Shego sighed to herself as she looked at a directory for local psychiatrists. This wasn't how she'd seen her little confession going.
Oh, there were plenty of ways she'd imagined it going. Anywhere from excited gushing on Drakken's part to him uttering the dreaded words "I'm gay.". There wasn't any real way to predict which way it would have gone.
But this? Yeah, it didn't even ping on her radar.
It was pure luck they just so happened to be at the Middleton lair. They had both decided the day before, heading back from the UN celebration, that neither of them had the care or energy to pilot all the way to the Caribbean lair. So they'd crashed at the smaller, more prominent lair. Here, there was a large range of nearby doctors to choose from. If they'd been in the Caribbean… Good luck with that!
But it was okay. Frankly, she should've predicted he had these problems.
...she couldn't believe that he had tried to kill her. Genuinely planned to have her die. And for what? Why would he do that? Even he didn't have an explanation beyond some kind of voice telling him to. No actual plan beyond her being dead.
It made a lump of cold something form in her gut. She wasn't sure what it was.
She had just found what looked like a halfway decent option - some lady named Dr. H. D. Case - when her phone was snatched out of her hands.
"Hey!" Shego turned and snarled at Drakken, "What's the big idea?!"
He was looking her phone over, almost as if there might be a hidden compartment or something. A sneer crossed his face as he growled, "You won't be needing this anymore…"
A vine swirled from out of his jacket and crushed her phone to pieces.
Shego started, "What the hell are you-.."
"Going to play innocent? Cute. Very cute." Drakken let the pieces of what used to be her phone fall to the floor. For good measure, he dug his boot into the pile of plastic and circuitry.
"Innocent?" Shego tilted her head.
"Don't give me that look!" he barked. "I know what you were really doing… You thought I wouldn't figure it out, didn't you?" Another vine crawled out of his lab coat, thick and twisted. "Thought I would go quietly with whatever you and your bosses had planned?!"
"Doc…" She decided to try and talk him down. He'd been fine a literal minute ago. And, well, if he kept ranting like a lunatic about his paranoid delusions, it should be easy enough to knock him out and tie him up. Just until the crazy spell passed. "You're the only boss that I have. I don't-.."
"Don't give me your useless drivel!" he bellowed, sneering. "I know you're planning on doing something to me."
"Like what?" Shego asked plainly, slightly exasperated. "What in the world do you think I would do to you that would warrant you putting on your crazy pants?"
His expression was unyielding. "I don't know…" A snarl crossed his face. "But I'm not about to let you do it. I don't know who you're working for, but-.." Something like a flash of inspiration seemed to bodily shake him. Then, in a voice full of vague shock, he murmured, "Kim Possible…!"
Her head tilted. What did Kim Possible have to do with any of this?
Rage etched itself onto every corner of his face. "You're working for Kim Possible, aren't you?!"
The sudden swerve in sanity made Shego react as if he'd punched her. "What?!"
"Of course! It all makes sense now!" His hands scrabbled through his hair, dislodging several strands from his ponytail. Practically foaming at the mouth, he shrieked, "You're working for her! That damned cheerleader! You're a plant, meant to thwart me!"
"Doctor D! Get a grip!" She made to slap him silly, hopefully knock his gears back into place, but stopped short as he ducked away and assumed a defensive stance. She was almost proud that he remembered it even in the midst of his insane rant. A frown twisting her mouth, she said as evenly as she could, "That is one of the dumbest things you've ever said. What point would there be in-.."
"You're probably lovers!" he continued, heedless of her words. The tone he used was one of dawning horror and realization. "This, this entire thing with you kissing me… It was all a lie! You were trying to get another one over on me! Poor stupid desperate Drakken, willing to believe that a beautiful woman like you would consider dating him! Well guess what?!" His head lifted and tilted as he looked down his nose at her. "I'm not falling for it!"
Shego's mind had ground to a halt at the 'lovers' comment. Then it drowned in the rest of his little rant. Incredulously, she said with disgust, "Me, lovers with that child? With Kimmie? And kissing you as some kind of ploy? Do you have any idea how offensive you're being right now?!" Her hands lit up in outrage. "You're going to regret this later, when you have a gri-.."
"I don't think I will," he said with a finality that she hadn't heard since he was wrapping his Diablo plan up in a nice little bow. "I think I'm more likely to be relieved, knowing that I won't have to watch my back for the dagger you'll stick in it!"
Shego stood there, staring at Drakken. Was this how he really felt? With the filters off? That she would even bother messing around with his mind like that?
