Yet Another Kigo Fic! – Chapter 6
By Ken-Zero
Disclaimer: Any and all of the actual KP universe characters aren't mine. Isabel and Kane belong to StarvingLunatic, used with permission.
Pseudo-author-note: I think with this chapter we start to move from T-rating to M-rating. Mostly language for now, with sex and the like to follow eventually. Bloody violence is a very, very, very small possibility for the future.
It was two weeks after Shego and Kim Possible had shared their little mountain adventure. Back then, after spending the night at Shego's hideout, the former villainess had actually been the one to urge Kim to wakefulness, and then, to urge her home. Shego had flown her to the outskirts of Middleton, at which point Kim had jumped ship and parachuted to a safe landing while Shego sped away; as she still had several warrants out for her arrest, she didn't want to stay in one public space for too long—at least, not without Kim's presence.
Kim had made it safely home by mid-afternoon to a pair of worried parents, but when she explained about what happened on her last mission—leaving out the spending-time-with-Shego parts—their worry lessened, even if only slightly. Mr. and Mrs. Dr. Possible both wondered why she looked relatively okay for the problems that she'd had, but chalked that up to Kim being her normal, resourceful self while out on a mission.
Kim's next order of business, after reassuring her parents of her well-being, was to get in touch with Ron and make sure her best friend in the universe was okay, too. She had a feeling he was fine—her parents hadn't said anything about him, after all—but it was better to be safe than sorry, so she grabbed her phone before falling onto her own bed, breathing deeply in relief, and grabbing her figurative security blanket—that is, her faithful little Pandaroo. Clutching the stuffed animutant tightly she dialed Ron's number.
His father picked up after only a couple of rings. "Stoppable residence," he answered.
Kim felt even better; he didn't sound worked up or anything. Then again, it seemed to take a lot to work up Ron's dad. "Hi, Mr. Stoppable," Kim said. "It's Kim Possible. Would Ron happen to be in?"
"Sure thing, Kim. Give me a moment to put him on," he said, which put Kim at about ninety-five percent on the relief scale. When Ron actually picked up and answered, she felt tension she hadn't even realized she'd held until that morning fade away.
"Hey KP, you okay?" Ron asked.
"Yeah, Ron, I made it home okay. I'm glad you did, too," Kim practically sighed.
"Yeah, I ended up being tossed into a snow bank when the place blew up, but Rufus and I made it down okay. I got a hold of Wade right after and he told me there was a ride waiting for us. Sorry I didn't wait for you, by the way," he said, sounding belatedly apologetic.
"Oh, Ron, it was no big," she said, waving a hand dismissively despite being on a normal phone. "I…got another ride anyway."
"Oh. Well, cool. Good to know you got home safe, at least."
"Yeah. I was really worried about you, Ron; I wanted to make sure my best friend got away okay."
"Aw, KP, I'm touched. Hey," he continued, his voice indicating a change of topic, "what was up with you and Shego back then?"
"What was up?" Kim echoed dumbly. "What do you mean?"
"I mean, did she like gas you or something? You were practically folded in half, you were laughing so hard. And she was standing there looking like…well, you know, she got you with something."
"I was laughing?" Kim repeated again. "Oh, right. Um. She kinda did get me with something."
"Do you need Wade to check you out?" Ron asked, concerned again.
"No, I'm fine, really. It's been days since then and nothing's happened. There's nothing that's that delayed after having an initial symptom like that; either it would be all at once or nothing would happen at all for a few days." She didn't like sounding like such a know-it-all to Ron, but it was either that or, her guilty conscience knew, tell him how she'd actually been thoroughly entertained by Shego instead of trying to beat her down while Ron was doing the hard work.
"Alright, Kim," Ron replied. "Hey, listen, I gotta run; the parents are leaving and I have to watch Hana for them. When they get back, though, we can hit up Bueno Nacho or somethin', right?"
"Sure," she answered. They said their goodbyes and hung up, and Kim sighed while she flopped over onto her stomach, holding Pandaroo in front of her. She still felt a bit guilty over not telling Ron what had really happened, but she hadn't really lied, per se.
Her rationalizations continued until she was summoned for dinner, at which point they were promptly shoved aside.
Over the remainder of the next two weeks Kim dealt with all the college crap she had been getting into since graduating. She'd finally made her decision to go to Go University, and was getting her class listings and such in order before the first day rolled around.
