"At least we didn't come away completely empty-handed," said Drakken. He raised one hand, allowing his new gold chain to dangle in the air. On the end of the chain, the bejeweled letters 'DD' spun about, reflecting the sunlight.

Shego took her eyes off the road long enough to glance at Drakken's prize. "Oh please, you don't think that thing's real, do you?"

"It's not about how much it's worth, Shego. It's about having hip, with-it look and keeping up with the times. That's the important thing," said Drakken primly.

There was a crack from the truck's steering wheel as Shego tightened her grip on it. "No, the important thing is that we're driving a broken-down heap of junk, trying to make a getaway, and certain smug idiot is now going to be ruining my reputation by telling everyone how he outsmarted me. That makes me cranky."

"Well then you should appreciate me trying to find a silver lining! Besides, we're not beaten yet. This was just a temporary set-back. We will get my technology back," said Drakken.

Shego grunted in response, seemingly upset at something other than Drakken.

Drakken dropped his new gold chain into his lap and sighed. "It seemed like things were going so well for us in catching the thieves…."

An Hour Earlier

The sirens and lights of the police cars made the chase easy to find from the air. Drakken manipulated the controls, sending the hover car swooping down closer to the white van leading the chase.

"We've got them now," said Drakken. His finger stabbed down towards the control for the Gravotomic ray, but Shego reached out and grabbed his wrist before he could press the button.

"Ah-ah-ah," said Shego, shaking her head in the negative.

"What? I told you Shego, I've been practicing on the controls. I'll have no trouble lifting the van to the top of one of these buildings, and then there'll be no escape for them," said Drakken, puzzled.

"Think, 'genius'. These guys just have a few components. The ones we really want are the goons plus ninja who robbed your lab. If we grab them now, chances are the others will get away. If we keep following them, they're probably going to go meet up with the people who have your machine," replied Shego.

"Yeeea, you have a point," said Drakken, obviously a bit frustrated.

"Don't I always?" said Shego, satisfied. She leaned back into her seat, putting her hands behind her head.

"But that's not to say there's nothing for us to do here." Drakken's finger once again descended and this time Shego wasn't fast enough to stop him from activating the Gravotomic ray.

A yellowish ray emitted from the hover car, targeted not at the white van but at the lead car in the line of police cars following it. The ray pulled the car into the air, then spun it onto its side in response to a careful nudge to the controls from Drakken. He then shut off the ray, allowing the police car to drop back onto the road and block the street.

The rest of the police chase could perhaps have driven around and continued on, but the drivers all seemed to reach the conclusion that yellow beams from the sky were more noteworthy and dangerous than continued pursuit of the white van. They all skidded to a halt, and Drakken gave them a merry wave as the hover car followed the white van in hanging a fast turn around the next street corner.

"You helped them get away!" said Shego, surprised. After a few seconds consideration, a look of comprehension appeared on her face. "You helped them get away… because if the police caught up with the van, they'd never make it to meet up with the ones we really want."

"Precisely," said Drakken smugly.

Shego reached out and patted her boss on the shoulder. "Hey, that was actually pretty clever. Being robbed really seems to focus your thinking. We should have someone break into your lab more often."

"Errr," said Drakken, not sure how to take Shego's backhanded compliment.

The white van executed several twists and turns, evidently trying to evade any remaining police pursuit. There was no sign that they spotted the hover car monitoring them from the air or realized the cause of their miraculous escape. Finally, it pulled into a parking garage.

"Out of the way, I'm taking over," said Shego. She casually grabbed Drakken and pulled him out of the pilot's seat.

"What? Why?" said Drakken.

"Because I know how these guys think. If there's going to be a meeting, it's going to be on the roof, and this time we're going to be the ones with surprise on our side," answered Shego.

She manipulated the controls to bring the hover car up to a point a few meters below the edge of the roof and right beside the concrete wall of the garage. In a quiet voice she said to Drakken, "Stay here. I'm going to scout it out."

Leaping at the wall, Shego was able to use her claws and a little plasma to get a firm grip dug into the concrete surface, balancing with one foot on a protruding ledge. She carefully climbed the wall until she was just below the top of the safety wall surrounding the roof. Then she pulled a small mirror from one of the hidden pockets in her uniform and used it to peek over the edge.

Standing there was the black-suited ninja that Drakken had described, his face still mostly covered by the mask. He appeared to be in charge of ten of the purple-suited minions that Shego was already familiar with from her experience at the post office. As she watched, the white van emerged from the ramp out onto the top of the parking garage, and another eleven minions piled out.

