A merry whistle danced out of the mouth of the blue mad scientist who was working his tools with a measure of glee that most would deem ludicrous. Drakken would have just laughed at them and told them that they're idiots for not seeing the joy in simply creating something from scratch, something that you can call your own and that no one could take from you.

When he was in his lab working on one of his brilliant inventions or ideas, it was easy to let his mind go on automatic. Nothing could touch him when he was working his magic on nucleotides, organic molecules, or even a basic motherboard that went into his battle robots. It was his world. All his. Nothing could get to him when he was working.

Drakken sighed as the last little chemical reaction played out. It would take a few more weeks for the batch to germinate, but it would be worth it! A new strain of mutant plants, all tied to his will! No one would be able to laugh at that bit of genius! And he'd worked it out so his scheme wouldn't fail like Dementor's did, what with his plants becoming rebelling teenagers and ditching him.

Yes, Drakken was untouchable when he was working.

They're all laughing at you

It was after he finished when he had trouble.

Drakken grit his teeth at the voice that spoke just to his left. It was very annoying, to once again be reminded that he was the butt of everyone's jokes. He knew the stupid thing was right. They tended to be.

He was never really sure what 'they' even were. Little voices that crawled out of nowhere and told him things. Most of what they said was undeniably true. Some of it sounded right but, upon thought or evidence, were found to be wrong. And then there was the Voice.

It had been a few weeks since the last time he'd heard it, to his relief. Drakken didn't know what or who the Voice was, but whoever it was it scared him to death… After he recovered from the ordeal of being under Its control, anyway.

It was like a mind control chip without the chip. Whispering yet booming in his head the Truth. The Truth was different than the truth; It was undeniable, no matter what evidence you had that proved the contrary. Drakken could never stop himself from listening to the Truth and acting accordingly.

The last time led to him to try and kill everyone on the planet with Warmonga's help. That had been bad for everyone involved, as he'd realized once he had a few day's distance from the incident.

He shook his head from the unfortunate revery and let loose a short villainous laugh at the success of his ongoing experiments. Skeptical emerald eyes lifted from a magazine to stare at him with the usual unspoken question of "Are you serious?"

Which he answered with his usual grunt that replied to that with "Of course I am!"

He almost fell into a giggle fit as he realized that he and Shego knew each other well enough to even have that kind of nonverbal communication. While he still held some of her betrayal when she continually left him in prison against her, there was no taking away their years of working together. They could read each other like an open book.

Maybe that's why she kept wandering off. Reading the same book over and over got boring after a while, even if it was on the multiple uses of infrared spectroscopy. Maybe he should get her some new reading material.

Everyone would be better off if you were dead a voice noted from behind him on the right.

Now that one was easy to refute. Stupid voice always forgot about Mother! While she had been disappointed with him being a villain, Mother had made it clear that she still loved and needed him.

It didn't really take away from the fact that it was right in regards to everyone else, but they didn't matter nearly as much as Mother did.

"So Doc, you gonna let me in on whatever your silly little scheme is that you're working on?" Shego suddenly asked from behind her magazine. That surprised Drakken; Shego normally didn't bother asking until after he'd initiated the first steps to the endgame of a plan.

"It's elementary, my dear Shego," he said grandly, letting his voice boom a little in the open area. It made him feel like a performer putting on a show, and he would be cursed if he didn't play it up to fit the part. It was a shame he didn't have a silly-looking hat or curved pipe to use at the moment, but that didn't matter so much. Pointing to the pressurized tube of suspended seeds, Drakken announced, "With these evil seeds that I am making with my own genius, I shall produce an army of completely obedient super-powered plants!"

"...evil seeds?" The tone knocked the wind out of his sails. He fumbled with words, grunting, trying to recover mentally as she got up and walked over to harass him at a shorter distance.

"Yes Shego, evil seeds. These are not any kind of generic, bland seed you see at the store," Drakken finally managed to explain testily. "They are being specifically crafted for performing villainous acts!"

"I see," she nodded, her eyes clearly telling him that this was an amazingly stupid plan. Not that she was going to stop at that when she could really rub it in and get some more laughs. "And you're building a plant army."

"Yes, a plant army." Whenever she picked a plan apart like this piece-by-piece, it meant that there was something fundamentally wrong with it. But he had no idea what could be wrong with this plan! It was perfect!

"Uh-huh. And you think you can pull it off where Dementor couldn't?" she asked plainly.

Drakken snapped, "Of course I can! I've already accounted for the part where his plan failed." He found himself glaring at the ground and balling his fists at his side as he thought about that smug jerk of a villainous nemesis he had. "His plan was stupid, anyway."