She'd picked Go U for two reasons: one, it was away from home, which meant she would attain the bittersweet independence she'd been semi-craving since starting at Middleton High School (why else go on missions that could end up halfway around the world and that could last until late at night?); and two, while University of Middleton and University of Upperton both offered several tantalizing degree programs, for the Girl Who Could Do Anything, she was amazingly indecisive when it came to focusing on a major. After all, if she could do anything, why choose one? Go U offered a major in General Studies, and, as lame as it sounded, it also allowed her to satisfy both of her parents by giving her a taste of both medicine and physical science. Besides, she figured, she could always enroll in a master's program later and focus on something else then—that is, if she got over her inability to decide.
She'd never admit it to anyone—even herself—but the knowledge that Go City was Shego's hometown was another deciding factor, albeit small. After their last meeting Kim was subconsciously determined to get the other woman to "mend" her ways.
Also subconsciously, she was a bit anxious for the bond between them to strengthen...a lot.
Sunlight filtered through a small slit between curtains, falling, of course, just where it was least welcome: across the currently-closed eyes of a green-eyed female. The intruding brightness caused her to shift slightly in her sleep, draping an arm across her eyes to keep it out, but the movement proved too drastic to keep her asleep for long. An irritated grunt signaled her return to wakefulness.
"Damn sun," Shego grumbled as she roused herself. Other sounds of activity could be heard now that she was actually awake, which meant she was, as usual, the last to awaken. She shuffled over to the curtains and yanked them open, basking for a moment in the sunshine, in spite of her seconds-earlier cursing of the celestial body. She then turned back to the interior of her room, making her way to the small dresser tucked into a corner between her bed and the wall. The room was of two colors, Shego's trademark green and black, with the walls painted black to about waist high with an almost parroty green above. The carpet was black, as were the sheets on the bed, which had a green mattress. In fact, the only real concession to any other color was the unpainted wooden doors which occupied parts of two walls. Those doors led to the rest of the house and to a closet that was large enough to drop the name "closet" and take on the term "guest bedroom." That door was slightly open, allowing an observer to glimpse inside and see the array of training equipment that occupied the room's space.
A gentle knock on the other door got Shego's attention just as it cracked slightly open. A head popped into the room, looking shockingly like Shego's except for the skin and eye coloration. "Morning, firefly," it said.
"Morning, Mommy," Shego replied, stifling a yawn with her hand for added effect. "What's going on?"
"Oh, nothing important," Isabel Go replied. "Kane is playing host once again for a bunch of his clients. Bunch of stuff-shirted ass-blowers, if you ask me, but it's his business."
"More bankers?" Shego groaned.
Isabel smiled sweetly. "Your father is good at what he does…which is unfortunate. I've lost count of the number of times I've wished for him to get into something different, if only because that would mean I wouldn't have to deal with the scum of the earth."
"I thought that was lawyers," Shego responded, a bit behind as she was still waking up.
"They're all the same," Isabel said dismissively, waving a hand. "But enough of that, firefly. It really is time for you to be active."
"Mommy, let me tell you two things. One, stop calling me that. You know that's about the most annoying thing ever." This was true enough; Shego'd absolutely hated that nickname ever since The Accident with The Meteor. She'd not minded it before, though it hadn't made much sense then. After The Accident, though, when Shego's skin had gained its otherworldly pallor and her body had acquired its plasma powers, her mother had taken particular delight in referring to her almost solely by that nickname. That was one reason she'd chosen a completely different name upon leaving the house at the ripe old age of seventeen. Her real name was, if possible, even more annoying to her; she privately thanked whatever higher power was responsible that her mother hadn't spread that vile abomination around the general public.
"And two, that you're this chipper this early in the morning is plain wrong. That Daddy is seeing his clients this early in the morning is plain wrong. Don't you people ever sleep?"
Isabel tsked her daughter. "Now, now. So you know, it's well past nine in the morning. Even you ought to be up by now." She smiled smugly at Shego, almost exactly mirroring the expression the younger woman often used. "Do you want me to help you wake up?"
"No, I want you to get the hell out of my room so I can change, dammit," Shego growled, glaring at her mother.
Isabel was a very perceptive woman; it helped explain how she had mastered several martial arts styles, going from there to theatrical choreographer to a sort of twisted personal trainer in her professional life. There were times when her perceptive abilities gave her quite the edge; she could read people as easily as others could read, say, a newspaper.