Shego dropped back down to the hover car, and she and Drakken made their plans.

Agent Alpha ordered the men he thought of as 'Team B' into formation. While they scrambled into neat rows, he carried the box they had successfully stolen from the post office and stored it with the machine seized from Drakken's laboratory. Then he returned and stood in front of their leader. "Report," he said curtly.

The leader's report was brief, to the point, and notably short on details. It was the sort of report made by a man who had a well-developed survival sense, since in the WorldWide Evil Empire (WWEE), you generally wanted to report success, which would not be punished, without including any additional details that might not be so favorably received.

Alpha didn't particularly care. This was just something to have the men do while they all waited. It would be bad discipline to reveal that fact, though, so he said, "Insufficient. Our lord will demand more."

As Alpha finished saying this, he realized he could see a quickly brightening yellow glow reflected in the red sunglasses of the man to whom he was speaking. Decades of survival instinct kicked in, and Alpha leapt to the side without wasting time in turning to see what was happening behind him. It was fortunate for him that he did so, because immediately after he jumped out of the way, Drakken's Gravotomic beam finished powering up and smashed into the formation of Team B, tossing them across the roof like tenpins struck by a bowling ball.

Landing safely just beyond the far edge of the beam, Alpha turned to see what had attacked his men and was met by a bolt of green plasma to the face and body. As the concussive impact knocked him through the air and slammed him into the windshield of a parked car, the man recently known as Agent Alpha could only reflect, Sometimes you try your best, and it's just not enough.

While she waited for the ninja to get up, Shego occupied herself plowing through those goons who hadn't yet been hit by Drakken's Gravotomic weapon. Though she didn't know it, these consisted of 'Team A', those men who had assisted Agent Alpha in attacking the lab. Some might have said she was making a mistake in not taking her opportunity to press her attack on what was more likely the more dangerous foe, but Shego had never been one to play it safe. She wanted to see what the man in black could do.

Suppressing a groan, Alpha ripped off his smoldering mask and rolled off the car. He landed on his feet and took a defensive posture. That accomplished, he took in his surroundings. Shego was standing over a pile of the men under his command. It had taken only seconds for Alpha to recover his senses, and that was apparently all the time she had needed to deal with them. Off to the side, Drakken could be heard asking pointed questions of one of the WWEE troops regarding the whereabouts of his technology. Shego and Alpha locked eyes and studied each other carefully.

His mask now gone, Shego could see that her opponent was a muscular Japanese man who looked somewhere around forty years old. His hairline was receding slightly, and there was a scar running vertically down the left side of his face, extending all the way from under his nose, over his lips, and down to the bottom of his chin. Here and there in his black clothing, Shego's trained eyes picked out what she could guess were hidden weapons.

"So I hear you whipped on Dr. Drakken pretty hard. What's your name?" asked Shego.

"In my current employment, this one is known as Agent Alpha," responded Alpha. He shifted his feet slightly, signifying a change in his stance, but did not otherwise move.

Shego realized that he wasn't going to attack. He wanted her to come to him. Well, that's fine. Let's see if he's earned those fancy pajamas, she thought. Aloud Shego said, "Sorry to break to this to you, Alphie, but for this I'm going to have to break you." With that she charged, summoning plasma around her clawed gloves as she lunged forward with them.

Alpha hopped back to the side, avoiding Shego's initial attack. As he did, he drew from hidden sheaths a short bladed weapon in each hand and thrust them forward, trying to catch Shego in between them. She was ready for this and rather than dodging back stepped forward inside his guard, swiping at Alpha's face with one hand while blindly fending off his knife strikes with a wave of plasma created by her other hand. Alpha retreated in the only manner left to him by jumping over the hood of the car he had recently crashed into and putting its mass in between them.

"You have been trained at Yamanuchi," said Alpha. There was a bit or surprise in his voice, but it didn't stop him from slowly circling the car, keeping it between Shego and himself.

"I spent my senior year there. Seemed like a little ninja training from Yamanuchi was a better bet than taking physics classes at my old high school," admitted Shego. "Of course, you're a graduate yourself. A little before my time, right old man?"

"Correct," said the man calling himself Agent Alpha. He continued keeping the car between himself and Shego.

Shego decided she had enough of playing ring-around-the-rosie and built up a powerful plasma charge, which she directed underneath the car. It exploded upwards, rocketing the car into the air and over the edge of the parking garage towards the street below. Alpha surprised her, however. Instead of retreating, he ran underneath the car even as it was thrown into the air, crouching low to push through the back blast from Shego's plasma burst. Both of his arms were extended, a blade in each hand, and he slashed at Shego's legs. She dodged in a circular motion, trying to get behind him, and for a moment they were like a pair of dogs chasing each others' tails.

