Kim leaned on Ron's shoulders as he helped her out of the warehouse. As the two exited through the sizeable hole in the wall left by Ron's poor moped, they were greeted by a full company of military vehicles and soldiers.

Typical, Kim thought to herself. Just as soon as everything is over.

"Team Possible," a tall older looking man bearing, Kim noted, the rank of a Colonel walked up to the limping pair. "May I assume you are responsible for the apprehension of the thief who broke into our facility earlier this evening and made off with government property?"

"Yes sir, he's inside." Kim pointed to the building the young couple had just come out of.

"Along with what's left of my bike." Ron added. "Oh my poor sweet ride, it was too beautiful for this world."

"Oooh, so sad." Rufus added, having already scampered up the side of Ron's shirt to his shoulder. For a minute, the colonel gave Kim a questioning look, and then dismissed the matter entirely as he ushered in several soldiers through the side of the wall.

Ron led Kim over to a nearby jeep where a medic had already taken it upon himself, having observed Kim's limped state, to retrieve a first aide kit. Ron, for himself, was refusing all medical treatment until he was completely sure that Kim was alright, and that they weren't going to give him any shots.

Kim bit down the urge to let out a slight yelp as the medic applied some disinfectant to a small bruise just under her neck. For the most part, Kim looked fine externally. It was under the skin that the damage had been done. She couldn't tell whether or not any bones were broken, but it sure felt like it, or that they were ready to snap if Kim so much as laughed, hiccupped, burped, blinked or even breathed. Her stomach had also taken somewhat of a brutal punishment, and she suddenly realized that she was having a hard time taking deep breathes. Her ribs were sore too, especially the lower. At instruction, Kim lifted up the bottom half of her shirt to allow the medic to bandage them. A temporary solution, until she could get properly treated. Kim could only imagine the fuss this was going to cause when she had to explain to her mom that she was probably going to need X-rays.

"Sir, there's no one inside!" a lieutenant shouted from inside the warehouse. At the sound of this, Kim's bruises became immaterial, her pain a memory. She quickly stood up and ran inside the warehouse, leaving the protests of both the medic and Ron echoing behind her.

Passing several soldiers, and bumping into most of them as she ran, Kim returned only faint apologies as she moved over to the area where she had left Slade buried. Sure enough, rusted bolts and nuts were scattered all over the ground, and the boxes were messily piled atop of one another just as she remember, but no Slade.

Kim let out a silent shudder in her breath. Somehow, she was not surprised.

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"Shego, this is intolerable." Dr. Drakken insisted as he paced back and forth within his laboratory tirelessly. Meanwhile, the very woman that he was busy berating sat calmly in a nearby chair, her feet propped up on a console as she casually filed her nails. "How could you fail me like this?"

"Hey, what more do you want me to say? Someone got there before me, and managed to hit every alarm possible on their way out. By the time I got there, the whole place was swarming with soldiers." Shego paused to examine an ugly hang nail on her left middle finger.

"But that shouldn't matter. You're supposed to be the best." Drakken turned to berate her some more, only just in time to see a blast of green energy flying squarely at his face. The mad scientist barely managed to keep his face from being scorched at the expense of his hair, which was now a frightful mess, standing up on ends, with even a few hairs on fire. He quickly looked up to see a scowl on Shego's face, her right hand still glowing with a familiar emerald energy. "Err, not that you're not the best." Drakken hurriedly explained. "But I needed the experimental new fusion power source that Mil-Tech was developing for my new plan."

"You speak as if your plan ever had a chance for success. Alas, it would surely have been yet another of countless failures that marks your pitiful existence." The voice responding was not Shego's. In fact, it echoed throughout the entire room with a malice that neither had ever encountered before.

Both Drakken and Shego looked up to see a single intruder standing overhead atop a series of large pipes that ran across the top of the chamber, clad in grey armor and black cloth that almost camouflaged him were it not for his face masked save for a single eye patch.

Shego quickly leapt from her seat, both her hands glowing with violent green energies. Drakken was the first to speak however. "Who are you? How did you get in here without setting of a dozen alarms?"

At this, Shego turned and looked at Drakken incredulously.

