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Soulmates of the Fury
Chapter 11: Will You?- Reprise
"Well? Can I get an answer? Sometime this decade?"
"Neil! We need to focus here!" Shego yelled back at him as she roundhouse kicked a goon wearing an open front shirt with a huge butterfly collar and monstrous medallions on thick gold chains. His head snapped back and he fell backwards into another similarly clad goon.
"Oh, it's not like you're even working up a sweat!" Neil flipped a man dressed like the biker on the Village People over his shoulder.
"Hey, you try doing this with your powers shut off!" She screamed back at him while dodging a punch from her opponent.
With that, Neil tucked his hands behind his back and proceeded to block and kick the leather clad henchman using just his feet. "Look Ma! No Powers!" His voice dropped an octave "Never had 'em! Never will! HA HA HA!"
"Will the two of you shut up and do your jobs!" Hego growled as he threw a thug dressed in a powder blue polyester leisure suit onto the multi-colored glowing stage that dominated the center of the large room.
"Yeeeeesss Massster!" Neil said in his best 'Igor' voice.
"The head of Global Justice and I are going to have a long chat when this is over!"
"Ooooo, I'm quakin' in my combat boots!" Neil gasped in mock fear.
"Stupid little powerless wannabe little…" Hego muttered under his breath as he waded back into the fray.
"Um, hello, this was supposed to be my collar. This time you're the ones stepping on my territory!" Didn't matter, Hego was out of earshot again. "Still doesn't like me, does he Hon?"
"Nope!" Shego answered as she tumbled with another disco freak henchman.
The villain had taken to the platform again. If any of them had the time they probably would have fallen over laughing at the tall, thin man with dark, wavy hair, wearing a white suit and black shirt, collar open. He stuck a pose that could have come from a "Saturday Night Fever" movie poster except for the fact he had a huge, long neck totally out of proportion to the rest of his lanky body. That, and in his left hand was an evil looking ray gun.
"Pathetic. I thought Team Go was the best this pitiful city had to offer! It looks as if you've lost your ability to get down and boogie!"
Neil elbowed his goon in the gut, then brought his first up into his nose. "Uh, Dude! I don't think the Village Idiots here are winning."
"Fool! Soon all the world will bow before DISCO NECK TED!"
Shego stopped in mid punch, dropping her goon mercifully to the floor where he slinked away. She made a rude sound, then collapsed to her knees laughing. "Oh boy! You are kidding me, right? Disco Neck Ted? Come on, at least Aviarius makes some kind of sense! That's just…stupid!"
"Laugh now, pretty lady! Let's see how funny it is when your boyfriend's powers are DISCONNECTED by DISCO NECK TED!" with that he fired the beam weapon at Neil. A beam of soft blue light leapt from the projector, bathing him in its azure glow.
Neil looked like he was actually expecting that to happen, but he recovered quickly and dropped to his knees. "Oh no! What have you done! My powers! What will I do? I'll never be able to cook pasta au dente again!"
"Pasta?" Disco Neck Ted roared.
"Yeah, Dude! That Metaform Power Inhibitor ray you stole only works on people with meta-human powers!" He stood back up and mimicked an air guitar. "and Dude! Don't you know…" He laughed as Hego grabbed him from behind, wrenching the weapon from his hands. "…Disco is dead, Rock Rules!"
"You little smart mouthed kid!" He raged as Hego put the cuffs on him. "That tired old phrase was around before you were even born!"
"Yeah, and Disco was already dead when they coined it!" came his ready retort.
Later, as Chicago's finest herded the rest of the disco themed henchmen out, Hego confronted Neil. "Just what gives you the right to go after this Disco Ted by yourself?"
"Uh, hello, Hego. Three seconds into the fight and he's zapped you and Sher's powers."
"Shego, Argus. In public she's always Shego." He said, pointing his finger dangerous at Neil.
"Whatever. I knew that weapon was perfectly harmless to normal people so I knew I could get in, recover it and get back out before any ruckus could break out."
"That's not what I saw when I got here!" he challenged.
"Doy! I'm doing what I do best, which is getting in and out without being seen, then the two of you come barging in here like you're the freaking cavalry!"