This was one of those times. She decided to test by teasing. "I am your mother, and you've got nothing I haven't seen before," she protested. "You can change with me in here."
"Dammit, Mommy!" Shego protested loudly, her cheeks coloring deeply; they turned a darker shade of green than normal, a reaction Isabel had always found oddly amusing since Shego's blood was no less red than anyone else's. However, in this case, the reaction basically confirmed her suspicion. She kept it buried inside, though, maintaining her motherly humor.
"Aw, I made you uncomfortable?" she teased again.
"Just get lost," Shego grumbled, stalking back over to her dresser in the corner and pointedly ignoring Isabel's light chuckling.
For her part, Isabel simply continued to laugh while she left the room. She had been right, though; something was bothering Shego, and had been since she'd randomly come home a couple of weeks ago. The teasing about her personal space had confirmed the issue was a person of some sort; all that was left was really to find out who it was, and then Isabel could go about righting the problem.
She was Shego's mother, after all, and Shego was her darling only daughter, even if she had made some…unsavory lifestyle choices since leaving home.
Shego, for her part, was very unhappily getting dressed before joining the rest of the living world. Her mother had hit closer to home—well, Shego was sure it was on purpose; in some ways Isabel was a master manipulator, and Shego could tell when she'd been baited into a certain reaction. That she'd succeeded irritated Shego to no end, and she put it on the ever-growing list of annoyances against her mother she'd accumulated over the years.
The problem was that Isabel had guessed correctly. Normally Shego wouldn't be so fazed by mention of raunchy ideas, except she'd been awakened from a particularly erotic dream involving a certain red-headed heroine. And it wasn't the first time, either; she'd had several since deciding to return to her parents' home.
Thinking back on that decision, Shego wasn't sure what possessed her to think of it. She'd dropped Kim off, quite literally, and flown back to her own mini-lair. She'd managed to spend the night before being driven out of her mind from sheer boredom—without Drakken to tease or Kim to…be near, Shego literally had nothing to do. She couldn't even default to her old profession of master thief, since every target even remotely close to her location was going to be pathetically easy to lift given her current abilities—and the illicit thrill that would be absent from those attempts was what had lured her to her current life in the first place.
Well, mostly. Her brothers were somewhat to blame for that, as well.
Shego abruptly changed paths and took her change of clothes into the bathroom, feeling like she was up for a shower instead. Maybe, she thought as she turned the water on, she was done with that thrill? Is that why she'd blown up Drakken's machine for Kim? Why she'd decided to basically ditch her criminal life? Why she'd even gone home to deal with the one person on the planet Shego, in the depths of her soul, knew she couldn't defeat, no matter what, even if she would never admit it, even to herself?
She continued to ponder as the water ran, its temperature increasing to her favorite point, at which point she stripped off her sleeping clothes and stepped in. She stopped for a moment as she caught sight of the top of her thigh and knee. No way would Kimmie go for the green, she thought with a dry mental chuckle, even if she swings that way. Which I doubt. With a final sigh she showered quickly, dressed, and joined her mother.
When Shego arrived in the kitchen, Isabel watched her beloved only daughter yawn mightily right as she plopped into a chair. She'd chosen her trademark colors for clothing, opting for a loose green T-shirt and matching sweatpants. "Not planning on going anywhere today, either?" she asked, and received a shake of the head in response. Isabel sighed. "You know you're going to have to pull your weight somehow. Much as I love seeing you again—and you know I do, firefly—you have to get back to your own life."
"No shit, Mommy," Shego replied, straight-faced. "Unfortunately, 'my life' consisted of stealing stuff for the blue boy and fighting Kimmie. I don't want to do those anymore—at least the first part."
Isabel quirked an eyebrow. "You still want to beat up on your little nemesis? Are you sure you didn't crack your skull on something recently?"
Shego glared at her mother. "Just because I did crack my skull on something doesn't mean I couldn't have changed my mind beforehand."
"Wait a second, firefly—"
"Would you STOP calling me that?"
"I'll call you whatever I damn well please. You're my fucking daughter, and I'm your fucking mother, and one day when you have kids of your own you'll know exactly where I'm coming from." Shego grimaced at the mention of children but Isabel pressed on. "Now. You will tell me what you meant by yes, you cracked your skull, or I will beat it out of you."
