Yet Another KiGo Fic! – Chapter 15
By Ken-Zero
Disclaimer: Sorry, I still don't have any claim to any of these characters.
Pre-A/N: Unfortunately, this is the only way I have to reply to unsigned/anonymous reviews. Tonya S., Rufus escapes Kim's general dislike of small animals by virtue of his constant presence, his intelligence, and the fact that her general dislike didn't really manifest itself until recently—i.e., it was pretty much Gemini's little Pepe that drove her nuts.
And M: Thank you for pointing that out. I haven't really been keeping track of the days, so shame on me. Yes, your observation should be correct; Ron arrived on a Friday. After all, what better day to do some serious unwinding while in college? Saturdays don't count because, generally, classes aren't on Saturdays. And yes, Rufus was not present right then—Ron's "ninja" outfit left a little to be desired in the pockets department.
It was the next morning—Saturday, for which Kim was devoutly thankful—and both she and Shego were sitting at her small table in the equally-small kitchenette, nursing cups of coffee and contemplating the lump of unfortunate metal sitting between them. The metal was the remains of the mechanical spider which had attacked Kim the night before, complete with its little legs still curled in like an actual dead spider. Of course, Shego had melted the legs into those positions, which Kim couldn't exactly fault her for.
They could see it had a couple of holes in its outer shell, obviously from when Shego had plucked it off of Kim, but otherwise it looked completely unharmed. Holding it to the light, Kim could just barely see inside of it, finding a mass of tangled wires above an elaborate circuit board, small forests of capacitors and rows of ROM chips covering its surface. Kim frowned; placing it back on the table, she looked over at Shego. "I don't think there's any question as to where this came from," she finally said.
Shego snorted. "Are you kidding? By the shape of it they probably used DNHeifer's bra as the mold for the case."
Kim stifled a giggle. Shego was snappier in the morning than she usually was…which was actually quite amusing, since it wasn't directed at her."I still think we should send it over to Wade," she continued, "since I have no idea what is was for…and that kind of worries me."
"Why?" Shego questioned laconically. "It's not like it did anything to you. And it certainly didn't do anything to me."
"We don't know that it didn't do anything to me," Kim cautioned. "I know that's being paranoid…but given the show of destruction they showed us with the rats, I think it's kinda justified."
"Eh," Shego shrugged. "I still say you're fine. But if you insist, go for it. Besides, I'd rather Nerdlinger have it, than have it sitting here taking up precious space on the counter."
Kim had to sigh at that. "Yeah…I know it's small. Next year I really should look for a normal apartment."
Shego held up a hand to forestall her own comment before getting up and crossing the small space to the coffee-maker. Kim's parents had purchased for her a small, 4-cup model just before she'd left for Go University, obviously believing she'd eventually need the stimulating effects of caffeine in the early morning. While Kim was not exactly chipper from the moment she first opened her eyes, she certainly wasn't that dead on her feet, either, so it mostly sat unused…until the last couple of days, with her new room-mate and all. The green-skinned woman refilled her cup and added in a teaspoon of sugar before coming back. She sniffed it first before taking a sip. "Hey, don't beat yourself up," she said finally. "Who knew this," she gestured to the two of them, "was going to happen?"
"Point for you." Kim stretched, and Shego took the opportunity to simply watch her Princess' motion. The long shirt she'd thrown on when they'd awoken rode up almost to her hips, and Shego cursed her mostly-tired state for not being able to take advantage of the opening.
Kim returned to normal only to find Shego still staring. "What?"
"You know, you are so hot." Shego's reply came frank and honest.
"You're just saying that."
"No. Well, okay, I am saying it, but I'm meaning it, too."
"I still don't believe you."
That earned her a raised eyebrow. "What, don't think you're attractive enough? Got some esteem issues that need fixing here? Hello," Shego continued, gesturing at herself, "look what you caught. That should be doing wonders for you."
Kim half-smiled. "Oh, it is," she said, almost dreamily, but then her voice came back to reality. "I just can't help but wish every so often that I looked more like you."
"This again?" Shego rolled her eyes. "Look, Princess, you're not anorexic, you're not hugely obese. You've got some damn fine curves, if I do say so myself, and I consider myself a pretty good judge of the sexy. And if you're worried about size issues…well, I consider you to be pretty close to what we can consider perfect."
"Really?"
"Fuck yes. If I had to justify my preferences based on knockers, I'd put my own at the upper size limit." She put a hand to her head. "Did that make as little sense to you as it did to me?"
"I…think so?" Kim said. It was way too early for something like that, and she told Shego as much; the other girl agreed, reaching for her morning stimulant.
"So, your little moment of self-doubt all gone?"
Kim nodded.
"Good." Shego crossed her arms as best she could, given that one of them was holding her cup of coffee. "So what are we doing today?"
"Going to send this…thing to Wade," Kim said, nodding at the spider. "I know we know who sent it, but maybe he can figure out where it came from. That way we could actually put a stop to this nonsense."