"Then all you would have done was recover the stolen technology. Now Disco Ted…"
"Disco Neck Ted. Supposed to sound like disconnected."
"Whatever. You were only doing half the job."
"No, I was doing what I was asked to do. If you had just waited your turn, you could have gone in with the whole team and mopped him up without any muss or fuss. Now because you're supposed to be the great big shot in this town, I've nearly been exposed and the two of you will won't have your powers for four days to a week. Don't give me that look Hego! Being GJ's liaison officer is only one job. I've been doing this since I was twelve years old! That means I've been at this longer than you and your siblings have even had your powers. So don't lecture me on what may or may not be my job! I don't need special powers to do what I do!"
Hego glared at him a few moments more, then stalked off. It rattled the older man that he let his little sister's boyfriend make him lose control like that and it especially rattled him that this time, at least, he was right. He allowed himself a few more moments of muttering before putting on his "Hero Face" to meet the waiting press.
Shego put her hand on Neil's arm "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, fine. These guys were strictly low rent. Imagine, thinking that by taking all the superhero's powers away he'd be able to get away with anything he wanted to. He wasn't thinking that most folks don't have any powers to draw on."
"I really meant about Hego." She gently turned him to face her.
"Your brother is such an…I mean, Mego can be a bit of a self-centered jerk but Hego…I just don't get it."
"Honey, it's me. He's been in charge so long he thinks he has to protect all four of us. He thinks he is protecting me."
"From what? Am I such a bad guy? Is it so wrong that I'm some sort of half redneck half surfer dude punk?"
"No, Neil!" She smiled. "You're not a surfer dude! You don't even know how to surf!"
"Exactly."
"But seriously. I do have an answer for you."
"Really?"
She bowed her head, looking at the floor.
"It's no."
Kim and Shego were sitting in a waiting room in a one of the taller towers of Downtown Atlanta. They both felt one hundred percent better after an opportunity to clean up and put on some fresh clothing. They managed to knock a huge hole in their pooled cash, but if all went well here that would no longer be the greatest of their worries.
That wasn't exactly true. Two men, one thin, wiry and blonde, the other thick, muscular and brown haired occupied their minds. Shego kept trying to convince Kim that the worst that would happen to the two men while they were in FBI custody was bad food and that Ron at least should be used to that considering the amount of mystery meat gravy he consumed during his high-school years.
Shego watched as Kim displayed a nervous habit she had never noticed before. She would constantly interlace her fingers, pushing her gloves further and further down on her fingers. Finally, she said "You know, you don't have to wear those right now, not if they're uncomfortable."
"I don't see you taking your gloves off."
"Princess, it's a little hard to keep makeup on your hands." She said, pointing at her nearly normal features."
"I don't know what's worse, your green skin showing or you walking around in one-hundred degree weather wearing long sleeves and gloves."
"Catch twenty two, there Kimmie. It is a little easier to play off the clothes than looking like the spokesperson for Spearmint Plus chewing gum."
That earned her a slight chuckle from the redhead.
"Take off your gloves there for a minute. It's not like you'll be out of uniform or something."
Kim shrugged, biting back the thought that it would be just exactly that – being out of uniform. She pealed off the gloves, careful to keep them from turning inside out. "Okay, what?"
Shego reached for Kim's left hand, pulling it closer to her eyes. "Oh, heh. Not quite what I thought it was."
"What? My ring?"
"Yeah. I thought maybe Stoppable had gone and proposed to you already. Guess not."
"What do you mean, guess not? Because of my ring?"
"Yep. That's one of those cheap 'Promise' rings, the kind kids buy when they want to pretend they're getting engaged."
"What!"
"Wait a minute. Oh, come on, you mean to tell me he actually proposed to you? With that little thing?"
Kim glanced around, as if she was worried who would hear her. "This is all Ron could afford."
"Princess, gimme a break. We're talking multi-millionaire Ron Stoppable, the Naco King. He's bought gems a thousand times bigger than that, and you're going to let him call that an engagement ring?"