Shego continued to glare, but her mother's threat had cowed her somewhat. Isabel, after all, was older, and while that may have meant to Shego that she was weaker (which wasn't necessarily a valid assumption), it also meant Isabel had accumulated a far vaster amount of experience than Shego herself. While she raged against the fact, she knew that Isabel could likely take her four fights out of five. Maybe three, she corrected herself. After all, Shego did have her plasma.
She did, however, relent. "Fine," she huffed. "You want to know why I gave it up? It bothered me. Plain and simple." At her mother's incredulous expression, she grinned tightly. "Sounds strange, given my career for the past ten or twelve years, huh? I guess funny things can happen to funny people, like a green plasma freak growing a conscience."
Isabel's hand moved far faster than even Shego could see, striking her across the face. Perhaps the only person who could have caught it was Kane, her father, because of his annoying habit of allowing Isabel one hit for free and catching the rest. It amazed both women to this day how he could pull it off, and Shego just wrote it off to her family being weird to begin with—really, if the comet hadn't done it, natural genetics would have made her develop something screwy.
Shego sat in shock for a few seconds before the signal of pain from her cheek began to register, at which point she put her own hand to it. She growled, glaring even harder at her mother, if that was even possible. She even felt the telltale tingle of her other hand itching to light up, but she refrained for now. If she did, she knew from experience, Isabel would pull no punches.
"What the fuck was that for?!" she practically exploded.
Isabel's look rivaled Shego's. "Don't you ever refer to yourself that way in my presence," she commanded, her matriarchal tone of voice brooking absolutely no disobedience. It actually put the fear of Isabel into Shego, which was no mean feat. "I don't care what color you are, or what you think of yourself. You are no freak. Do you understand me?"
A "Yes, ma'am," escaped Shego before she could control it, and instantly Isabel was normal again.
"Anyway, continue," she prodded.
Shego sighed. "Fine. Kimmie and I had a chat a few months ago, then we met again recently, that time as usual, me with Dr. D and her with her buffoon friend. She was real upset that Dr. D's got the weakest spine this side of cooked spaghetti and gave in to peer pressure to try and take over the world again. Then he tried it again, Kimmie came to stop him, and I decided hey, enough was enough. I blew up Dr. D's machine but it brought down the lair. I escaped with Kimmie but the blast put me into a tree practically face-first." She held her hands up. "Satisfied?"
"What happened after that?" Isabel asked. Shego was yet again convinced that her mother was capable of the wildest mood swings of anyone on the planet—in the space of ten seconds she'd gone from ready-to-snap-bones to practically gushing with concern.
"We were both injured but since I heal faster I got us home the next day. The day after is when I decided to come here."
"I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this 'Kimmie' you refer to is Miss Possible?"
"What gave it away?" Shego asked dryly. "She's the only one who stops Dr. D."
"But not you?"
"Of course not," Shego confirmed, some of her normal cockiness returning. "Maybe fight to a draw, but never beat. No one can." Left unspoken was what both women knew about that fact.
"I see…So what made you decide that last time that enough was enough?"
"I dunno," Shego said, shrugging uncomfortably. "I cracked some corny line and Kimmie was practically rolling on the floor because of it, and something just went twitch."
"I see," repeated Isabel, and she considered her daughter for a moment. The implications of Shego's statement were such that Isabel's best guess was pretty much confirmed, and while she was saddened somewhat—she'd likely never see grandchildren from her only darling daughter—she was also all for that same daughter being as happy as, well, Possible.
For her part, Shego watched her mother watch her in turn, and was somewhat unnerved by the even stare. Isabel's eyes were also green, though less of a vivid tone than Shego's, and she was using that jade stare effectively. Shego felt like her mother was trying to scrape off the back of Shego's skull from the inside, though she could tell that her mother was also slightly distracted; her eyes were just a little unfocused, enough for Shego to possibly do something inane like snap her fingers in Isabel's face.
She knew she'd pay if she did, though, so she held off.
A few seconds later Isabel shrugged. "Well, regardless, now we've got to find you something to do, right?"
"I can handle it myself, Mommy," Shego warned.
"Now, Rheann, you're back under my roof, which means you're getting my help. You'd have your father's, too, I'm sure, except he's woefully busy."