"Ok, half a dozen." Drakken admitted.

Slade's single eye seemed to bore into Drakken.

"Alright, just the one." Drakken confessed.

Shego's expression morphed into one of frustration.

"Look, the front door was locked!" Drakken protested.

"Time and time again, you have proven yourself a failure; your greatest efforts have served as nothing more than a nuisance to Kim Possible. Unfortunately, you are a nuisance I cannot afford to have in my path at the moment." At this, Slade dropped down, landing in front of the pair.

Drakken's response was simple and straightforward.

"Shego!"

On cue, the green and black clad super villain leapt forward, attempting to land a kick to Slade's face. However, Slade merely sidestepped the attack. Shego came down to the ground and lashed out with her glowing right hand, threatening to sear the mask right off of Slade's face. Slade avoided the attack however and took the opening provided to land a solid uppercut that lifted Shego straight off the ground, knocking her back to a nearby wall.

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There was an uneasy silence as Ron and Kim walked back home. Ron was still unsure as to exactly why the pair had refused the military's offer for a free ride home, especially since his own ride would not be useable again any time… well, ever. Moreover, the longer that the two continued to walk, the more and more that Ron felt he really should be saying something. He had never seen his best friend, or girlfriend for that matter, like this. She seemed bummed, but about what, he couldn't tell.

Ok, so there was a new super villain in town. Granted, that wasn't the sort of thing he and Kim threw a celebration over. But it wasn't like this sort of thing ever got her down before. How many life threatening situations that would have reduced most grown men to whimpers had Kim braved through without breaking a sweat? Certainly more than Ron could keep track of. It wasn't that nothing ever got to Kim. School work, boys, that kind of stuff could put Kim in a deep fluke, but super villains, not once. At least, not like this.

Kim could tell that she was making Ron uncomfortable as they walked. She wasn't trying to push him away; she just needed to wrestle with her own emotions right now as they continued to replay the evening's events again and again in her mind. She had left herself walk right into a trap; worse, a trap that she had seen coming. She allowed herself to charge headlong against a new villain that she knew nothing about and what was worse, she had allowed herself to be afraid. Stupid, stupid. She knew better than that. More than anything, Kim knew that fear was the most dangerous, most unnecessary distraction in any situation like that. Yet, just because some new whacko had steel doors installed and talked like the freaking Terminator, she had allowed herself to get all worked up like it was the end of everything.

Her muscles ached, another painful reminder of her failure. It wasn't the bruises that got her down, it was the fight. She should have done better, she should have taken Slade. Sure, he was good. Sure, they had been fighting on his turf, and sure, she hadn't really been expecting a fight. Those weren't excuses. She should have taken him down. Next time, next time she would do better. Next time, she would beat him. There would be a next time of course, of that, she was certain. And this thought filled her with anticipation and dread all at once.

A thousand mental and emotional conflicts raged on in Kim's mind, and not one of them had resolved itself by the time they reached Kim's front door. No sooner had Ron, rather hesitantly, knocked on the door, than Kim's parents had answered in quite a worry.

"Oh Kim, you're alright. We got a call from your friend, Wade. Quick, come in. We need to take a look at you." Kim's mother was even worse than Ron had been with concern for Kim, quickly ushering her inside, leaving Ron on the front door step without so much as a word goodbye.

"Ronald, you might want to come inside too, that bump on your head doesn't look too pretty." James Possible added as well, gesturing for Ron to come inside. Ron had been so worried, he hadn't even bothered to notice the ugly discolored swelling on his forehead. And he had to admit, he wouldn't mind an excuse to say good night to Kim, but he knew his friend, his girlfriend, all too well. If she hadn't said anything to him all the way back home, she wasn't going to say anything now. Whatever flunk she was in, she wasn't coming out of it tonight.

"Thanks Dr. P, but I'll put some ice on it when I get home." Ron assured the father of the house, before waving goodnight. As the door slowly closed, Ron kept expecting, hoping for some kind of farewell or goodnight from a certain young redhead. Instead, he was met with only the sound of the Possible house front door closing shut before him. Ron gave out a simple sigh, before turning around and heading home.