"Well, for one thing, he does have money. Not as much as that first check from Bueno Nacho, which, by the way, you and you-know-who had plenty to do with relieving him of, but he's got a pretty good chunk put away. Problem is, his father put it into a trust he can't touch until he's twenty one. So, there's another reason to wait to get married."
"So it's still a promise ring." Shego quipped, grinning.
"No. He actually proposed and I accepted. Just because he doesn't have tons of money yet doesn't mean we don't love each other."
"Not what I meant, Punkin. That ring is a promise to you that he's going to buy you a proper one later on."
"Of course. That will be the wedding set. But this will always be our engagement ring."
"Whatever." She sat back in her seat, a smug look crossing her powdered and pancaked features.
Kim wasn't sure how much she should tell this woman. Ron and her had talked into the night. Her answer was an unqualified yes but both of them realized there was no rush to the alter. Ron suggested and she agreed that the best time would certainly be after college. It wasn't like there was anything to prove and there was still the fact she wanted Ron to ask her again in front of her parents. She could be a strong, modern woman any day of the week, but she had an old fashioned streak in her that said her fiancé was going to ask her father's permission and then put the ring officially on her finger down on one knee.
"Neil proposed to me once." Shego said, almost absently.
"And?" Kim prompted.
"And? And nothing. I turned him down."
"What on Earth for? I thought the two of you were such an item before…"
"It's okay, Princess, you can spit it out. Before I turned evil. You're not sparing anyone's feelings here."
"Well, before you turned evil then. It just sounds so, weird just to say it that way."
"Not weird. Just the truth. Anyway, we weren't quite eighteen then. It was one thing to have a boyfriend like him, but I just wasn't ready to even consider a decision about the rest of my life."
"Just last night you were telling me that I shouldn't be waiting with Ron."
"That's different. I was telling you, well, mostly that you shouldn't be waiting to fool around with him. No, you two are way different than Neil and me. We were just a normal high-school couple."
"Normal?"
"Well, our relationship was normal. Nothing as big or deep as you have with the buf…. With Ron. You know, the holding hands, the kissing, occasionally um, you know. The fun of watching him contemplating beating the stuffing out of Hego."
"Say what? Hego would have wiped the floor with him, fighting skills or no."
"Oh, no debate there. He just contemplated it. Wishful thinking and all. Whatever. So he up and pulls out this ring which I have no idea how he ever paid for and goes down on one knee and proposes. I almost said yes but I ended up stringing him along for a few days. Finally I got my head together and told him I wouldn't marry him, at least not then."
"Ouch."
"Yeah, ouch. I thought I got it through his thick skull that I just wasn't agreeing then, that I still wanted him to be my boyfriend and all but the next thing I knew his little apartment was cleaned out and he was nowhere to be found. Even his handlers at GJ were stumped until I called his father Nikolas. He was back in North Carolina finishing up his high school and getting ready to go to the university there in his home town."
"He up and quit because you wouldn't marry him?"
"Yep. He thought I meant we'd never get married ever. The next time I saw him was when my brothers were forced to come after me…and we know how that ended."
Was that part of the equation? Kim thought. Was Neil leaving with a broken heart part of the reason Shego's life too the turn it did? Of course that could never excuse what she had done, but it went some distance in explaining it. Sensing she was about to send her old enemy into tears again she decided to change the subject.
"So why are we at 'The Atlanta Senior Center' anyway? I don't see any senior citizens in here."
Shego grinned again, putting her melancholy memories away for the time being. "Boy, being with Slinkable…"
"Shego!"
"Okay, another lame one, sorry. He's starting to rub off on you. Think, sweetness…Senior!"
"You have got to be joking! We're going to Señor Senior Sr. for help?"
"Close. This isn't a retirement home, it's the corporate offices of a shipping company. We're here to see Old Señor Senior's younger half-brother, Able Senior. He had his tongue firmly planted in his cheek when he named this place."
"Half brother? How come I've never heard of him?"
"Why should you have? He's totally legit. He's also nowhere near as loaded as big bro. Don't get me wrong, he's got plenty of Benjamins sitting in the bank, it's just a lot more likely to refer to his billion instead of billions."
"Lovely. So if he's so legit, how come you know him?"
"Let's just say he'd got a son too."
