen her in a long time but he had seen Shego and he knew that Kim would never simply leave a fight with the dangerous woman until the job was done. That meant only one thing: that his worst fear had been realized and Kim was hurt. Or worse.

After a moment had passed in total silence, Draken knew that he had won. It was now a simple matter of using the sidekick's feelings for his friend against him and Draken would be leaving with what he came for. So Draken pressed forward. "Amazing that she isn't here," he said in what passed for him as an innocent voice. "I wonder if something has happened to her?" Then he turned towards Shego. "What do you think, Shego? Did something happen to Kim?"

Shego, who had been on the verge of killing Draken just so that she could get another shot at Ron, came to the realization of exactly what her employer was doing. At first, she was annoyed because she wanted to do some serious physical harm to the teen, but seeing the anguish in his eyes, Shego has decided that this was a much more fun game to play. "I don't know, Dr. D. I think that Kimmie might have had a little accident."

Ron just stood there taking it all in. As he tried to figure out what had happened to Kim, a small part of him noticed that he was experiencing two distinct emotions just then. He was intensely afraid of what Shego had done to Kim and he was intensely angry at her for doing it and Draken for his casual superiority while talking about it.

The blonde was brought out of his internal reflection when Draken spoke again, this time cruel and calculating. "It's very simple, buffoon. You can either go and save your precious Kim Possible and let us leave or you can try and stop us, wasting what little time you have left to help her. The choice is yours," he concluded with a Cheshire-cat grin.

Ron already knew the answer to the question even before it was asked. Whatever Draken had come to get, Ron knew that Team Possible would track him down and get it back. But, if he didn't do something soon, he was afraid that he would lose the only reason in his life worth living for. Still, that didn't mean that he regretted letting these two get away; he had been looking forward to seeing whether or not he was good enough to go up against Shego.

So, his mind made up, he turned his back on the evil duo and headed back into the lab in search of his girlfriend. Draken, who watched Ron turn and leave them, turned back to Shego and muttered, "Fool. No matter, let's get out of here. Did you get it?"

The brunette vixen simply tapped at the small device that was residing in her pocket at the moment. Then she turned towards the wall that had once had a bookcase up against it and called upon her power once more. "How about an exit?" she asked her employer as she proceeded to rip a hole in the wall large enough for them to get through.

During all this time since Ron had untied him, Dr. Fedor had been huddled in the corner of his office unable to see into his lab, so he was unaware of Ron moving quickly away from the villainess pair. But upon seeing Draken and Shego turn from the doorway and focus their attention on other matters, he began to panic, realizing that Ron had left him to theses two. "What are you doing?" he cried out to Ron. "You can't leave me here with these two! They'll kill me!"

While Shego disappeared into the hole that she had made for their escape, Draken turned to look at the holographics expert with a mixture of evil humor and insincere shock. "Why, Doctor," the blue skinned scientist said, "we have no intention of killing you. You're the critical piece in our master plan." As Dr. Fedor watched Draken break out into a cold laugh that would leave even Senor Senior Senior impressed, he began to wonder if death wasn't a better option than what his two captors had planned for him.

Ron, however, had let any thought of Dr. Fedor, or Shego, or the mission drop from his mind completely. Even if his mind had registered the calls for help from the Doctor, he was a man with a single purpose: he had to make sure that nothing had happened to Kim. He looked about the entire lab in hopes of finding some clue as to the whereabouts of his girlfriend, but it looked as though she had simply vanished. He knew that, since Shego had appeared from close by, Kim had to be close by as well. He just didn't know where.

He began calling out her name in the desperate hope that he would get a response, but none came. As the minutes ticked by, the hope that Ron had in finding his girlfriend unharmed was being quickly replaced by an intense despair. On the verge of tears, he could no longer keep up the frantic pace of searching the lab and needed to rest for a moment. And the blonde, despite all his training, despite the Mystical Monkey Power, and no matter what he did to change himself, tapped into the one part of himself that would never change. His Ron-ness.