Somehow they ended up back-to-back. Alpha's arms were extended, his knives held so that the blades extended downward from his clenched fists. Shego was pressed up against his back, her glowing green fists held close to her body, ready to intercept any attack. Neither was moving, each afraid that to do so would create an opening the other could exploit. He was, Shego decided, not as fast or as agile as Kim Possible. Somehow Kimmie had become the standard against which she measured other fighters. Still, there was a sophistication to Alpha's technique and a certain polish to his fighting style. This was a man who had worked very hard for a long time at learning how to stay alive.

I can beat him. He's got some tricks, but sooner or later everybody runs out of tricks. Maybe on the dojo floor, playing for points, he could beat me, but he doesn't have the skill to outfight me and counter my powers at the same time. I just need to take care of those knives of his to be safe, and then he's mine, thought Shego.

As she tensed to strike, however, Alpha spoke to her. "Amateur. You may have learned, as you say, 'a little training', but you do not fight as a ninja of Yamanuchi should. You parade around in a colorful costume designed to draw the eye. You do not press your advantage when an enemy lies weakened before you. You fight without understanding the field of battle. Worst of all, you talk without purpose, distracting yourself," said Alpha.

"Well aren't you Mr. Smarty-Pants," said Shego, annoyed. "I do things my own way because I'm good enough to do things my own way. Who appointed you the judge of all things ninja anyway, loser?"

"Cannot a proud alumni be regretful that so disgraceful a student was allowed out into the world to shame our Sensei?" mocked Alpha, still making no move to attack.

Filled with rage, Shego suddenly ignited plasma around her hands and struck out to either side. As she had expected, he was able to pull his fists out of harms way, but he was not fast enough to stop her from destroying the blades of his knives, rendering them useless. Rather than dodge to either side, Alpha pulled up one leg and pushed off as hard as he could, making Shego stumble forward with an unceremonious shove to her butt that launched him into the air.

Even as he landed, Alpha reached into a hidden pocket and pulled out a handful of throwing needles. He whirled about, tossing them at Shego, but she easily dodged. Alpha spoke to his opponent again. "Ah, on a hard fighting surface such as this, such a padded rest for my foot was most pleasant."

Shego stopped her attack, unable to resist a comeback. "You know, for someone who complains about 'talk without' purpose, you have an awful lot to say," she said.

Alpha cocked his head to one side as a faint rumbling filled the air, like distant thunder. "My talk was not without purpose," he told Shego. "Its purpose was to delay, to distract."

Her eyes narrowed, Shego reconsidered the fight thus far. "You've been fighting defensively, holding back. You never wanted to win," she said accusingly.

"How do you say it in English? I played you to delay you," said Alpha.

Behind him was a shimmering in the air as a massive drop ship uncloaked over the streets of Las Angeles, hovering by means of some sort of antigravity. Its ramp dropped down to reveal row upon row of armed men, along with heavy weapons emplacements. The guns slowly swung about towards Shego, even as Alpha made a mad dash for the safety of the drop ship. For an instant Shego considered following him onto a ship full of armed troops, but then her better sense reasserted itself. Shego began to do some running of her own.

Fortunately for him, Drakken was on the beeline straight between herself and the hover car, so Shego took the fraction of a second necessary to grab him and toss him over her shoulder. She didn't break stride at all in leaping into the cockpit of the hover car, which Drakken had left hovering just at the edge of the rooftop. Not even taking the time to settle comfortably into the pilot seat, Shego used her foot to activate the controls that would steer the car downwards as fast as possible, going into a near-vertical dive that left both Shego and Drakken feeling like their stomachs had escaped out their noses.

Above them, the edge of the parking garage exploded as the drop ship fired its heavy weaponry in an increasing downward arc, trying to catch the hover car before too much of the building blocked its way to shoot through. Wriggling desperately into the pilot's chair, Shego jerked the stick from side to side, dodging huge chunks of concrete in freefall dropping past their barely controlled descent. She pulled the hover car to a halt barely above the surface of the street.

Looking at the devastation above them, Drakken could only say, "I think we need a bigger hover car."

"Yeah. I think so," said Shego, her voice not rising above a whisper, but still managing to impart a subtle sarcasm.