"Wow, what a concept."
"Shut up and drink your coffee."
Several hours later, with Kim working on homework and Shego reading one of her everpresent magazines, silence reigned in the dorm room. It was broken only by occasional shifting noises or random vocalizations, like Shego chuckling or Kim groaning in frustration, but no actual conversation took place. On Kim's small desk, a pile of textbooks and notebooks on her left side was slowly diminishing, being transplanted to the right side of the desk as she finished whatever subject she was working on. The working quiet had existed for the last couple of hours, and really, it was extremely relaxing, especially after how the week itself had gone.
That quiet was interrupted noisily by the expected happy-minor-third trilling of Kim's connection to the universe at large. She jerked in her seat—while she had expected the noise at some point, she was engrossed in homework enough for it to still surprise her—before reaching to the other side of her desk for the device. "Go, Wade," she said, her voice command both switching on the screen and acknowledging the receipt of the incoming call.
"Give yourselves a pat on the back," Wade began, "then get ready to go."
"You got a location?" Kim asked, eyebrow arched. Shego put down her magazine and looked over interestedly.
"And how. Those holes in the mecha-spider's back disabled its self-destruct device completely, including the capacitor that would have melted its transmission systems and location memory. Not only did I get the frequencies it was using, but by bouncing a signal along that path I got a ping from its destination."
"So…you know where they are," Kim clarified. Sometimes Wade's techno-geekery was too much even for her.
"Bingo." His fingers flew on his keyboard, and his visage was instantly replaced by a steadily-zooming GPS map. "Google Earth is a wonderful thing," he said idly while it enlarged and refined itself. The globe shrank to the US, then to Colorado, then Go City and points north, then a small island in the middle of a relatively large lake. "It's nice and secluded without being too far away from all the important places. You should make it there in about an hour."
"What kind of a ride are we talking about?" Kim asked.
"The quiet kind. I figured, with those three in charge of an isolated island lair, air defenses would be the first things they think of. So I found someone who owed you a favor under the sea."
Kim nodded. "When and where?"
"Just be at the Go City Docks in fifteen minutes and you'll be good to go."
"You rock, Wade," Kim finished, flashing him a grin. The boy genius returned it before signing off, and Kim turned to her paramour. "Did you hear?" she asked.
"Hard not to," Shego replied, finally putting her magazine down.
"You coming, or not?"
"Are you kidding? A chance to pummel Dr. D for making me put up with those lame-brained rats of his? I wouldn't pass this up for damn near anything in the world."
"Don't forget the other two," Kim warned. "I'm sure the lair's a bit more…robust than you're used to."
Shego waved the caveat away. "Kimmie, it's you and it's me. Do you really think they have anything that can stop us? Even together?"
"Well…when you put it that way…" Kim grinned.
"Now you see my point. Now let's jet before we're late for whatever this ride of yours is."
Three minutes later both women were dressed for the occasion and headed out to a secluded spot on campus. Shego pulled a key from her ankle pouch and did something to it, and Kim watched as the air under a relatively large tree shimmered and wavered for a second before her motorcycle appeared. Without a word Shego handed Kim the second helmet, appropriating the black one with subtle green flames along the edges for herself. Still remaining mostly silent, both climbed onto the bike, and Shego started the engine, giving the throttle a good twist before nodding. Kim's arms snaked around her midsection, and the daredevil driver goosed the throttle again before letting up on the brakes. The tires shredded a bit of the grass and dirt before finally finding the necessary traction to rocket the bike forward.
They made it to the docks in just under ten minutes.
Doffing their helmets, Shego pulled the bike's key out of the starter switch and fiddled with it again. The bike disappeared again, but Kim had the distinct impression of it vanishing from the ground up.Probably something she lifted from Drakken, the teen hero thought, and the idea amused her greatly. There would undoubtedly be some things about Shego that would never change, and Kim wouldn't have it any other way. Though…she kinda hoped that the taking of things that weren't hers would taper off a bit. She fully understood that thievery was something Shego was good at, and was something that defined her, and she was trying really hard to not say anything about it, knowing it would set Shego off like Kim's own confession of how the ease of the villainous life was actually somewhat appealing to her had. But at heart, Kim was still a hero, and theft was something that didn't sit well with her.
Mental ruminations had to be shoved aside, though, as her peripheral vision caught a hint of movement. She turned to look, just in time to see the entrance hatch of a submarine break the water's surface a fair distance out. What she didn't expect to see, was a sort of blue-ish translucent energy bridge extend forward from the sub's top to the front of the dock they stood on.
Both ladies stared at it for a second before Kim simply shrugged. She stepped onto the bridge, and to her complete lack of surprise, found it entirely sturdy and stable under her feet. She strode forward confidently.