For only Ron could have picked the one wall in the entire lab that wasn't a real wall to lean up against for support. He placed one hand on his hip, crossed his ankles, and stuck out his other hand to rest it against the holographic wall. And just like Shego and Kim before him, instead of meeting resistance, his hand slipped easily pass the optical illusion. He realized quickly that he was falling and tried to catch himself before he fell, but his ankles had been crossed and he got one foot tied up with the other and spilled, head first, into the concealed room.

As Ron slowly got up from the ground, he took stock of his injuries and concluded that he only had a slightly bruised shin. "It's good to know that some things haven't changed on missions," he thought with a small smile. While trying to figure out exactly what had happened, he noticed that he was somewhere that he hadn't seen before. The only thing that he could see in the room was a table, but as he took a step to his right to go around it, he saw something else, something that gave his heart a moment of joy and dread. It was Kim's foot.

He was moving in a second, calling out her name. The blonde crossed the distance between them and was by her side in the blink of an eye. His heart began beating ever faster even though time seemed to slow to a crawl for the teen hero. Kim was lying on her back, arms at her sides, and her beautiful red locks hanging over her forehead, hiding her face. He quietly kneeled down beside her head and brought it up into his lap. He went to gently brush away her hair from her face when he noticed that it was wet and sticky in places. As he carefully pulled her hair back, it revealed a ragged, two-inch gash right along her hairline that was bleeding profusely.

Ron reached up and grabbed his mission shirt right where the seam was between the sleeve and the body of the shirt. With one quick, confident tug, he ripped the right sleeve clean off and, folding it twice, he began to tenderly clean her wound. When he was satisfied that he had gotten as much of her blood as he could, the blonde removed one of his shoelaces and tied the makeshift bandage in place.

Kim still hadn't stirred from her stupor and Ron knew that he had to check to make sure that she was still alive. As he moved his two fingers towards her neck, he was sure that he would find no pulse. He could feel his entire world slipping away, all meaning, all joy, all happiness vanishing like a wisp of smoke in a breeze, gone forever and leaving in its place only the horrible reality of loss.  But as his fingers finally found the soft flesh of her neck and he began to feel the slow beating of her heart, a profound sense of gratefulness and relief entered his heart.

He began to lightly stroke her cheek, as much to comfort himself as to comfort her. Ron looked down at Kim's peaceful and almost angelic face and wished that he could simply stay in this moment forever. But now that he was sure Kim was OK, his sense of responsibility and duty began to surface once again. The teen hero knew that he was on a mission, that Draken and Shego had to be stopped, and that every second that he kneeled here was one more that they had to make their escape.

So, with a great amount of reluctance, her grabbed Kim by the shoulders and began to gently shake her in an attempt to wake her. "Kimmie…" he whispered to her. "Kimmie, you need to get up now. Come on, Kimmie, come back to me…"

Ron's tender coaxing was rewarded by a tiny flutter of her eyelids. Kim, having been in a state of blissful unconsciousness, was brought back to a world of raw pain. The first thing she noticed was that her head was announcing its presence in a most brutal way. The redhead desperately wanted nothing more than to simply go back to sleep, but that was impossible now. She wondered vaguely what she had done to give herself such a headache when the fog of sleep departed and the redhead remember just what had happened.

"Shego," Kim thought. "Shego's got the Mirage. Shego was the one who did this to me. She's trying to kill me. She's going to kill me. No…No…NO!"

Ron, who at first was happy to see Kim start to come around, became increasingly nervous as the cheerleader's face contorted in a mixture of fury and panic. He was just about to redouble his efforts to wake Kim when her eyes flew wide open, she began to leap up, and screamed in a most guttural way, "NO!"

Her boyfriend, in a sense of rising panic, gently placed a restraining hand upon her chest. She hadn't yet noticed her surroundings and the redhead still thought that she was locked in mortal combat with Shego, so when Kim felt Ron's hand on her chest she assumed it belonged to the dangerous brunette. Years of experience and generations of instinct kicked in automatically and Kim reached up, grabbed Ron's arm, and began to twist it away from her, hoping to inflict maximum damage.