Drakken straightened in his seat as if realizing something. "Shego! I never retrieved my invention. We have to-"

"Go back and get ourselves killed?" interrupted Shego. "Mmmm, considering it, considering it…. no."

"Always the pessimist, Shego. Perhaps we aren't armed well enough to take my invention back by force, but we can at least get a better look who these fellows are and what they're doing. If I reverse the polarity on the hover car's Gravotomic beam, I can make it repulse their weapons' fire. Then it'll be safe for us to take a little peek up there," said Drakken.

"Whatever," said Shego, who realized the light at the end of the tunnel was a train, but at the moment couldn't get worked up enough to do anything about it. Far more of her attention was focused on how Alpha how stupid Alpha's deception had made her feel and what she would do once she caught up with him.

Opening a few panels, Drakken began fiddling with the wiring. It didn't take him long before the Gravotomic gun on the front of the hover car began to emit a strong repulsive force that pushed the hover car away from the parking garage and nearly crashed it into the street before Shego wrestled the controls into submission.

"Next time, a little warning before you turn that on," said Shego.

"Never mind that. Take this thing back up. I want to see where they go when they leave here," commanded Drakken.

Shego gave her boss a sharp look, but ultimately obeyed orders. She took the hover car up fast, not bothering with stealth. Because of her speed, they cleared the smoldering jagged edge of the rooftop just in time to see the white van being driven into the drop ship. That view was all they got before the gun emplacements opened fire, pelting a barrage of bullets and explosives towards the hover car.

Drakken instinctively flinched back, but his improvised Gravotomic field worked as advertised, knocking aside all attacks. Amazing. I didn't really think that would work, Drakken thought to himself.

The drop ship started to move away from the roof top and up into the air, its ramp still opened. Emboldened, Drakken commanded Shego to follow it. On the deck of the ship, the troops manning the gun emplacements realized that they were firing to no effect and stopped, shouting something to whoever was further inside the ship.

Might as well press our luck, thought Shego, and she brought the hover car in close enough that shouting back and forth with the men on the deck would be possible. The drop ship could have closed its ramp, cloaked itself in invisibility once again, or attempted to fly away faster than the hover car could follow, but it did none of these things.

Instead a man strolled out onto the deck of the drop ship, taking a position where he could have a clear view of Drakken and Shego in their hover car. Those around him stepped carefully away, giving him plenty of space. The thing most immediately noticeable about the man was the eye patch covering his left eye. He had swept back brown hair with reddish highlights and a carefully trimmed beard. The man was wearing the same basic jumpsuit as the troops around him but his was more finely tailored, with rows of buttons down either side of the chest. His right hand appeared to be made of metal.

The man said in a clear voice, "The two of you are very persistent."

"You'll find I'm not so easy to defeat," shouted Drakken defiantly.

The man seemed to consider this, his remaining eye narrowing in concentration. "That's odd. All my studies seem to indicate you are indeed easy to defeat," he said.

"He's got you there, Doc," said Shego to Drakken.

"Just who do you think you are?" asked Drakken of the man, ignoring Shego's jibe.

"I'm Gemini, supreme leader of the Worldwide Evil Empire, or 'WWEE' as we like to call it. I and my organization exist to foment lawlessness and chaos around the world. Now that I've done the polite thing and introduced myself, allow me to suggest that you turn your air car around and fly home. Let me assure you that I'll be putting your technology to very good- or rather, very evil use," said Gemini.

"You don't honestly expect me to let you get away with this," said Drakken.

"I expect you to fail to stop me from getting away with this. It's a fine distinction, but you seem to need a little help playing your part. Here, let me give you a hand," said Gemini.

As he spoke this last sentence, Gemini extended his metal hand forward and fired miniature missiles from its finger tips. His aim seemed to be off, however, as they flew through off to the side, not hitting the hover car or its protective Gravotomic field.

"You missed!" exclaimed Drakken triumphantly.

Gemini smiled. "Oh did I?" he said.

Alarmed, Shego turned to try to track the missiles. She realized they were curving about, coming at the hover car from behind and thus avoiding its protective field, which projected only from the gun on its front. She tried to maneuver the car to avoid the missiles, but it was already too late and they struck the read of the car, creating a small explosion.

The hover car shuddered and began to fall. They had been steadily rising during their conversation with Gemini, so there was now quite a ways to fall. Shego pulled desperately on the control stick and there was just enough power left to turn their descent into a steep drive, but they were still going down far too fast for safety's sake. In the split-second before their descent took him out of sight, Drakken could see Gemini giving them a wave goodbye.

"Doc, the engines!" screamed Shego.

