The monkeys were still shaking their booty when Monkeyfist finally reached the centre of the group. He considered briefly killing his own minions, but decided it was probably being too nice. Instead, he swatted the nearest one.
"Monkey ninjas!" he screamed, "Stop!"
Back at the front door of the Possible's house, Shego and Kim, who had been lounging on the doorstep, stood up, and looked over to where the man was standing.
"Monkey ninjas, attack!" he commanded, to little effect.
"Look, honey, it's Mr. freak," laughed Shego. "Let's get 'im."
Kim looked sidelong at Shego. As long as the (possibly ex-) villainess was keeping it up, she thought, so was she. "Let the 'master' handle him, lover girl," she replied with a sardonic overtone, "we should do something about the monkeys. They've stopped dancing."
"Whatever grabs you, sweetheart," Shego said coolly. "As long as I get to hit something…." The woman held her staff out in front in her left hand, and ignited her right.
"Going combo?" asked her red-headed compadré, herself doing something similar, but used her right hand to angle the staff slightly rather than igniting a glow around it – something that, while she missed having slightly, she was unable to do.
"Why not?" asked Shego. Then she looked to the sky as though she was contemplating something. "What are these made of?"
"Titanium-steel with a carbon threaded core. Why?"
Shego touched her ignited hand with either end of the staff. Where she touched the staff, a ball of the green glow began to burn. "Catch," she said, tossing it into the air.
Kim speared her own staff into the air in front of Shego, who caught it with ignited hand. The staff began to glow along its entire length. "This better not damage them," the redhead growled.
"Don't worry, Princess, it won't," replied the glowing woman. "It's an in what's inside and outside the glow, see?"
"If you're lying, I'll kill you," said Kim, catching the spinning staff that Shego had thrown. The two girls took almost identical poses, crouching back on one leg, the other out in front, poised to leap. They both held their staffs angled by their good hand towards the monkeys, that still hadn't moved. They were caught between obeying their master and the wielder of the Lotus Blade. Girl and simian faced each other off, but neither moved. The monkeys were trying to make a difficult decision, and the women were waiting for Ron to actually do something. Monkeyfist was fuming at his minions.
"Screw this," the two green-eyed warriors said in unison, and both made an infinity figure in the air with their staffs as they leapt. Because of the green glow, the figures were visible in the air. When they made it to the ground again was where their movement began to differ. Whereas Kim was using the staff directly as a weapon, Shego used it as a media for her weapon of choice – her glow power. She shifted her hands to one end of the staff and made expanding walls of green that sent rows of monkeys flying, while Kim, spinning and thrusting, and sticking for now to the centre of the staff, took on the monkeys on a one on one basis – but made just as much progress when she started to hit them into each other. The girls met up in the middle of the monkey-front with Ron, also, whom they started to dance around, almost symmetrical movements throwing far away any of the monkeys that now finally obeyed Fiske and came too close as they started to move towards the self-mutilated neurotic. Kim, now lacking any glow on her staff, had started to shift her hands up and down the staff, alternating between various martial arts styles and the less specific techniques of Saxon fighting, and Shego started to do the same. Occasionally one or the both of them would complement their action with a kick.
'Weird,' Ron thought, observing their now seamlessly symmetric movement, 'it's like they're telling each other what they're going to do next on some kind of mental link.'
His ponderance had to end there, though, because the band of three had made it as far as Monkeyfist. "What an odd arrangement, Kim Possible is fighting, with Shego for you?" said the monkey-handed man. "I'm glad you decided to bring me my sword yourself."
"If it's really your sword, monkey boy," replied Ron, "Then you can take it from me." He tapped on the now sheathed blade. As he was saying this, Kim and Shego had expanded the circle that enclosed Ron and now Monkeyfist to about three times the area. The simian minions weren't actually coming very close to them now, and a fair number that had gone down had run away.
Monkeyfist reached out to grab the sword, but was dismayed to find his hand smacked away with a yew staff.
"I guess it's not yours then, is it?" Ron smacked the older man across the face with the staff as he looked up at the boy in shock. He wasn't expecting Ron to be able to take him on by himself. Monkeyfist crouched back and poised to strike.