"Am I, now? Well, someone be sure to send in some donuts to keep me awake," a baritone voice called from another doorway. Isabel and Shego both turned at the sound to find a short, stocky, and extraordinarily well-built man (if the cut of his suit was any indication) standing there, his head covered in short auburn hair. He was smiling slightly, and as he walked over his movements seemed slow, almost overly deliberate, as if he were wading through the air instead of just plain walking.
"Kane," Isabel said; at the same time, Shego said "Daddy," and they finished together with, "what are you doing here?"
He stopped and blinked at them. "Stereo," he muttered. Then, in a normal voice, he said, "I live here, right? Or has something changed in the last," he checked his watch, "three hours?"
"Mommy said you had a meeting this morning," Shego said, looking at him sideways while Isabel leveled her usual acidic glare at him.
"I did. Those twitchy types were unusually put off by me being me, I guess," he said, spreading his arms to the sides in a helpless gesture. "They agreed to my terms and left, oh, ten minutes ago."
"And it took you that long to make it a few rooms away?" Shego asked. She knew her father, and not even his slow-motion reality was that bad.
"Of course not," he said. "I did have to tidy up a bit first. They would have left coffee stains on the table otherwise."
"How rude," Isabel huffed in righteous indignation.
"Well, it was partly my fault, which is why I cleaned it up. They were…more than mildly aggravating." Kane Go shrugged again, his well-muscled frame stressing his suit again. As the owner and CEO of his own business, Kane had to dress to present, especially when his clients arrived. Specifically, he dealt in security concerns for large corporations, banks, brokers, and other big-money concerns. Between the very lucrative business he was in—his security solutions were the best, after all—and his familial inheritance, Kane was worth a lot of cash. Isabel was no slouch, either, having garnered herself top acclaims in her respective fields. Before she got out of the business, she was one of the most sought-after fight choreographers in Hollywood. At the moment, as a trainer, she was quite possibly more feared than respected…but damn if she didn't get results, and fast. Strangely enough, that meant Shego herself was entirely free to do what she chose with her life, as her family was essentially loaded.
Hence Shego chose the adrenaline rush of thievery.
"'Mildly aggravating?' What did they do, whine at you or something?" Isabel asked.
"More or less. They thought the System X wouldn't be good enough and were whining about something more. My telling them that X has never been broken didn't seem to reassure."
Shego hid a smirk. She'd passed her father's favored system once, but reset it on the way out; the guard who'd been monitoring it had fallen victim to a bit of mild poison in his coffee that put him to sleep for several hours, allowing her to shut it all off, wade in and out, and turn it back on as she left. Still, she had to admit, without being able to do that even she would have been hard-pressed to worm her way in.
"No one ever said that educated people were intelligent," Isabel consoled him. "There's a saying I saw once—something about there's nothing as stupid as an educated man once you're off the subject of his education, I think," she continued, smiling.
"You've got that right," Kane grumbled. "So how are my two favorite ladies today?" he asked, changing conversational gears.
"Doing fine," Shego said. "Actually, that gives me an idea…"
Kane blinked. "I knew I was inspirational, but this…?"
Isabel laid a hand on Kane's arm. "Don't get too full of yourself," she warned idly. "We were just talking about Rheann's reasons for coming home in the first place."
"Mommy," Shego groaned, "that name is, if possible, even more irritating than that shitty nickname. Just use my normal name."
"Rheann is your normal name," Isabel returned, "but if you refer to how everyone knows you, I suppose we can do that, too."
"Well, your mother was always better at listening to you than I was, Cassie dear," Kane said teasingly.
"Keep talking like that and you'll only wish you had legs left, Daddy dear," Shego retorted while Isabel chuckled.
"As always, you only get one free shot," Kane shot back with a grin.
"Don't tempt me," Shego warned, raising a green hand.
"As amusing as all this is, we were having a real discussion, remember," Isabel said, stepping between them.
"Right," agreed Kane. "Something about her coming home."
"Mostly why she did," Isabel reminded him. "She told me she was at least going to leave that blue blunder behind."
"Exactly. I can't stand working for Dr. D anymore." Shego frowned. "The guy's like willfully blind when it comes to flaws in his plans."
"Without meaning to sound pestering—"
"Too late for that, Mommy."
"—What I was going to say was, your father and I could see that from the beginning and wondered why."
Shego shrugged. "He paid well. Plus after a short time I got to fight Kimmie."