...no. No, she shouldn't take it personally. In her college courses on psychology, they talked about psychoses. How messed up someone could end up, just by their brain shorting out. It had stuck with her as she had worried about that very same thing happening to her with all of the crazy mind-altering tech they tended to run into in the hero/villain business.
But knowing that didn't help her now.
Shego swallowed. He was all ready for a fight. Drakken was convinced she was going to sell him out, that everything had been part of some elaborate plan on her part to bring him down. That meant he would be going out for blood. She couldn't take this lightly.
She was the superior fighter. He only knew some basic fighting styles from her recent training sessions with him. What he didn't have in skill, though, he had in durability. He'd smashed into the side of a mountain with barely any reaction. When push came to shove, when he pushed through the pain, any hit she dealt would probably be mostly shrugged off. And she'd laid into him enough over the years that he was familiar with the pain she could deal.
Shego considered running. In fact, if the opener didn't get him she fully planned to retreat. The only issue was that he was between her and the way out. Both the hanger and the front door were in his direction. She would have to dodge around him to get away.
Then, suddenly, he was jumping right at her. In half a breath he was in her face.
Shit! She'd forgotten how fast he could be when he needed to be!
He had the literal jump on her. He tackled her to the ground, his vines flailing and grasping at her. Somehow they managed to encompass her hands, pulling them out and away from her body and leaving her sprawled out on her back. Whether it was luck or skill Shego didn't know.
Drakken rushed to his knees, his body having ended up falling to Shego's left. She kicked her legs up, attempting to wrap them around his arm and try to trap him.
He took a kick to the face and barely reacted. Instead, he hopped over onto her chest and pinned her down.
He grabbed her mouth and began pulling her upper and lower jaws apart, forcibly twisting her head to the side. She made to bite him, keep him from doing whatever he was doing. But she found his grip and arm strength outclassed her jaw strength.
Drakken wrenched hard, pulling her mouth open, grunting and snarling from the effort. Then slowly, deliberately, he began pushing her mouth apart. As the pain struck, her teeth straining in her mouth and her mouth stretching to its limits, Shego realized he didn't plan on stopping.
She had an enhanced physiology thanks to her Go glow. It would take a hell of a lot to break anything of hers. But she knew, could feel, that he was pushing her body to the edge.
She'd known he had some kind of limited superstrength. It only seemed to show up when he wasn't minding himself, when he didn't think on what he was doing. The fact that it was rearing its head now…
He had lost his mind. One hundred percent crazy right now. Drakken would keep going until her jaw was torn clean off her face. He might even go farther than that, maybe crush her throat, just to make sure the job was done. Fear tore at her as she realized he might actually kill her.
Her power reacted to her emotions. The halo around her hands intensified as the temperature rose higher and higher. A quick glance at them, past his enraged face, showed that the flame was starting to roast his freakish vines at an accelerated rate.
Suddenly, with a small snapping noise and a sharp shooting pain, her jaw began going past where it should have stopped. The skin in the corners of her mouth began to tear as he forced her jaws farther and farther apart.
She wretched her arms hard. The right one stayed trapped, but the left one-..
Her hand smacked the back of his head hard with the force she'd exerted to tear her limb free, to tear the vine apart. He paused for a moment in confusion. One desperately needed moment.
She pulled her arm back and immediately shoved her flaming fingers into his eye.
He howled wordlessly as his eyeball roasted in the socket. His grip, both with his remaining vine and hands, immediately loosened as he tripped backwards away from her, grabbing at his face. Shego's stomach twisted and soured at the smell and the feel. She hated when things went this far. She always held back against Princess because of it. But this…
She had to. As much as she hated it, as much as she hated who she did it to, she had to.
And now she had to run.
She stumbled to her feet, her jaw flopping painfully as she tried to close it. It refused, the feeling of bones grinding and the resulting pain stopping her from trying too much more. The corners of her mouth burned, blood flowing freely down the raw edges that were torn open.
Shego had to ignore it. She could worry about it later, when she wasn't at immediate risk of dying. Instead, she began to run for the door.
She made it three steps before she found herself tripping back to the floor. Surprised, she turned her head to look at what had tripped her-..
Drakken had her left foot in his grip. His good eye was locked on her face, a pained grimace fighting with desperate panic.
His other eye… The edges of the socket were weeping, boils rising in uneven clumps in a ring. The eyeball itself looks like it had been punctured, fluid leaking out a cut of some sort as it shifted around with his attempt to focus on her.