Luckily for Ron's arm (and Kim's conscience), her reason broke through the fog of sleep and instinct just before she twisted and the teen hero took stock of her surroundings. And the first thing she saw was Ron's big, brown eyes looking down at her and the love and concern that he had for her behind them. She instantly melted into the safety of Ron's embrace as she threw her arms around his neck and cried out his name.

Ron watched as Kim came back from whatever blackness she was in to him. He felt a million emotions run through him as Kim wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and, as he returned the embrace, he conveyed everything he was feeling, his love, his relief, his fear of losing her, to Kim. The redhead hugged her man for what seemed liked an eternity before finally pulling away slightly, and gazed into his eyes.

Then it occurred to her where she was. Her sense of duty took over and she chastised herself for acting this way while in the middle of a mission. People were counting on her and there would be plenty of time of this later. But, right now, she had a job to do. "Ron, what happened? Where's Shego?"

The other teen knew that his girlfriend had slipped back into mission mode and, despite the large portion of him that wished he could simply be her boyfriend just then, he put aside his rolling emotions and got back to the task at hand. "I'm not sure what happened, KP. I was busy fighting the henchmen so I couldn't see how you ended up in here. But, as for Shego, she and Draken are making their escape right now."

That last little bit got her moving again. "Shego's escaping? Come on, Ron, let's go." She quickly got to her feet and was ready to dash out of the room when a sudden wave of dizziness hit her. Ron, who had gotten up as soon as Kim was off his lap, was able to reach out and grab her with a steadying hand to prevent her from falling. It took a second, but Kim quickly regained her composure.

"You alright, KP? If you're not up for it, we can always get Draken and Shego later," The blonde offered. He knew that she would never take him up on his offer, but he was worried that she might not be able to handle Shego at the moment.

Ron was right. At least about the not-taking-him-up-on-his-offer part. Kim was not about to just let Shego waltz out of this complex with the Mirage without giving the cheerleader the chance to return the favor for giving her the splitting headache that she had. The heroine looked at Ron and said, with as much confidence as she could muster, "I'm fine, Ron. Really, I'm fine. But Dr. Fedor isn't going to be if we don't go after them." She saw him nod his head reluctantly and gave him a small smile in return. Kim was just about to turn and begin the pursuit when an idea came to her. She leaned over to Ron and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, whispering, "Thanks. I'll make it up to you later. Now, come on." And, with that, she ran out of the hidden room, Ron hot on her heals.

While Ron was bust making sure that Kim was all right, Shego and Draken were making the most of Team Possible's absence to make their escape. Shego was having little difficulty cutting through the walls of the building with her super sharp claws and powerful green energy. Draken, however, was having a much more difficult time persuading Dr. Fedor that it was in his best interest to come along quietly. The holographics expert was struggling valiantly against his captor but, despite Draken's extremely poor physical condition, the lifetime that the Doctor had spent in front of a computer left him in little shape to fight off the mad scientist.

But regardless of whether he was winning the fight or not, Dr. Fedor was significantly slowing down the progress of Draken. At one point, Shego had simply gone ahead to clear the path to the outside of the building and Draken had lost sight of her. Once the raven-haired vixen could no longer be seen, Dr. Fedor redoubled his efforts to break free. After a brief struggle, it looked like he had finally gotten the upper hand as he had knocked Draken off his feet and into a wall. He was just about to make a mad dash back the way they had come and towards Team Possible when a green and black blur flashed in his field of vision.

In the blink of an eye, he was completely immobilized. Shego had his right arm pinned behind him in the iron grip of her right hand while she brought her glowing left hand up in front of his face so that he could get an up close and personal look at the power that the beauty held. "Ah, ah, ah…" Shego chided her captive, "We can't have you leaving so soon, now, Doc. Not when we've gone to all the trouble of 'inviting' you to our little get together."