"My, this Miss Possible certainly seems to be a major factor in your life decisions. Maybe you should be staying with her, not with us," Isabel teased, and was rewarded with Shego coloring slightly.
Kane spoke up again. "How is she a major factor?"
Shego answered before Isabel could embarrass her any further. "Kimmie and I had to spend a couple of days being civil in survival mode after Dr. D's latest world-domination device flubbed. She's not so bad anymore." She tried to pass Kim off dismissively, hoping Isabel wouldn't push the issue any further.
Her hope was in vain. "Miss Possible and our darling Rheann are fast becoming the best of friends," Isabel said, practically glowing. "It's about time you had an actual friend, firefly."
Shego growled in near-complete embarrassment. "Cut it out with the names." It was shaping up to be not-so-great a morning; she needed to get out and do something before she snapped and did something nasty to her parents. "Look, just give me some time by myself today. I'm going to be out and about. You two have fun plotting about me behind my back."
"I'm sure we will, dear," Isabel replied with a smirk. "Just remember, there are two of us plotting for every one of you."
Shego gave her mother a thinly veiled sneer before ditching the house. They made her feel ten years younger, and while most would love for that to happen, it reminded her too much of when she really was ten years younger, and was too young to back up her brash attitude and lone-wolf-ness.
She struck out on an aimless walk. This was, after all, her home neighborhood; people that knew her, knew her, and remembered her for her brief stint on Team Go. Some even felt some twisted sort of civic pride that the little Rheann that they knew was the only one in the universe able to stand up to Kim Possible, when the broadcasts of some of their fights made it into the evening news. Shego knew how they expressed condemnation on the surface while inside they rooted her on; it was part of the reason she'd come home in the first place. No one here was going to turn her in any time soon.
So she felt mostly safe walking around in broad daylight while flashing her pale greenness for all to see. What was the worst that could happen?
Beep beep be-beep!
Kim flinched as the Kimminucator's happy-minor-third tone sliced her recently-achieved state of nearly-Zen spacing-out to ribbons. She'd been putting last-minute touches on her supplies for moving into a college dorm and had finally allowed herself to simply vegetate in front of a blank wall for a few minutes to allow her brain to catch up; she was plain old exhausted.
Apparently the world didn't care, though, as she irritably grabbed her Kimmunicator and switched it on. "What's the sitch, Wade?" she asked, a bit more tartly than she'd intended.
Either Wade didn't notice or he'd seen her expression and decided to remain mum. "Got a hit on the site," he replied to her inquisition. "Somebody's making trouble in your new home town. I can't tell you who; it's just…weird."
"Trouble in Go City?" Kim echoed. "Like, what kind of trouble?"
"Like Godzilla-in-Tokyo trouble. Giant things busting down buildings if they feel like it."
"Wade…what kind of giant things?"
He winced. "Um…giant mutant killer cyborg rats?"
The look she gave him was classic Shego—one eyebrow raised, arms crossed, eyes half-lidded in a disbelieving stare—which made it doubly weird coming from Kim's face. "Uh huh. And you expect me to believe that?"
"I can show you video if you want." He sounded offended now, but Kim didn't care enough yet. Her brain was still revving up.
"Forget it; just point me to where I have to go. And what about Ron?" She dropped the look and tossed the device on her bed, opening her closet and reaching to the semi-hidden cubby behind it for her Battle Suit. She disrobed, put on the battle suit, and for looks, wore her mission gear on top of it all.
"Coordinates are being sent to your Kimmunicator as we speak. Also, I arranged for a ride. I know you've got your own, but time is of the essence. Ron is…otherwise engaged. Another mission came up earlier, but it was much more simple, and I figured he could use the test and you the rest." Wade's voice was back to its geeky professionalism. Kim could tell he was getting excited; that's what his voice did when he was.
"Alright Wade. Where do I meet it?"
"Should be there…about now."
Right on cue a high, keening whine inserted itself into their conversation; it actually was rattling Kim's windows, too, but she paid that no mind. Between herself, Wade, and her parents, they'd long since replaced every window in the house with some much more sturdy impact glass, as well as upgrading the seals and window tracks themselves. She slid one of those improved windows open and grinned as she saw what was up. "Wade, seriously, you rock," she almost giggled.