"Just guessing here. Another Junior?"
"Yes and no. He's Able Senior Junior, but since he was born in the US, he's never been called Señor. For that matter, you don't call his Dad that either. He's lived here over fifty years."
"Mister Senior, huh? Sounds awk-weird after saying three Seniors all this time. So, another boyfriend?"
"He wishes. Think the usual Junior, but just a little less bulk and a heck of a lot more brains."
Kim's eyebrows went up. Junior may have been a couple oars short of a rowboat but he was certainly good eye candy. She tried to imagine this 'Able' the younger as a pretty young assistant emerged from the offices and called for them. She shut the doors behind them as they entered, leaving them alone in the large, empty ante-room.
The lights went out except for a single, bright spotlight on the two young women. A very familiar, though slightly different voice boomed over loudspeakers.
"So, my older brother's feisty young nemesis has come for me at last! Now it is time to show you how we treat with the likes of you! It is time for you to get what you deserve for the indignities you have heaped upon him!"
Kim dropped into her fighting crouch, pulling her gloves on once more. "Bring it!" she said through clenched teeth.
Neil rolled onto his back, looking at his visitor but not speaking. Where had he seen that face before?
"Why did you help that prisoner break out of here?"
He again eyed the tall agent warily, but something in his question piqued his interest. "You are the first person here I've heard call her that."
"Come again?"
"You just referred to her as a prisoner. That at least denotes a human being. Tybor and Oray just called her a thing, or property."
"That's ridiculous. We've got very specific laws about how we're supposed to treat prisoners."
"Oh, really. So how do you explain this?" he held up a manacled hand.
"That was because you had to be restrained. You put two of my men in the infirmary."
"I weep."
"Whatever. Just answer the question. Why does a bike mechanic from a quiet beach community just up and decide to break into a facility that's a closely guarded secret, then proceed to remove a prisoner? Then, finally, turn around and deliver her to an equally secret Global Justice facility?"
Huh? They knew where he took the girl? How did that happen? It wouldn't have been a big surprise if they knew he drove her to Charleston, though he would still liked to know precisely how they tracked him.
"Dude, what makes you think that was me?" Neil found himself amping up his normal southern accent in response to the fed's similar speech patterns.
"Give me a break, Argus. We've got you on video."
"Oh, you've got surveillance in all the cells?"
"What do you think?"
"Well, maybe I just didn't like the way she was being treated. Since when do we shove a prisoner who doesn't appear violent and even seems to be malnourished into a cell alone with no privy, no food or water and proceed to treat her like she's nothing more than a piece of equipment that has been forgotten?"
"I don't know. I never saw that prisoner. Just you and that other guy."
Other guy? That was the first he had heard of other prisoners. Was that Ron? Had any of his guests been taken? Fresh worry bloomed in his head about his friends and especially about Shego.
He hadn't said it aloud but he knew every time he looked at her that he still loved her. Despite all she had done to him, to others, heck, the whole world. All of that melted away when he looked in her eyes, whether they were bright emerald green or their natural brown. He knew they had touched each other's soul and he was prepared to do whatever she needed, no matter the cost. Not what she wanted, but what she needed.
He pretty much figured that if they got out of this he was probably going to prison for a long time for harboring her.
"Look, I don't know what's for what with this girl. All I know is they've got you properly secured and the boy isn't going anywhere with his injuries."
"Injuries? Just who are we talking about here?"
"You know him. He was in your house, along with that convicted felon you were shacked up with."
"Okay, Ron. What injuries? Is he okay?"
"He's going to be fine. He got shot in the shoulder when we captured him. The Doctor took the bullet out and he'll be okay. He's in some pain since we didn't want to completely dope him up."
"Good for you."
"Come again?"
Neil didn't reply. Instead he came up off the bed almost faster than Bedarest could follow. The tall ex-sergeant barely registered the fact that all four manacles had popped open at once as his attacker plowed into him. Surprise or no, he still had to cross the entirety of the cell to reach him. He had the choice of jumping for the door or meeting him head on. He chose the latter.