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A blast of green energy singed the side of Slade's left arm. Another glowing fist passed within a hair of his mask, followed by a kick to the gut that Slade managed to block with his right arm. Slade then lashed out, grabbing both of Shego's glowing hands, each by the wrist, just below the swirling green energy that radiated out from her palms.

"I need only apply enough pressure, and bones start breaking." Slade stated coldly through his mask, his grip calmly but forcefully increasing. Despite Shego's struggles, Slade remained unflinching, keeping his iron hold on her. "What I break after that, I haven't decided yet. I certainly have a few options."

Shego struggled with all her strength, yet Slade's grip continued. Slowly, a cracking sound could be heard coming from her wrists. His grip was like steel, it was inhuman. Pain began to radiate throughout her person until she simply couldn't take it anymore.

"P-please…"

"I'm sorry, I couldn't hear you." Slade punctuated himself by tensing his grip on Shego's right wrist so as to emit a large cracking sound from it.

"Pl-please stop. Please." Shego let out a pitiful screech as Slade tightened his grip even further, only to release a split second later. Satisfied in his own victory, Slade allowed Shego to fall to the ground in defeat, only to turn around and face Drakken, whose jaw had dropped at the fall of his most trusted bodyguard.

"Your lackey has been defeated, and we both know she was the only credible threat of the two of you." Slade walked up until he found himself standing directly in front of Drakken, face to mask. "Now, get out."

Dr. Drakken felt a sharp pain burn across his cheek as Slade simply, but forcefully, slapped him aside. The blow was yet strong enough to knock Drakken back, leaving him speechless, almost.

"How dare you think to invade my lair and beat up my lackeys? By the time I'm done with you, you'll be begging me for mercy that I don't even have!" Drakken's voice found itself gaining confidence by the second as he backed towards a nearby control panel. Without hesitation, he pressed down for his life on a lone, rather large red button.

All at once, four distinct hatches opened throughout the walls of the lair, each one revealing its own laser cannon, all four of which quickly tracked Slade, each one marking him with a red laser scope.

"Any last words?" Drakken asked smugly.

However, Slade's response was not a vocal one. He merely reached into his pocket, producing a small remote, decorated only with a single large button. It was a detonator!

As Slade activated the device, a powerful explosion could be heard in the distance within the lair, approximately around the location of the generator, Drakken noted to himself mentally. Instantly, the lights and consoles of the room went dead, the laser scopes of the four cannons lost their mark.

"I won't go to the trouble of repeating myself." Slade responded coldly to Drakken's unvoiced protests.

Slade suddenly leapt up in the air, avoiding Shego's desperate tackle from behind. Shego struggled to bring herself to a grinding halt in mid charge. She looked up to track Slade's movements even as he completed a perfect flip in mid leap before bringing his right foot up and into Shego's face, knocking her down to the ground once again. Slade landed perfectly on the ground, not even taking in an extra breath.

"Leave that as you go." Slade added, pointing to Shego's beaten form on the floor. "I have spared her life, it belongs to me now."

Drakken struggled desperately to think of something, anything. But thinking had never really been his strong point, especially not in a crisis. His mind strained to determine a way to outmaneuver this new enemy. He was no fighter, he could never even open the cap on an aspirin bottle ('child' proof his left foot). Now, his lair had been penetrated, seemingly without effort, and he found himself alone. No one left to protect him, and the stakes now were higher than mere jail. Of all the times that he had been defeated by Kim Possible, never once had he felt his life was in jeopardy, except of course for those few occasions where it was of his own doing. But Slade played by different rules, and for different stakes.

To his side, Shego desperately reached out into the air, extending her hand for his aide, aide that he truly could not give that would be of any consequence. He had always looked to her when things got tough. Now, the shoe was on the other foot, and he could think of only one thing to do.

"I- I'm sorry Shego."

"Dr. D…" but Shego's pleas fell upon deaf ears as Drakken, his head slumped in defeat, walked towards the exit.

Slade had watched this quaint little drama play itself out. Now, satisfied, he walked over and knelt down besides Shego's whimpering form.

"Now then, why don't we have a little talk, about Kim Possible?"