"What?" asked Drakken.

"Get me more power to the engines," said Shego.

Drakken desperately pulled at the hover car's access panel, exposing the inner workings. He began pulling at the wires within, trying to reroute whatever power he could towards the gravity device underneath the car that kept it in the air. There was a shudder and the angle of their descent flattened out even more, but they were picking up a lot of vertical speed.

Drakken jumped into his seat and fastened his seat belt firmly. He was just in time as the bottom of the car touched down on their first roof top. They were going so fast that the car slid across with an awful grinding noise before shooting over the edge and into the air again. Shego gave the stick a twist, dropping them onto another, slightly lower roof top a short distance away. She was turning the city itself into an improvised landing pad to allow them to drop their enormous vertical speed. Another roof top, then another, and Shego shouted, "This is it, we're hitting the street!"

The hover car impacted the road, still sliding and began spinning as it slid, making it hard to tell where they were going. There was no brake left to press, and all Drakken and Shego could do was hang on and hope they didn't hit anything too hard. For an instant they seemed okay, and then they ran out of street, jumping a curb and smashing through the glass barred window of a pawn shop. The energy absorbed by this last impact finally brought the car to a halt.

Shego opened her eyes and carefully tested her limbs. Nothing seemed broken. She glanced over to Drakken to see him looking back at her, seemingly uninjured. They stared at each other for a few seconds. Finally Drakken shrugged and said, "He was a polite fellow, wasn't he?"

Shego gave him a pained expression and carefully climbed out of the wrecked car. "Come on, I'll go steal something that'll move, and we can get out of here," she said

Drakken started to follow her, then paused at something he saw under a smashed glass case. "Oh look at this, Shego," he said, lifting a gold chain with the letters 'DD' hanging from the end of it.

Shego tapped the wheel of the truck as they waited at the stoplight. "Why couldn't you have at least done something useful while I was fighting Agent Alpha ninja-boy?" she asked Drakken.

"I was interrogating the thieves," said Drakken.

"Why didn't you make them give you back your machine, then?" said Shego.

"I got the parts back, but I didn't have a forklift handy to move my machine into the hover car. I was waiting for you to beat the ninja so that you could help me move it," said Shego.

"Wait, you got the parts back?" said Shego.

"Certainly! I made them hand the box over, and I stowed it in… the… hover car." Drakken put a finger to his lips as a slightly embarrassed expression crept over his face. "Oh dear, I really should have grabbed that back in the pawn shop, shouldn't I?"

The look on Shego's face was answer enough.

"Look, we were in a crash! I was distracted. It could have happened to anyone," said Drakken.

Shego pulled the truck into a convenient alleyway. "Wait here," she told Drakken. Then she left.

Thirty minutes later she returned to find Drakken singing along with the truck's radio. She waited until he noticed her standing there.

"Shego! About time. I was getting bored here, and the local radio stations are lousy," said Drakken.

"Uh-huh. About your parts, Doc," said Shego

"You found them in the hover car?" said Drakken.

"I found them across the street from the pawn shop," said Shego. She held up an extremely battered box and gave it a shake. There was a soft rattle, as of objects smashed into very small pieces. "I'm thinking you're not going to be able to use these."

"Let's go home," said Drakken.

'Home' could be a tricky concept for a mad scientist and would-be world conqueror. Certainly Drakken had many places to live, scattered all over the world. 'Lairs' was the preferred term for these places, since their primary purpose was to support Drakken's world-conquering ambitions, with a bedroom thrown in as a concession for his need to sleep. The occasional picture of his mother not-withstanding, Drakken couldn't consider these places to be 'home' any more than a normal person would consider the office where they worked to be 'home'.

There was the Lipsky house, where Drew Lipsky had grown up and where his mother still lived, but Drakken couldn't really consider that to be home. He just wasn't comfortable there anymore.

Was Drakken, a man with property all over the world, in fact homeless? This was the sort of thing Drakken worried about on long dark afternoons, when he realized he wasn't going to get any more work done that day, there was nothing he wanted to read, and dinner was still hours away.

He sometimes thought about asking Shego what she thought, and then quickly thought better of it. Shego maintained her own living quarters separate from Drakken's lairs whenever geography made it practical. Where impractical, she would stake out a separate living area for herself that Drakken was forbidden to enter on pain of- well, pain. Worries about not having a home did not seem like a complaint that would garner a sympathetic ear from Shego. Drakken usually made himself feel better by sketching imaginative death ray designs.