With a hiss of hydraulics a clear canopy slid open, and a helmeted figure waved to her. Kim wasted no time zipping along the roof of her house and leaping, landing on the wing of the VTOL jet that had made her backyard its temporary landing pad. It looked mostly like a normal fighter jet—Kim wasn't exactly up with military jet lore—with the exception that it featured several exhaust ports for its jet turbines. Right now each of those ports was pointed down, but they looked like…irises, Kim decided. Like the metal could swivel easily. Another jump took her from wing to the side of the cockpit, which she barely latched onto with fingers outstretched. She pulled herself in, slipped into the G-suit (her Battle Suit had similar properties, but one couldn't be too careful), engaged the helmet, and tapped the pilot on the shoulder to signal she was ready. He nodded once, tipping the lever to close the canopy, and the jet rose steadily into the air, its smooth ride betraying none of the shaky starts so commonly seen on older jets like the Harrier.
As soon as they were high enough he vectored the thrust from down to forward, and the jet took off like the combat ship it was designed to be.
Twenty-seven aerially acrobatic minutes later Kim tapped the pilot again. He nodded, bracing himself, and hit the rudder, at the same time using the advanced jet's thrust-vectoring mechanics to swing the fighter around in a hundred-eighty degree spin. Once they finished that he slapped the jets back to full forward power, afterburners included, and the plane's forward (well, backward now) momentum dropped like a rock—and so did the jet. He vectored the thrust down and their descent slowed, and when they were a scant fifteen feet up Kim tapped him a third time. He hit the canopy again, and she climbed out. Over the radio she shouted, "That was the most awesome ride ever!" and gave him the biggest thumbs up she could muster.
The pilot responded by removing his oxygen mask and grinning, returning the gesture. He put the mask back to speak into the radio pickup. "Good luck, Miss Possible," he said. "Keep this frequency if you need backup."
Kim blinked. Since when had she done anything for the US Air Force? Or the entire military, for that matter. She couldn't help but notice, though, the big white star plastered in its blue field on the side of the jet as it rose again. She shrugged and took off at a run.
Checking her Kimmunicator as she ran, she watched as Wade updated the sitch while tracking her position via GPS. She was getting closer and closer, apparently, to the sources of destruction.
It took her almost tripping over a piece of twisted metal skidding along the ground to actually look up and see what was going on, and a combination of shock, fascination, and something akin to despair filled her, for sure enough, three, count 'em three, six-story-tall, clinical-white-furred, pink-tailed, cybernetically-augmented, psychotically-visaged mutant rats were rampaging through parts of downtown Go City. While it looked like they had taken a few bites out of each other—two of them sported slowly bleeding wounds likely inflicted by the others' eight-foot-long incisors—the majority of the damage was of the property variety and/or wanton massacre.
Kim's moment of shock and awe was quickly shattered as yet another piece of building came tumbling her way, and she dove aside as the massive chunk of steel-reinforced concrete smashed into the ground, pulverizing the pavement where she'd been standing. This isn't the time to be gathering wool, she told herself sternly, and assumed her "mission face" before running off to do what she could.
She didn't get very far, though; dodging another debris rain she saw the last sight she'd expected to see: a bright green flash followed by a pillar of glowing green energy that Kim recognized all too well. Her heart leapt into her throat and she skidded to a halt as she thought of Shego out there, though she had no idea why or what she was doing. Without really thinking about it any more she took off again, faster than ever, to see if she could get there in time to prevent…something.
A/N: Phew.
Total editing time, says MS Word: 773 minutes. That's not counting another 360 or so that I just sat here, having this open, staring at the screen with nothing coming to mind to say.
No, I'm not trying to impress; far from it, it's kinda sad that it took me this long, but I was simply idea-less for days. Rather, I was original idea-less for days. Thought of lots of carbon-copy things, but bleah. The good news is, I have ammo for another good long while, so updates shouldn't take over two weeks now. Sorry.
Anyway, I hope this chapter is more palatable to you all than it is to me.
Oh, and Shego's name (Rheann) was something I threw up at the spur of the moment. Didn't want to use a commonly-used name, and the uncommon ones I've seen were unique enough that it would be an obvious gank :) I'm sure there's other ways to say/spell it, but in my mind the pronunciation is similar to saying ray-anne. And Kane's mention of Security System X isn't as campy as it sounds--it's really the Roman numeral 10, he just calls it X for now. His next-gen will be referred to as 'eleven' when it gets designed, of course. He just wanted to sound x-otic.
As always, comments and criticism (if it's constructive) are appreciated.