Kim scrambled to her feet and leaped away from Shego's grasp, then stopped. The space the villainess had pulled her into consisted of a long, thin walkway suspended high above whatever sludge was on the ground.

"Gosh," she wondered, "how complicated are the sewers here?"

"I know, right?" Shego replied. "But listen, I need to…hey!"

She caught Kim's leg just as it was about to hit her face, and shoved it away. Kim returned the favor by firing two punches at the green woman's body, both of which she barely dodged in time with a careful backflip on the miniscule walking space. Kim ran to her and pinned her down.

"Where is Starfire and what have you done with her?" she demanded.

"Ugh, Kimmie, take a chill pill," Shego said, rolling her eyes. "Robin's little princess is just fine. But let me up, okay? I need to talk to you."

"Or you could tell me right now," the redhead retorted. "I'm not going to just let you up to kick me off this thing. I know you better than that."

"Wow, didn't know you cared," Shego said sarcastically. "But seriously, I prefer to talk on my feet."

Her suit sent green electricity into Kim's arms, making her loosen her grip long enough for the villainess to escape. By the time Kim was back on her feet, each of Shego's hands contained a large, green energy bolt.

"Kid," Shego warned, "this doesn't have to get ugly. I pulled you in here because I needed to get you alone and talk to you."

"What's to talk about?" Kim asked, her stance prepared for another attack.

"More than you think. Listen, Kimmie, I'm on your side. Seriously. There is nothing I wouldn't give to hand that slave master a piece of my mind. I want to fight him, not you."

Kim relaxed a bit, but kept the same stance. "Well, there's a famous first," she replied. "Why don't you just tell him off?"

"Because I can't," Shego answered. She deactivated one of her hands and used it to point to the other one. "He controls me, okay? I make one false move and I lose this. It sickens me to say it, literally sickens me, but I need your help."

"My help?" Kim scoffed. "After you tried to kill me hundreds of times, caused massive destruction in the city, joined forces with Slade, and kidnapped my friend?"

"Well, when you say it that way…"

Shego trailed off as soon as she noticed Kim's foot making a beeline for her head. She instinctively blocked it and knocked KP off her balance. The teenager would have fallen off the walkway and into the disgusting abyss below had she not caught herself with one hand on the thin walkway's edge. Frantically, she looked up to see Shego standing over her. A gloved hand reached down, grabbed the girl's arm, and pulled her back up to safety.

"There. Convinced yet?" Shego asked, sounding very annoyed with how long this was taking.

Kim hesitated. Shego had never done anything to help her before and had never shown a single sign of being trustworthy. On the other hand, she had just saved her life. "All right," Kim said warily. "I'll listen."

"Good. Like I said, I can't fight Slade and keep my powers. It's one or the other. You though? You can totally take him down, especially if you have the other Titans with you."

"Except I don't have the other Titans with me," Kim pointed out.

"That is true," Shego conceded, "but come on, Kimmie. I've seen you take down villains twice as big as him in record time all by yourself. Well, usually with your dopey sidekick-boyfriend, but he doesn't really count."

"Hey, Ron helps sometimes," the redhead insisted.

"Sure he does. Anyway, you don't need to worry about Starfire. She's completely okay. Well, she may have lost her superpowers too, but otherwise she's fine. But before you get mad," she quickly added, "let me point out that I sent that transmission from her communicator on purpose to lead you to her without Slade knowing it. I'm taking good care of her."

Kim raised an eyebrow. "You're taking care of her?" she repeated. "Now that really is a first."

Shego shrugged. "Yeah, I guess it is. But the point is, don't worry about her. In fact, I left her a pretty convenient way out of where she's currently trapped, and if she's half as smart as I think she is, she's already found it. I knew you'd come looking for her. I made Slade promise to let me capture you instead of killing you outright because I know you'd fight for her, and you'd probably win. Having the other Titans around just increases the odds. That's what it's like being in a group. You're like a family."

Kim thought she heard a tiny crack in Shego's voice as she said the word "family". This was a side to her that she had never seen before. She knew that Shego had once been close with her family, but she didn't think it was a topic that would still bother her, considering how hardened and sarcastic she had become.

Shego detected her own moment of weakness and quickly redirected the conversation before Kim could dwell on it further. "Basically, I need to get you into Slade's lair without him suspecting we're working together. How do you feel about playing dead?"

"What?"

"Okay, how about playing unconscious? Or severely injured?"

"Shego, what is the plan exactly?"

Shego sighed and rolled her eyes. "For a straight-A student, you can sure be dense sometimes. Slade wants me to kill you, okay? I can tell him that your super suit made you invincible or whatever so I couldn't finish the job, but you're still going to have to act like you're in pretty bad shape. I'll carry your limp body in like the good little apprentice I am. If we're lucky, he won't even be in there and we'll only have to deal with Dr. D's super robots."

"You mean Drakken made those robots I was just fighting?" Kim asked.

"Yeah. Slade's been working him pretty hard. He's also built a weapon that may be able to destroy most of the significant buildings in the city, so…"

"So that's why you were stealing all of that experimental xenothium!" KP realized.

"Exactly. I'll bring you into the main room of the lair. If Slade's there, I'll explain the situation while you keep playing dead, or whatever you're playing. If he's not there, or if his back turned, you are going to plug your closet-dwelling nerd friend into the computer so he can hack into the security system and free my powers, and then you're going to join me and Starfire in kicking those robots to Mars. They're a handful in a group, but there should only be two of them, so between the three of us, we should be able to inflict some damage. Besides, I don't know where your other buddies are, but they should be on their way to help us if they're any kind of competent superheroes. Slade's not an idiot, so he'll definitely be in the room and fighting back by that point. He's actually a pretty top notch fighter. Hopefully, though, he'll locate Robin and be too focused on him to think too much about us. He's an obsessive creep like that. The other Titans should be able to prevent Slade from hurting Bird Boy too much once they get there, so don't be too concerned about that. Not even he can fight all of you at once."

Kim mentally walked through each of the proposed steps. "Okay, but what about the weapon?"

"Dr. D can disable it," Shego answered. "Or, if for some reason he can't, your little computer boy can."

Kim thought about it for another few moments. "I don't know," she said, "I mean, you did just save me, and I'm totally grateful, but how can I be sure this isn't another trap? You don't exactly have the most trustworthy record, and there are a billion ways this could go wrong."

The green woman sighed and stepped toward her longtime rival. "Listen, Kimmie," she said in the most sincere tone Kim had ever heard come from her lips, "this isn't easy for me. I'm pretty upset that of all the people I could turn to, it's going to have to be you. But I've looked at it from several angles and as the situation currently stands, this plan is the best I've got. I need my powers, and you need Starfire. This plan gets us both what we need. Once we're done, we'll be best enemies forever, all right?"

Shego extended her hand to Kim. The cheerleader hesitated at first. It would be the easiest thing in the world for Shego to send a green shock up her arm the moment they made physical contact and injure her. Then again, she thought of Starfire, her friend, stuck alone with those super robots. She reached out and shook her adversary's hand.

"I'm in," she said.