There was one lair, however, that came as close to a home as Drakken had. Nestled on his own privately-owned Caribbean island was a gothic-style castle, posted with plenty of keep-out signs to warn away kids from neighboring islands. It was even reputed to be haunted, though Drakken couldn't say that he'd ever seen any sign of a ghost. Drakken liked the location, liked the basement lab that looked like something out of the Frankenstein movies he'd loved as a child, and liked the master bedroom suite that had been installed by the previous owner, a reclusive millionaire. Drakken found himself returning there again and again, usually after particularly humiliating defeats that made him want to spend some time in a place that made him feel like an evil genius again.

The business with Gemini counted as just such a defeat, so Drakken wasn't particularly talkative as Shego flew himself and then henchmen there in a cargo jet. He just sat in his seat, alternating between anger and depression. The henchmen clustered as far away as they could get, concentrating on not disturbing the boss.

Shego, however, felt under no such limitation. She tossed a magazine into Drakken's lap.

"Shouldn't you be flying the plane?" asked Drakken.

"It's called autopilot, genius. Take a look at this magazine. I found it in with the unopened mail at the hanger. It has a profile of Gemini in it," said Shego.

Drakken picked up the magazine and found the appropriate page. He took a couple of minutes to read it, then read it again. "Hmmm. Impressive. Organization with worldwide reach, a secret shadow war against Global Justice…. Oh, here we have the explanation. He's the evil twin of the director of Global Justice. Nepotism, blatant nepotism. With that kind of advantage, I could be a player too, instead of-"

Drakken cut himself off, but it was too late. Shego was smiling evilly. "Instead of what, Dr. Drakken?" she said, knowing the question would torment him.

"I just like to keep my operation small, that's all. Allows me to keep the personal touch. Why, I bet Gemini has henchmen he's never even met. I don't envy him at all," said Drakken.

"Riiiight," said Shego.

"I don't," said Drakken. "Still… I wonder what he's up to right now?"

"So you were caught by the police, which enabled Drakken to follow you to the rendezvous, where you handed over to him your mission objective. Have I got all that straight?" said Gemini to Team B.

The men of Team B looked at each other in terror, knowing what was coming. Finally one stepped forward to speak. "Please sir, I know we've made mistakes, but give us another chance."

Gemini stroked his pet Chihuahua while he considered this. "Isn't that interesting Pepe? This man seems to feel that I should give him an opportunity to fail me twice. How odd. Well, let it never be said that I don't give my men what they ask for."

He pressed a button on his chair. "Beta, I have a group here that wants a chance. Please bring in eleven parachutes," said Gemini into the speaker.

He then turned his attention to the men before him. "Fortunately for you, this is a worldwide evil empire, which means I can always use a man on the ground, wherever in the world I am. So we're going to place you right here, on the ground below my flying fortress, wherever we happen to be at the moment. You'll have to find a way to survive as best you can, and I'll contact you by radio when I have more orders. Now, does that seem fair?" As Gemini spoke, a minion with a Greek letter 'beta' emblazoned on the chest of his jumpsuit entered, pushing a dolly stacked with parachutes.

"Yes sir, completely fair. You won't regret giving us this chance, sir," said the spokesman for Team B.

"I'm sure I won't," said Gemini. He punched another button and an iris opened in the wall, revealing the cloudy landscape of high altitude outside. "Now get going."

One by one, the group that had attacked the post office put on their parachutes and jumped out. Gemini waited patiently until they were all gone, then closed the iris.

Agent Alpha, who had been standing in a corner quietly not being noticed, remarked, "My lord, am I to take it that none of those parachutes will function?"

Gemini looked offended. "Certainly not! I'm not in the habit of lying to my men. They asked for a chance, and I gave them one. One working parachute, that is. Correct, Beta?"

The person who had wheeled in the parachutes, whom Gemini had referred to as Agent Beta, nodded. "Yes sir, one of the eleven will get its wearer safely to the ground."

"There, you see? Quite a reasonable chance for a failure like that," said Gemini. He pointed his cybernetic hand at Beta, and it was surrounded by the glow that announced it was charging up for an energy blast. "Now let's talk about your failure."

Alpha held up a piece of paper as a shield. "My contract, lord. Attempts to kill me will be regarded as a breach there-of, with full penalties invoked."

Frustrated, Gemini pointed his hand to one side and blasted a random piece of equipment. "I don't know why I should care. You won't even wear the Agent Alpha uniform. There're called uniforms for a reason, you know. Even I wear one."