"I won't let you, I won't let you, I won't let you Iwon'tletyou," Drakken chanted frantically, one of his vines taking the opportunity to snake around the foot he had grabbed when he tripped her. "Iwon'tletyouIwon'tletyouIWON'TLETYOU!"
She kicked him in the face, trying to aim for the fresh burn. Her foot struck home, the heel of her boot hitting him clean in one of the bigger boils. As he winced and hissed in pain, Shego took the handful of seconds to concentrate her power into the palms of her hands. Then, as carefully as she could aim in the scant remaining time, she blasted the vine around her ankle with everything she had.
The vine jerked, crumpling together before it shriveled up to a burnt crisp.
Shego kicked Drakken in the face again to buy herself another handful of seconds. His fingers scrabbled along her foot, trying to gain traction, but failed to grasp her before she could deliver her blow.
He shrieked as the tip of her boot landed clean into the eyeball. It made a gut-wrenching squelching noise as more liquid gushed out of it. His hands reflexively clenched around his face, Shego momentarily forgotten.
She rushed away, crawling in a desperate bid to make space between the two of them. If she had space, she could react. She could use her plasma to blast him back. She could escape.
Escape.
She grasped onto that option, jumping up and back onto her feet. Shego took a few steps away, towards the door, when a thought struck her.
Drakken.
When Drakken came back to his senses, alone and after having attacked her like he had, what would he do? How would he react? Considering his reaction to the first time he'd tried…
...she had to take him down. She wasn't sure if she was suicidal or if she actually cared that damn much, but she knew she couldn't leave him to himself.
It would be okay. He'd gotten the jump on her at first, but she was back in control. She was up, mobile, prepared. While he was…
He was struggling back to his feet. Whimpering, covering up his damaged eye with a hand, he finally forced himself up. His good eye glared at her, all of his paranoia and hate focused in it. It made her feel uneasy, that particular expression on his face directed at her.
"Not going to run to tattle to your precious Kimmie?" he snarled, then winced.
She made to talk back, but found herself unable to speak through her broken jaw. Instead, she shook her head and assumed a defensive posture.
"Nothing to say for yourself?" Drakken snorted. Her incredulous look and gesture towards her mouth were clearly ignored. "Should've expected that much."
Shego brushed off his ire, again going back into her stance. He was impatient. It wouldn't take long before he broke and did something rash.
A few minutes passed. She remained calm, collected, ready for any of the crap that he would possibly throw at her but still slightly panicked at how close she came to biting it. He, meanwhile, began to fume. His teeth were grinding audibly as he stared her down.
"Well?" he spat. "Are you going to do anything?"
Shego did her best to give him a smirk even with her loose and painfully broken jaw.
It was legible enough, as his sudden bout of Angrish told her. He began to grumble and growl, pacing back and forth a good dozen feet away from her. His vines regenerated, the two he was controlling wavering above him at the ready.
He stopped. Turned to her with a snarl. Then charged, vines shooting ahead at her.
It was almost too easy for Shego to fry the incoming vines to ash with solid full-on plasma blasts. She was frightened, alert, ready to defend herself. They wouldn't get past her defense.
Neither would Drakken.
He hadn't even made it half the distance to her when she refocused her attention to him. Concentrating again, she blasted him back with a solid one-two shot of plasma.
Drakken cried out as he flew backwards, wincing and gasping as his overcoat began to burn. Shego blinked, confused for a moment. Normally his coat could take anything and everything she tossed at him. Then she realized...
It wasn't often her plasma burned this hot. Very few things could bring it out.
Attempting to survive from a near-death experience was one of them.
Again, Drakken was cradling the right side of his face. Fury and fear alternated as the dominant expression, taking turns to twist his face in different directions.
"You think you have me beat, don't you?! That Doctor Drakken is going to be taken down and laid low by you and Possible!" he screamed, his voice echoing slightly from the volume. "That you'll get to do whatever it is you're planning on doing to him!" His hands brushed through his hair frantically, dislodging even more strands. At this point more hair was hanging out of the ponytail than in it. "Let me tell you… You won't take me that easily! I won't let you take me!"
Now he was shivering. Whether it was from fear or rage Shego couldn't tell. He grabbed his arms and rubbed them together, comforting himself.
"No, Doctor Drakken won't be taken…"
She stared at him. What in the world was he saying? His delusion must've been pretty strong to be as dramatic as he was acting.
Suddenly his head snapped up. His entire attention focused on Shego. He was clearly trying to focus his eyes on her, but was failing with his right eye.