The Doctor was clearly much more terrified of Shego than of Draken. Upon hearing the cold voice taunting him, his panic once again rose up. His eyes widened, his mouth went slack, and he was just about to scream bloody murder when Shego finally decided that she had had enough. The villainess turned off the power in her left hand with the exception of her index finger and, with a light touch so as not to do any permanent damage to Dr. Fedor, tapped him on the forehead, knocking him out cold.

Shego felt the holographics expert go slack in her arms and with a disgusted sigh, let him drop to the floor. The brunette turned her attentions to her employer, wondering for the millionth time today just why she worked for a man so incompetent. "The money," she thought with a wistful sigh, "if it wasn't for the money, he would've been dead by now."

But no amount of money was going to stop her from feeling exasperated at the blue skinned man who was now recovering from his latest bout of cowering. Draken picked himself up off the floor and walked over to his assistant. "That really wasn't necessary, Shego," he told her in an annoyed tone. "I had everything under control."

The 'sidekick' simply rolled her eyes at his indignation. "Yeah, sure, right, whatever you say, doc," she replied with as much sarcasm as she could pack into her words. "I've found us a way out of here." Then she pointed to the unconscious body of Dr. Fedor.  "Now, pick that thing up and follow me."

Draken took one look at the 165lb man and looked back at Shego. "Shego, the villain doesn't do the manual labor. That's the job for the sidekick."

Shego just stared at him with her hands on her hips and a mixture of annoyance and anger on her face. Draken, whose ego kept telling him that he was the boss in their little crime duo and shouldn't be talked down to by Shego, felt his resolve wither under the brunette's glare. After a few more seconds, he finally broke down. "OK, OK, look, I can't carry him because I'm not strong enough. There, are you happy now?"

This was exactly what Shego was waiting to here. She knew that Draken was never going to be able to pick up anything over ten pounds and had already resigned herself to the fact that she was going to have to carry Dr. Fedor. But, she wanted to deflate the ego of her boss just a little because every once in a while, Draken needed to be reminded of his true place on the food chain.

So, with a triumphant smile, she bent down, roughly grabbed the doctor by his back, and slung him over her shoulder. The woman walked right past Draken, back down the way she had made through the building, and said in her venomous honey voice, "This way, Dr. D."

Draken was fuming at the sheer effrontery of Shego's actions, but what could he do? He needed her for his schemes probably more than she needed his money. That's why, in spite of the humiliation that he had just endured, he kept his mouth shut and followed his assistant towards the exit.

After a quick minute of moving through one hole in the wall to another, Draken was beginning to wonder if Shego knew what a door was when finally they came to one of the building's exterior walls. The evil genius saw lights coming from the window that lead to the outside world and he decided to take a closer look to see what they were coming from. He had just about made it to window when Shego grabbed him and pulled him back.

He went to yelp his protest but fell silent when Shego placed a finger to her lips, indicating him to be quiet. Her employer gave her a quizzical look and she responded by whispering to him, "Cops." Draken began to laugh in a cold way before he responded, "Local law enforcement? You're kidding, right? They've never been able to stop us before, and they won't be able to stop us now."

He was expecting Shego to agree with him and then quickly take care of the police so that they could make their getaway before Team Possible returned. But no reply came. She simply sneaked up to the window so as not to be seen from the outside and peaked out of it to assess their situation. When she turned back to Draken a few seconds later, her features were neutral but Draken, who had worked with Shego for many years, knew better. He could see her eyes were just a touch wider, and the supreme confidence and arrogance that danced beyond them had a tinge of doubt.

"We may have defeated the cops in the past, but this is different. Every cop in the tri-city area is out there and they came to play. I need a minute to think here." She began rubbing her temples and closed her eyes, bunching up her face in concentration. After her brief moment of thought, she looked at Draken with an expression of ninety percent confidence, which worried him because Shego almost always wore an expression of a hundred percent confidence.

"Alright, here's the game plan. Once I open up a hole in this wall, you'll summon the hover car from our jet while I lay down cover fire. We'll then take the car to the roof where the jet is parked. You'll continue to make your getaway with the hover car and the Mirage while I'll take the jet and Dr. Fedor."