"With respect lord, you care because I represent the best combination of skills and experience available on the open market. As for my clothing, my contract specifically states that I may dress as I find most appropriate for successful completion of missions," said Agent Alpha.

"Hmmm, yes," said Gemini. He made an adjustment to his cybernetic hand, then fired an energy blast straight at Alpha. Alpha was too surprised and Gemini too skilled for Alpha to be able to dodge before the blast was fired, and it struck him in the chest.

Gemini vaulted over the railing of the platform from which he surveyed the room and ran to Alpha's side. He grabbed Alpha by the collar and lifted the other man into the air with a one-handed grip. "You're still alive, so this is not an attempt to kill you. This is a lesson to convey my displeasure with your performance," said Gemini.

He slammed Alpha back up against the wall. "You were ordered to incapacitate Drakken so that he couldn't interfere in the operation. Because you failed, I had to deal with Drakken personally. That might have forced me to kill him, and I want him alive as a potential resource for the time being. Make me feel like I'm getting what I paid for, and don't fail me again," said Gemini.

He dropped Alpha to the ground and walked away.

The ninja glared at his boss's back in hatred and soothed himself with thoughts of his ever-growing bank account.

Drakken stood in front of the huge view screen, rubbing his hands together. "What we need here is information about Gemini and the WWEE," he said.

"The wee what?" said Shego.

"Gemini's WWEE," said Drakken, puzzled.

"Yeah, but his wee what? His wee little dog? His wee little guns? And since when have you been speech lessons from Duff Killigan?" said Shego.

"I'm talking about the Worldwide Evil Empire. Acronym, 'WWEE'," said Drakken patiently.

"Oh, right. See it's confusing because wee is a word. It's even a couple of words, because at first I thought you were saying 'weeee' like you were happy," Shego told him.

"Shego! Wait, are you just messing with my head again?" said Drakken.

Shego considered. "Started off serious, moved on to messing with your head pretty quickly," she said.

Drakken carefully exhaled and made an attempt to restart the conversation. "We need more information about Gemini and the Worldwide Evil Empire," he told Shego.

"Okay, how are we going to find out more about them, Dr. Drakken?" said Shego, figuring that she now owed it to Drakken to feed him the proper straight line.

"I'm going to call all my homies and ask about him," said Dr. Drakken.

Every time I try to be nice, this is what he gives me, thought Shego. Aloud she said, "So much to choose from. Do I ask about you having homies, or do I ask about how calling around and asking about him counts as a plan for gathering intelligence? I can't choose."

"I know people in the villain business. Gemini is a villain with an evil organization. Somebody I know is bound to have run into him before," replied Drakken.

Shego shrugged, which was as close as she was going to come to admitting that Drakken's plan sounded much more sensible when he put it that way. "So who's up first?" she asked.

"Cousin Eddie," said Drakken. He dialed a number into the control panel and waited.

There was a ringing sound, and then Motor Ed's voice came on the line, though the screen remained dark. "Hey, I spy with my little eye, my cousin Drew! How's it going dude, seriously?"

"I'm not getting your visual, Ed," said Drakken, flipping switches on the control panel.

"Seriously dude, having the mother of all bad hair days. Turned the camera off. Yours is coming through fine, though. Hey Shego. You're looking finer than ever, seriously. Do you have to glue that suit on in the mornings or what?" said Ed.

"Can we just stick to business?" said Shego, irritated at the one-way peeping.

"Yes, quite right," said Drakken. "Ed, have you ever crossed paths with a man named Gemini? Head of the WWEE- I mean, the Worldwide Evil Empire?"

"Whoa. That dude is major bad news. Haven't run across him since I became all about the ride, but I heard a little back when I was still strapping on the lab coat every day for the government. Did you know I once tricked out some flying cars for Global Justice to help them go after him? Seriously," said Ed.

"I've had a little trouble with the man. Is there anything you can tell me about his methods? Abilities? Where he lives?" said Drakken hopefully.

"Dude, I just heard what I heard through the rumor mill, you know? Uhhh, let's see. Oh, I did hear that this Gemini dude likes to fly his own planes, drive his own cars, that kind of thing. Supposed to be a real hotshot type, doesn't depend on other people to chauffer him around. Seriously, some real style there," said Motor Ed.

Drakken made small talk with his cousin for a while, then hung up.

"Next I think we'll give Professor Dementor a try," said Drakken.

Shego crossed her arms and smiled. "Professor Dementor, huh?"

FIVE MINUTES LATER

Shego tossed the last of the henchmen in the grey jumpsuits into the corner. She turned towards Drakken and asked, "So what have we learned?"