Ron didn't wait around for the villain to do so. He smacked him across the abdomen with his staff and then down again on the back of his head. Monkeyfist hadn't been allowed the time to react. He did this time though, striking up and splitting the staff in two. He grabbed the free splinter with one of his ground-hands, and struck up again with that. Ron blocked it easily, but it gave Monkeyfist the opportunity to stand up again, and the two now began to fight an almost evenly-matched battle.
From not far away, but where the fighters could not see, Da Hand watched. He was evaluating – and he was pleased by what he could see. Kim and Shego could work together, and they did so very well. He didn't focus much on the blond-haired fighter, who suddenly evolved an aura of bright light, at all – and didn't care much to. The boy was in his view useless for what he was planning, despite the fact that he and his opponent were now glowing yellow, and striking at each other harder and faster than the two girls.
There was something else that Da Hand wasn't focused on, that perhaps he should have been. "Jim," said a familiar voice from right behind him. Len didn't respond, although he had heard. "Don't try to play that game with me, Jimmy, I know you better than that." Dr. Director placed a hand on his shoulder.
"Beth." The man turned around and faced her. Forgetting the scene now behind him, he started to walk backwards away from her. He didn't notice at all as Ron and Monkeyfist rose into the air in their fight, causing a fair portion of the monkeys to flee.
"Are you scared of me or something?" the GJ head asked, advancing on him. "That would be something considerably new and strange." Dr. Director was not paying attention to the battle either.
"I– You– You can't know," Len stammered. "I didn't plan for you to know…."
"You can come back, Jim," Dr. Director said, apparently not listening to what he said. "I'm the director now. Its all changed. I can pull some strings, make you the operative you should have become." She grabbed Len by the arms, and looked him in the eye. "I want you to come back," she whispered, pulling him towards her.
Len was torn. He didn't like any way that this could go, but he had to make a decision fast. Tears welling, he made the choice that was going to hurt him the most, and accepted the woman's embrace.
Kim caught a glimpse of them between monkeys and stared as the embrace turned to a kiss. She was still staring, now in horror, as she saw Dr. Director fall to the ground, a knife in her neck. Da Hand looked directly at the redhead, his eyes clearly filled with tears, and then disappeared, leaving his signature blue outline. She didn't notice the group of simians jump towards her until it was too late, and hit the ground hard.
Shego, still fighting effectively, saw Kim hit the ground under the pile of monkeys. She started to move towards the heap, when she saw a green glow start to shine through the gaps in them. "Kim! No!" she yelled, even though she knew it was too late for the girl.
A concussion that Kim received from one of the monkeys head-butting her had pushed her instincts into overdrive, and this part of her remembered Shego's glow power that she had used before in her right hand. It burst into life, and she threw the monkeys off herself. Only then did she realise what she'd just managed, as Shego ran straight towards her, and almost tackled her back to the ground again, grabbing Kim's hand that was uncontrollably burning green.
"Shit." Just that one word from Shego, and Kim knew immediately that she'd seen this before, and knew what was going to happen.
"What?" asked the redhead, looking her old-time foe in the eye. She was surprised to see that the emotion the the green girl carried was not just genuine worry, but concerned fear.
"This is not good," said Shego, cupping Kim's hand in her own. She summoned the glow, trying to use its healing properties again on the girl she had just come to realise she didn't hate all that much.
"What's happening?" demanded Kim. Shego's efforts were doing nothing to stop the burning feeling that engulfed her right hand.
"Something very not good," replied Shego, letting go of Kim's hand as the entirety of the remaining simians approached them. She put her arms around Kim, and pushed her left hand, fisted, into her right. She closed her eyes tight, and a shockwave of green glow erupted from where the two were standing. What monkeys were neither killed immediately nor thrown far by it fled, screeching.
"Stoppable!" yelled Shego, glowing green along her whole body and still embracing Kim. Far above, the boy did not hear. She turned the redhead around, and let go with one arm, that she then aimed very carefully at Monkeyfist. She groaned as a steady beam of the green glow shot from her hand.