That's what saved Neil from being locked back inside. Millard Bedarest was too close to the door and all he had to do was back out of it and the acrylic barrier would snap back into place. Instead he chose to block the attack, thinking he could subdue the prisoner.
The agent was fast, he had to give him credit. Most other opponents would have been too rattled by his sudden escape from the chains. Too much time spent relying on those reflexes to keep him alive made the fight all that more difficult. Still, he had to take him down before he could reach the door or sound an alarm.
He feinted right, then dropped to the floor, sending one leg between the agents, the other to the side, scissoring both legs, hoping to topple him to the floor. It almost worked but he was heavier than he looked. There was dense muscle on his tall frame.
Taking advantage of his compromised stance, Neil tucked and rolled into his legs, finally knocking him to the floor. They tangled on the concrete, Neil finally getting the taller man into a sleeper hold.
"You know, I just realized who you are. Good thing too, since you seem a bit more decent than the rest of the folks down here. In another life, you and I would have been best friends, so I apologize in advance for this…"
He applied just the right pressure in just the right place. Bedarest gasped as the air rushed out of his lungs involuntarily. In moments, he was out cold.
Neil stripped off his sidearm, pulling the Beretta from it's krydex holster. Deliberately he dropped the magazine, stripping all the rounds from inside. Then he racked the slide, ejecting the round left in the weapon. Lastly, he stripped the slide right off the top, removing the internal mechanism. He left the whole affair, pistol belt included, in a pile. Then he found the man's backup weapon and did the same thing, again leaving it in an obvious pile. Finally, he pulled the man over to the cot and started stripping his black Nomex jump suit. "Sorry, hate to leave you here in your tidy whiteys, but I'm about tired of running around in these trunks." He had to roll the sleeves and the cuffs, but otherwise it was a pretty close fit.
Okay, key card, ID bar code. Keys, he's got a few keys. Might just be for his personal vehicle or for some motor pool van his team uses. Can't tell. A few of these are door keys, but when I was here before almost every lock was operated with the key cards. At a few junctions, thick acrylic doors blocked access with some kind of palm-print reader. Crude stuff, basically made to see if the person entering had a proper bone structure. Sloppy, there are better ways of locking people out. Retina scans, breath composition readers, good old fashioned brass keys, but why scan for bone composition?
That didn't matter. Now his mission was to find Ron and learn what had happened to Kim and Shego!
Wade was surprised and pleased with his new assistant. She acted defensive when he first climbed the ramp into the Trinity, but once Doctor Possible had introduced him she was almost ecstatic. Of course, he didn't know who she was at first, but once she told him what her IRC name was he realized he was talking to an old friend, for the first time face to face.
They were busy now, but he would some time have to ask why such a petite, sweet natured woman chose the name "Killercat."
"Okay, Wade, I've got the code entered into the mainframe. The AI has already digested the whole thing."
"Good. A few more adjustments and we should be able to get in touch with the Kimmunicator."
"Wow, who would have ever thought I was helping the Kim Possible with a mission." Liz beamed.
"If all goes well, maybe you'll be part of that mission too."
"So what are you doing now? I thought this computer was so hyper-advanced?"
"It is, but without sounding like I'm bragging, so is my work. The built in protection in the Kimmunicator itself isn't going to like being talked to be a foreign system, even one as advanced as this one. I have to make sure the handshake protocols will get through without triggering a shutdown. I also have to be careful about the signal."
"I thought the signal couldn't be detected."
"Not out outgoing signal, but when the Kimmunicator responds, it's going to be in a bandwidth that can be detected by somebody with the right equipment. I've got to make sure when it responds back to me that the signal is properly scrambled. This is especially important since the Feds have my whole system. I don't think they know how to assemble it correctly and they don't have the access codes to make it work without me sitting there, but I don't want to take that chance."
"Sounds good."
"So you got all that."
"Hey, I may not be in the same league as you, but I'm no slouch when it comes to computers." Liz smiled again.
"I can see that. I'm glad the bragging you did in the chat channel was earned."
"It's not bragging when you can do it."
"True. Well, here goes. Cross your fingers and toes." Wade squinted, leaned into the keyboard and started typing the commands.
He hoped the thing wouldn't go off at a ferociously bad time!