"How is yours any different than Dementor's, or that Seymour guy and his alien plant monster, or that guy that tried to trap all the pipe exhausts in New York with the red biting flowers-"

"Because I will do it better," Drakken interrupted with a growl, his patience wearing very, very thin. Shego seemed to catch on to that fact as, instead of continuing to harangue him on it, she shrugged.

"Whatever floats your boat, Doctor D. Just remember that I told you so when you try to pull this off and fail just like all the other villains did." Shego, the woman of little faith in her employer, turned and strolled back over to her tanning bed.

She is going to betray you again

Drakken froze up, his breath catching in his throat as the Voice spoke to him. Part of his mind wondered for a split second what It was talking about, but that was quickly shushed by the rest of him paying rapt attention to the words and immediately latching on to what the Voice must be referring to.

Yes, it was true. Shego was going to inevitably betray him again. It was in her very nature, and she had done it several times before.

She will ruin you if you let her

Shego would ruin him, as she had many times in the past. The Smarty Mart plot just the other day spoke volumes to her being the key to his failures. Why did he bother to keep her around when all she did was thwart him?

She is working with someone else against you

Suddenly it was obvious. Shego was clearly a double-agent, likely a plant by Global Justice or some other good guy organization to keep him from succeeding. To keep people laughing at him, to keep his genius from being recognized. How could he have missed it? It was so blatantly obvious that he was surprised that she hadn't just outright pulled out a sign saying 'I'm purposely messing up your plans'.

But…

You need to stop her

His mind choked at that, splitting with a great deal of strain over the thought. The way the Voice said it… The intent was clear. If he didn't kill Shego, she would never stop making him fail.

Small parts of him protested that killing her wouldn't be necessary, begging that they simply fire her and get a villain restraining order or something.

Those parts were clearly Wrong.

The biggest problem was how. How could he manage to kill Shego before she caught on and alerted her organization that he had caught on to their charade?

She was too wary for poisoned food, not after that debacle with the sentient pancakes.

She'd already shown she would survive attack by vicious animal if her run-in with Senior's alligators or whatever they were was any indication. At least, she would survive long enough to send a message to someone like her superiors.

Most of his death rays were too obvious for him to set up and fire before she noticed. He never had gotten a handle on shrinking his destructive designs down to a handheld size. The only weapons he'd ever really managed to make that small were the electro-rods, and those had been planned for a specific scheme to-

A scheme.

A plan began to form in his head. Shego may not die at his hands, but she could be killed going on a mission that she didn't realize was as dangerous as it was. She was one of the best, it was true. Even the best have a limit, though. It would work out flawlessly. Shego wouldn't die by his hand, oh no. She would be taken out by someone else. It would never come back to him save for the idea of him being incompetent at scouting out places to steal from, and it wasn't like people didn't already think that anyway.

Oh yes. He would send Shego after something that was so guarded that only a supergenius plot like the one he'd had with the Neutronolizer had any chance at succeeding to get the item in question. And she would be none the wiser!

Now all he needed to do was find something that would be plausible for his designs…

DSDSDSDSDS

"DRAKKEN!"

The furious howl rang clearly through the lair, shaking Drakken from his celebratory meal at having thwarted a dangerous enemy spy. A meal that was now obviously premature.

He hopped up from the evil living room's couch and tentatively made his way toward the hangers. That was the only place that she could have come in. The conclusion was proven right when he came face-to-face with a smoldering, furious Shego.

Realization rang clear when he registered that 'smoldering' really was the correct word to use. Her suit was badly damaged in some places, the right sleeve hanging off and stained with what appeared to be blood. One of her eyes was half-closed, and her face was grimacing through clear pain. Smoke still rose from the suit in various spots.

"What happened?" he asked, trying very, very hard to sound innocent.

"McHenry laser grids," she grunted, apparently trying to catch her breath from her intense scream a mere minute ago.

Drakken snorted, taunting, "You can't handle a simple little grid system? You do realize that Kim Possible had an easy time-"

"McHenry laser grids," Shego snarled, emphasizing the multiple this time. "They were layered."

"Oh." Some of his disappointment at his plan to kill her failing leaked through, giving his reply a veneer of genuineness.

"And," she said, her anger building again, "There was a gigantic freaking sentry robot. Called itself Cain. It had a freaking lava flamethrower. I couldn't even punch through the armor. I'm lucky I made it out of there in one piece."

"There there," Drakken said, patting her on the shoulder that wasn't bloodied. "We'll get them next time."

"'There there'? 'We'll get them next time'? Is that all you have to say?! I nearly died!" Shego yelled, her hands igniting from habit and her face twisted in outrage.

"Well, I don't know!" Drakken shrugged, unsure of what to say to keep her from beating him senseless. "I didn't think-"

"No. You didn't." Her flames cut out. Shego looked down at him with a strange expression. It was completely foreign on her face. Before he could say anything more, she turned right back around and hopped into the hovercar.