Rubbing his bruised jaw, Drakken answered her. "That I should have remembered that Dementor hates me, we're rivals, and he'll take every opportunity to hurt me."

"And?" asked Shego.

"And he's invented a machine that can teleport over phone lines, all right?" said Drakken.

"Just as long as you're learning," said Shego.

She carried off Dementor's failed attack force while Drakken tidied things up a bit. Then they met back up in the view screen room.

"I've thought of someone much better to call this time," said Drakken.

"So you're going to keep going with this. Interesting," said Shego, letting the sarcasm turn her voice into a cutting instrument.

Drakken looked at her, shook his head, and dialed another number. The view screen lit up. The image on the screen was that of Wade Load, preteen genius and Team Possible's tech guru.

"What do you want, Drakken?" said Wade. He raised a soda to his lips and took a drink.

"You're calling Nerdlinger? You are desperate," said Shego.

"Hush," Drakken stage-whispered to Shego.

Drakken forced a smile and spoke to Wade. "Let me ask, Mr. Load. Does the name Gemini mean anything to you?"

Wade tapped a few keys. "Gemini. Head of the WWEE Gemini? Kim ran into him once and fought him alongside the head of Global Justice. Why? What's your interest?"

"He fought my archfoe? That snake. How dare he try to steal something else from me?" raged Drakken.

Shego stepped in and shoved Drakken to the side. "What Dr. Drakken means is that Gemini stole..." she said trailing off. Shego looked around the room desperately and spotted some mail lying on the table. "…stole Dr. Drakken's spot as lead speaker at the next… mad science symposium."

Wade frowned. "But Gemini isn't a mad scientist. I mean, I'm sure he has mad scientists working for him to build things like those robotic flies he used to spy on Global Justice headquarters, or his hover jets, but he didn't seem like a scientist."

"Which…." Shego lost inspiration again.

"Which is exactly why I'm so angry with him," finished Drakken.

Wade looked back and forth, then rubbed his forehead. "I just remembered. You're bad guys, and I don't care. Good luck taking on a guy with his own evil empire," said Wade. With that, he cut the connection.

Drakken and Shego looked at each other for a moment, then exclaimed in unison, "Robot spy flies!"

Shego looked around the room, then spotted an insect on a nearby wall. With lightning-quick speed, she grabbed it between two fingers. "I don't believe it! This thing is a robot," Shego said, then crushed it between her fingers.

"There's only one thing I can do now. Build a better flytrap!" said Drakken.

Author's Notes:

Whew, another long one. Sorry for the delays, but I had a doozy of a time getting started. Just in case any reader is confused, Gemini is a villain from the TV series, who appeared in one episode, "The Ron Factor". Overall he was one of the more competent and dangerous villains of the series, even if he did have his quirks.

Thanks to Jezrianna2.0, Blackfire 18, Gargoylesama, Eva91, and PoisonousAngel for your comments on the last chapter. Of course, that's 5 reviews compared to the 15 I got on "81 Percent of Her Heart", so maybe people just like the romance stuff better or something. Sigh. Well, I hope people are still reading.

This chapter had a lot of action and somewhat less humor. I tried very hard to keep a balance where Drakken and Shego got defeated in the end, but they still fought hard every step of the way. The bit where Shego and Alpha end up posed back-to-back during a break in the battle is one of my favorite bits from that.

Let me talk about ninjas a little. They show up a fair amount in the series, actually. The thing is, ninjas are always the bad guys, except for Ron's Yamanuchi experience. And even Yamanuchi… the students in there are training in stealth and fighting arts, presumably to go out after graduation and sell their skills. While I'm sure these skills could be put to good use, it seems more likely to me they go out and hire themselves out to people who need things and people stolen and broken. I'm hypothesizing that all ninjas we see come from Yamanuchi, because how many ninja schools can there be in the world, anyway? There's hundreds of fics out there where Ron goes back to Yamanuchi to train, but I can't think of any that make Yamanuchi out to be a bit more sinister than one might expect. I might have to do something with that one day.

Anyway, I thought ninja training for Shego was as good a way as any to explain her skill set. One might imagine it as where she went after leaving Team Go.

Don't feel sorry for Gemini's men. They knew what they were getting into when they went to work for something called the Worldwide Evil Empire! I hope that the scene helped establish some things about Gemini and about Agent Alpha, though. As you can see, while superficially similar, their relationship is very different than that between Shego and Drakken.

I hope you readers want to see what comes next! Let the speculation begin.