Draken considered this for a second and, deciding that he did not like the idea of splitting up, voiced his objections. "But, Shego, won't that make it easier for them to capture me and get the Mirage back?"

Shego shook her head. "The police aren't going to use too many resources on you because they'll see that I have the Doctor and they will still think that I have the Mirage. Besides, after I'm through with them, they won't have too many resources left to come after us with anyway." Her vicious grin told Draken that the Middleton police force was about to have war declared on it, and he was damn glad that he wasn't on the side opposing Shego.

The brunette positioned herself by the exterior wall and relit her left hand, bringing it back in preparation to blow a hole for their escape. She nodded to her employer to signal to him to get the hover car moving. The blue skinned scientist reached into one of the pockets in his coat and pulled out a small black box with several buttons on it.

Pressing the one marked recall, a series of events began to unfold on the roof of the Photonic Imaging and Concealment Lab. The small, black jet that had gone unnoticed until this point sprang to life as all of its systems came online. On its underbelly, an elliptical crack formed as the hover car began to separate from the main body of the jet.  Once it was separated, the small craft began its short trip to just outside Draken's location.

Shego, having watched her employer start their little escape plan, brought her hand down striking the exterior wall, which caused the wall to not so much crumble but rather explode at the sheer force of her attack. From the outside of the building, it looked like that area of the building had just been hit with a bomb but without the fireball that usually accompanied such an event.

This caught the entire assembled police force off guard. It had been close to a half an hour since Kim and Ron had entered the complex and it was eerily quiet in the parking lot until the explosion. Having had no contact with the two teens on the inside, Lt. Riverez was unaware that Draken and Shego were making their escape. Thus, he wasn't able to concentrate his forces on the section of the building where Shego had destroyed the wall.

And the villainess had chosen her escape route wisely. The hole that she was now looking out of gave her a view of the rear parking lot, where the Lieutenant had posted the fewest men. Thus, it was only a dozen officers covered by three cop cars that were there to greet the figure clad in black and green.

In unison, they all drew their service weapons and ducked behind what cover they could find. Twelve nine millimeter Berettas and twelve pairs of eyes were then trained on where the smooth surface of the building had been interrupted, preparing to return whatever fire might come their way. But, when the dust settled and the officers could get a good look at the persons responsible for the explosion, they could only gape in awe.

The sight they were treated to was the last thing they were expecting. Standing in the hole on the fourth floor was a woman who was obviously in her late twenties, her hands on her hips and a wicked smile on her lips. She was dressed in a black and green jumpsuit that let the officers know that she worked out on a regular basis and the wind was sweeping her glorious black hair around her. And if the officers didn't know better, they could have sworn that the vision they were seeing was framed in an angelic green glow.

As they lowered their weapons slightly while they continued to gawk at Shego, the brunette was only too happy to show those who were charmed by her sexuality the error of their ways. Shego brought her hands up into a fighting stance and showed the officers that there was more to her power than just a faint, green glow at night.

Relighting both hands this time, she pointed at the nearest cop car to her position. Then, the brunette looked directly at the two cops that had taken refuge behind the vehicle and began to laugh in a maniacal way. The two officers that she had taken aim at looked on with a complete sense of shock at the sight of her glowing green hands. But when she pointed at them and they noticed the buildup in the glow, they realized that she was about to fire at them.

This realization was enough to bring both of them out of their awe induced trance and get them moving. Which was a good thing too, because they began moving at the last possible second before Shego struck. The brunette was laughing the entire time as she unleashed a bolt of her green energy that connected with the cop car. As the powerful force that the comet had bestowed upon her rippled through the car, it reached the gas tank a split second after the initial hit. Once the green energy and the volatile gasoline mixed, the laws of physics took over, created an expanding ball of fire and compressed air that lifted the car over ten feet into the air and separated every part of it from every other part.