Ron could only watch as Monkeyfist was shunted far away from him, now glowing green instead of yellow. Then he looked down. Gasping briefly, he floated to the ground, unaware of how he did so, or how he'd come to be in the air in the first place.
Shego held out Kim's still burning right hand from her. "Cut if off," she panted.
"Can't stand there being someone else that can do that?" Ron accused.
"I can handle the power. My whole body was changed to handle it," replied Shego in a level voice. "She can't. It will consume her. Do it!"
"Why should I trust you?"
"Cut. The damned hand. Off," grunted Kim, glaring at Ron. She shook Shego's grip on her arm, and held it out straight.
"Oh." Ron unsheathed the Lotus Blade, and lined up its leading edge as close to the flame as he could. He now noticed that Kim's fingertips were, indeed, burning away. Lifting the sword, he closed his eyes, and swung through. The burning hand fell to the ground, and then erupted in a larger flame that consumed the hand within seconds.
"Any later and that would have happened to Kim's whole body," growled Shego, grabbing the redhead's arms back as she moved the glow to her hands only, and rammed the bleeding end of Kim's right arm into her palm. The teen yelped slightly as it at first burned her, but relaxed as a layer of flesh formed around the severed bone. "There you go, Princess," Shego said quietly, before collapsing.
Kim, panting heavily, looked around. Apart from Ron and herself, Shego's unconscious form, and Dr. Director's body lying in a pool of blood, the street was empty. "I think – she just saved my life," she stated, looking back down at the sleeping woman. "That is … weird. She tried to kill me less than a day ago." The teens looked over then to where Dr. Director was.
Ron walked over to her and knelt down. He held his hand in front of her mouth, and was relieved to find present, if shallow, breath. He checked for a pulse, just in case. "Kim!" he yelled. "She's still alive!"
Kim walked over to the boy. "The Kimmunicator's in my right pocket," she said.
Realising that his best friend was indicating that she would not be able to get the device herself, Ron obliged and emancipated it from the utility belt she was wearing, flicked the call button, and handed it to her.
"What's up, Kim?" asked Wade, groggily. She'd woken him up from the slumber he'd fallen into before.
"I need an ambulance here, high speed. Dr. Director's been hurt."
"Shego?" asked Wade, already connecting to the emergency services. He was completely unaware of the events that had transpired in the Possible home.
"No. Da Hand," replied Kim. 'At least that means he didn't have the house bugged,' she thought.
"It's on its way," Wade said. "Can I go back to sleep now?"
Kim shrugged. "Your choice," she said, and handed the Kimmunicator back to Ron. "I'll take Shego inside, you bring Dr. Director. She'll need to be handled very carefully."
"You got it," replied Ron, and kneeled back down to pick up the woman.
"Uh, Ron, I'm not going to be able to pick her up myself…."
"How are you going to take her inside then?" asked Ron, confused.
Kim sighed. "If you pick her up and give her to me, I can carry her from there. Just be sure to place her knees over my right arm."
"Right," said Ron. The two walked back over to Shego, and Ron did as Kim had said, draping Shego's legs over Kim's crippled arm, and handing her shoulders to Kim's remaining hand. Then he went back to pick up Dr. Director.
"Leave the knife in her neck!" Kim shouted to him.
"Got it!" he yelled back. He knew that anyway – it wasn't like he was incompetent at first aid. 'Probably she just needed to be sure, though,' he told himself, carefully supporting Dr. Directors neck as he picked her up. 'Certainly wouldn't want her to bleed to death,' he thought, as they carried their loads to Kim's house.
I finally got a copy of the album "The Fat of the Land" by the Prodigy yesterday, which might explain if this chapter is a little more violent than it should be. I'm not going to apologise. Arnie would say I was a "girly man."
Head, hand, what's the difference? OK, so it would be a little bit of a premature end for Kim if I'd made the mistake again — but I think there was a certain amount of me hearing too much about weirdos getting their heads stuck in the toilet when I was reading Ace's review.
Alright, so no Pandaroo. Shego did admit to herself, and effectively to Kim and Ron, that she didn't feel so bad about Kim though.
In the next chapter: Composite chapter. Finally we move along to another day! What's Kim going to do about having only one hand? Some other stuff, too. Stay tuned.