"I'm going on vacation. Do not bother me." Her tone made it clear that there was no negotiating that point.

Drakken watched her fly off, contemplating the strange expression on her face.

She almost looked hurt.

...she was a very good agent.

It was okay. She hadn't caught on that he knew the truth. He could try to rid himself of the pesky spy another time, with another scheme of some sort. Drakken was a genius, after all. This was a paltry little problem next to trying to conquer the world. Next time he would get her.

DSDSDSDSDS

It was several days later that Drakken found himself leaning over the toilet, losing the contents of his stomach as he flashed back over the time since a little before Shego went on vacation again.

What had he been thinking? What was wrong with him? How could he think Shego, of all people, would be some kind of double-agent? She was far too strong-willed and upfront to bother with the whole 'undercover' thing, not to mention that, that, whatever that was that she displayed when she'd come back from the mission.

His insides flushed cold and he began to gag again as he thought about how close he'd come to losing her, to losing his best, only friend to a half-baked plot that wouldn't have succeeded even if things went perfectly.

The ants were tearing open and crawling out of the bottom of his forearm, skittering about and setting up to tear at him more. He was too preoccupied with this to pay attention to them. They could go ahead and tear him apart.

Drakken managed to swallow the latest attempt to evacuate his stomach. He knew that Shego was safe. The attempt to get the doohickey failed. And it didn't make sense; if Shego had died and not gotten the thingamabob, how would he have made his plot work? It would've automatically failed!

No, wait. That's right. That wasn't true. If he had lost her, the plot would have succeeded. That had been the plot, after all.

Stomach acid bit at the back of his throat as he again vomited. There was nothing left to throw up save for the little bit of digestive fluids, yet he did all the same.

You know she's laughing at you

That one was easy to squash with the truth. It was obvious. Of course she was laughing at him. She was Shego! She laughed at everyone equally. He just happened to be the biggest target since he was around her the most.

Drakken hated this. These stupid voices, the bugs crawling on his skin, all of it. None of it made sense!

He could be crazy. Except he couldn't be crazy. Crazy people don't function, and end up in those hospitals in cages and such taking medicine that muddled their minds and made them stupid. He couldn't be crazy because…

Because…

Drakken wasn't crazy.

After a few more minutes of waiting, trying to keep his stomach from rebelling any more, he deemed himself capable of making it to the lab without another stomach-related incident. It would be fine. Everything was fine. The… The thing didn't work, and Shego was fine, and everything would be hunky-dory.

Drakken smashed his arm against the rocky wall as he finally left his room, making sure to roll it around and get rid of the ants that were skittering around under his coat. A few quick scraps against the jagged parts to really scratch it up helped to alleviate the crawling feeling.

He tiptoed into the lab, hoping against hope that Shego was still on vacation. The answer came when he was about 5 steps in by a ball of plasma blasting him hard into the wall.

The universe was never on his side.

"Ouch!" Drakken cried, prying himself off the wall. He had only just stood up when he came face-to-face with a calm Shego, which set off all kinds of alarm bells in his head.

"So, Drakken…" Her sharp eyes seemed to stab him, and he knew that he deserved it. Drakken's stomach flopped about more at the subtle accusation he could feel under the hostility. Shego said very deliberately, "Have we learned a lesson from that little mission you sent me on a few days ago?"

His mind scrabbled to think on what kind of lesson she meant. She certainly couldn't have known that he had intentionally betrayed her.

He nearly gagged again at the rotten pit of guilt digging into his stomach.

"Uhm… Ah…" His mouth worked to push forth something, anything that would sound reasonable to her. "I, ah, should…" How could he be honest and not-honest about this? "Should…" A thought struck. Victory! "...check on the security at the place I'm sending you and make sure it's something you can handle?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Yes." She snarled the word, and if the previous accusation was subtle, than this was like a hammer to the head. A disgusted snarl left her throat before she stomped out of the room, clearly too angry with him to hang around while he worked.

She doesn't care about you the voice seemed to call from where Shego had vanished off to.

That one was true.

Drakken wandered over and stared at his workbench for a minute, letting his mind wander until it snatched upon an idea that he could work with. Killer bees in a gun? Genius! Now the only problem was working it out so that they wouldn't die from starvation and not go after the guy holding the gun…

He pulled out various flasks and beakers filled with the chemicals he would need to create a drought to subdue and control a hive of bees. It was easy for him to get lost in the task. This was his world, after all, and no one could touch him here.

Author's Notes

This one is the one that I wanted to write that was way different than my usual stuff. A normal day (though it's actually days, but who's counting) in the life of a mentally ill mad scientist.

There's a second chapter to this. I might post it later on here. I did post it on kp/. Otherwise I hope you enjoyed what I do have.