The other ten officers on the scene watched in horror as the green bolt flew from the girl in the building and struck the car. They all put their hands over their heads and turned away from the fireball that was where the cop car once was. After the initial shock and heat wave had passed, they turned back towards Shego with the intent of taking down this dangerous girl before she could get off another shot.

Unfortunately, they were just a half step behind the villainess. As the cops were bringing their nine millimeters up to draw a bead on Shego, the brunette had turned her attention to the next cop car in the parking lot. Unleashing another lethal blast at the three vulnerable cops that were taking refuge behind car #2, Draken's sidekick began to realize that she could only keep the police off guard for so long until reinforcements arrived and she began to take fire.

The officers were in a state of absolute panic as the second car in less than twenty seconds was consumed in fire. Deciding that they could no longer safely hold their ground, the dozen officers who were taking fire retreated to a safer vantage point. While they were pulling back, the hover car that Draken had called made it entrance. It came to rest just outside the hole where Shego was standing, awaiting further instructions.

Not wanting to waste the opportunity that the disorganized cops presented, Shego disappeared back into the building. Grabbing Draken, she practically shoved the mad genius out the opening and into the awaiting hover car, ignoring his yells of surprise and protest. Once she was sure that her employer hadn't done anything stupid, like fall the four stories to the asphalt below, Shego ducked back into the lab for the last time to grab Dr. Fedor and, throwing him over her shoulder, jumped into the hover car herself. 

By now, Lieutenant Riverez was able to get the cavalry moving and bring reinforcements to his men who were under fire. When the car that he was riding in finally made it to the rear of the building, he was presented with a sight that was even more unbelievable than when he had seen Kim and Ron getting out of the Global Justice jet.

To the Lieutenant, it looked as though someone was firing rockets at his officers, as there were two small fires that looked vaguely like cars. Then he noticed the hole in the building and saw some sort of vehicle that was floating eighty feet in the air carrying what he could only assume was the mastermind behind the operation. Quickly assessing the situation, he concluded that since they had already been fired upon, he was clear to return it.

As soon as his car came to a halt, the Lieutenant sprang out and took cover behind his vehicle. Drawing his own service weapon, he pointed it directly at the now rising hover car, called out to his men to return fire, and squeezed the trigger. It only took the rest of the officers on the scene a moment to follow suit and Draken, Shego, and Dr. Fedor were quickly surrounded by deadly fire. But, in one of his few brilliant ideas, Draken had placed reinforced shielding on the underside of his hover car so that, as long as they kept their heads down, the Middleton police's gunfire bounced harmlessly off the hover car. It only took a few seconds and Draken and Shego had disappeared over the top of the building.

Just as the hover car was disappearing out of sight, Team Possible made the unfortunate decision to appear in the hole Shego had left in the building. It wasn't hard to figure out which way Draken and Shego had gone; all Kim and Ron had to do was follow the pattern of destruction that she had left throughout the building. Team Possible knew that they were on the fourth floor and, while Shego might be able to jump down out of the building, Draken and Dr. Fedor were neither in shape for nor had the proper training to make such a leap. Plus, there was the Middleton police force and a small contingent of US Marines that they would have to deal with should they make it out of the complex.

All this added up to the expectation that Team Possible was going to find a cornered villain, his sidekick, and their hostage. But instead, when Kim and Ron rounded the last corner in Shego's path of destruction, they found that she had blown her way out of the building and was nowhere to be seen. Indulging in her shock for only a second, Kim quickly realized that their was a fight going on outside. She listened for a moment until the gunfire stopped and then stepped to the ledge to look outside.

But from Lieutenant Riverez's point of view, it looked like another member of the team that had committed this larceny had simply been left behind. Since he had no information on the makeup or size of the enemy, he simply couldn't take the chance that the person who was now standing over his men wasn't about to once again open fire with whatever had destroyed the two cop cars. Besides, he was unsure if any of his men had been hurt or killed in the blasts, but, if any of them were, he was going to make damn sure that whoever it was standing there in the opening paid for it.

So, without giving even a second thought as to Team Possible, he brought his weapon up, took precise aim at the center mass of the individual in the opening, and opened fire.