His damaged eye looked deflated in the burned socket. It was rolling about aimlessly, even as he tried to get it to work. Shego's stomach soured from just looking at it.
Then he took a step towards her.
Shego tossed a ball of plasma right at his chest. It hit dead-on, the flames burning another small piece of his lab coat to ash. The heat and slight tinge of smoke from the smoldering coat blurred her view of him for a moment.
He flinched backwards a half-step. Then he took another step.
She shot another blast at him, her plasma again hitting home just under his chin.
He winced and stumbled backwards another half-step before he stubbornly shook his head and, snarl on his face, took another step.
She realized his game. The body shots hurt, but he could fight through it. Eventually he would stop being careful, judging her powers and aim, and simply charge. If he got too close again… Shego eyed his vines. It would be another struggle. One she wasn't sure she would come out on top.
She couldn't let him close the distance. But how…?
Then, inspiration struck as his knee gave way for a moment. Even as he forced it back up, Shego knew it was the answer.
Taking her own step back, she focused her power again and tossed it at him. He braced his body for the blow.
Her blast struck her target head-on. To Drakken's shock, it wasn't his body or even his head. Instead, it was the knee that had given out the moment before. A large patch of his coat and part of his pants burned and fell away with the flames, and he fell to the ground in a stumbling pile. He growled and snapped his head up, jumping back to his feet in a hurry.
Another shot, this time to his other ankle.
He took it with a shift on his legs, putting weight on his damaged knee. His shoe fell off in a singed holey pile as he took another step.
A blast hit him in his good knee, sending him back to the ground. She followed it up with another plasma ball aimed at his face. Drakken howled and flinched his head away, but stood regardless.
She started tossing plasma balls in a pattern. Elbow. Knee. Ankle. Chest. Each made him stumble to a stop as he tried to regain himself. She took careful steps back, circling around the room as needed. His clothing had been almost entirely eaten away by flames, falling to the floor in ashy clumps. He was naked now save for a boot and a small section of a sleeve hanging loosely off of his shoulder.
...well, at least her worry about him maybe having a micropenis was relieved.
Eventually, finally, he collapsed in a manner that seemed to mark the end. He was breathing raggedly, covered in first and second degree burns mostly focused on his joints. His arms barely held him up, shaking from the effort. The vines had long ago stopped regenerating. His hair was mostly burned off, leaving weeping sores in its place.
Cautiously, Shego closed the distance. He was clearly worn to the edge, but that didn't mean he was giving up. Adrenaline could do crazy things sometimes.
He looked up at her. The burns across and around the right side of his face looked even worse than before. Shego could swear she saw bits of bone now peeking out from his eye socket. His good eye was filled with tears and fear.
"No… Nonono, please don't take me…!" he whimpered. Then, resolution crossing his face, he said, "I won't let you take me. I won't let you take me Iwon'tletyoutakeme Iwon'tletyoutakeme!" Then suddenly his tongue was stuck between his teeth as he bit down hard.
Shego's eyes shot open as she realized what he was doing. As fast as she could, she dropped to her knees and began forcing his mouth back open.
Before, he probably could've fought her attempts off long enough to finish the grisly task of biting his tongue off. Now, though, he was far too tired to manage. Almost too easily Shego was able to force his now-bleeding tongue back into his mouth and shove her fingers in so he couldn't try it again. He kept trying to bite down, but wasn't able to get his tongue past her fingers. Her fingers were hurting from the pressure. It would be fine; she only needed a few more seconds.
His good eye widened in shock and panic. His arms fought to lift themselves enough to put up a fight, but failed in their task. Muffled whimpers escaped from his throat as Shego lit up the pointer finger on her free hand.
She wished she could've tried to reassure him. Let him know she didn't blame him for what was happening to him. Maybe even crack through the crazy enough to let him know she would be waiting for when he was better. But she couldn't. Not with her jaw being the way it was. So Shego settled on giving him a calm, sympathetic look as her finger pressed against his forehead and delivered the knock-out shot of plasma.
He collapsed completely then, like a puppet cut from its strings. His weight fell heavily into Shego's lap. She waited a moment, seeing if he was going to stay under.
A few breaths later saw her taking one enormous one. A large sigh escaped her nose as she let herself calm down and come down from the adrenaline rush.
Then, slowly and with some minor shaking, she got up, hoisted Drakken over her shoulder, and made for the hovercar.
A/N: Well what do you know! It didn't take me 3 years like I thought! Though I apparently lied about it being 3 chapters...
I think this is the best fight scene I've ever written!