Shego stared after Kim in some shock. She would never be able to be that trusting; it would have taken her a few minutes of testing before even thinking of just brazenly walking on the bridge like Kim was doing. But the little hero never fell off the bridge, so Shego gradually worked up the mindset to follow her. Of course, the bridge remained pleasantly solid under her own feet as well, and she gradually picked up speed until she jogged the last few feet and jumped atop the sub next to Kim.
Behind them the energy bridge flickered and died; the hatch in front of them hissed open, brand-new-looking hydraulics heaving the heavy-looking metal circle upward on its hinge until the entry into the sub loomed large and dark in front of them. Without waiting Kim scrambled down the ladder, Shego following after half a moment's hesitation.
Inside both she and Kim stood in place for a moment, trying to figure out where to go; the inside of the sub, while spotlessly clean, was also absolutely featureless. They couldn't even see ductwork or piping to demonstrate which way went along the ship's keel.
Then the hatch shut overhead; apparently the hydraulics were much quieter working in that direction than the opposite. The hatch sealed with the hiss of a watertight seal, which also conveniently left the two in utter darkness for about three seconds, just long enough for discomfort to set in, before lights came on abruptly. The illumination seemed to come from everywhere, as they could see plainly, but there were no visible light sources, no shadows cast to show from whence the light came.
Then a voice spoke to them. "Greetings, Kim Possible and…visitor," it said, clearly hesitating over Shego's presence. "I am Number Six. If you would, follow my directions and we will begin travel immediately."
Shooting a look at Shego, Kim hesitantly responded. "Okay…Wait. 'Number Six?'"
"Yes?" the voice returned. It was male, tenor, and certainly not terribly threatening-sounding. In fact, it sounded like…
"You wouldn't happen to be an AI, would you?" Kim asked. She was starting to piece some things together.
"That is correct."
"And we're the only two real people on here, right?"
"That is correct."
Kim looked over at Shego again; the ex-villainess was relieved to see Kim looking eminently comfortable. "And let me guess. You were designed by Dr. Freeman, right?"
"That is correct."
Shego blinked. "The talking toaster guy?"
"That is correct." If Kim didn't know better, she'd have sworn the AI's voice had something of an irritated tone to it.
"What's Dr. Freeman doing, designing a submarine?" Kim asked.
The AI made an electronic noise. To Kim, it sounded something like a snort. "Unknown at this time. I was not programmed with Dr. Freeman's motives."
"I hope not," Shego said dryly. "We'd have a submarine with an AI that would be vulnerable to really easy reverse psychology. And would probably be prone to trying to make more of itself."
"So that's how you guys got him to work for you," Kim said wonderingly.
"Yeah. The guy's got a spine almost as weak as Dr. D's, but he can certainly back it up, whereas with Blue Boy…" She shrugged.
Kim nodded, a knowing grin on her face. "Yeah. So, Number Six," she said, back to addressing the sub, "you know where to go, right?"
"Indeed," the sub answered. "If you would, follow my directions and we will begin travel immediately."
Instead of standing around yakking, wasting time, Kim grabbed Shego's hand and dragged her through a previously-unseen doorway that had a ring of white light around it. The hallway beyond was still featureless and smooth, and another doorway opened a good twenty feet away, surrounded by the same ring of white. Stepping through it, the two adventurers were treated to the sight of a fully-functional submarine command room…with no one in any of the seats.
Two of said pieces of furniture zoomed up behind them. "Please, have a seat," Six said. Both Kim and Shego did a double-take at the chairs that had suddenly appeared behind them, but sat down nonetheless.
The large screen at the front of the room came to life, depicting a view of the water in front of the sub as it launched itself away from Go City's docks and toward the island in question. As they slipped deeper into the depths, the dive angle barely noticeable to the two ladies, the display changed to a digitized representation of their path.
The time passed quickly, with barely any conversation. Finally, with the zero hour approaching, Kim slipped into her usual "mission mode"—Shego could actually see the change occur: Kim's eyes narrowed, her eyebrows lowered, fists clenched, and even her breathing deepened. Everything suggested she was getting ready for a big fight, which, quite probably, would be the case very shortly.
Six's voice broke into Shego's thoughts. "Hostile sonar detected. Engaging sonar absorption protocols." On their viewscreen, Shego saw yellow-colored waves representing the lair's detection systems sweeping toward their submarine. As she watched, the yellow lines impacted with the sub…and disappeared. She raised an eyebrow, impressed in spite of herself and her earlier comments about Freeman's work.
The sub itself began to thrum gently, catching Shego—and Kim, by the look on her face—by surprise. She looked around for a moment, unsure of the source of the noise, until her eyes caught the display. The submarine's icon was sporting something like a purple shield around it; the yellow waves, joined by red ones atop the water, continued to impact and disappear on the sub's icon.
Finally Six clued them in as to what was happening. "Surface approaching. Hostile radar detected. Sonar negation holding. Engaging radar absorption protocols." Shego felt a slight lurch as the ship broke the water's surface, but it appeared to be gentle and controlled for all the movement they could feel. Their mini-map showed them approaching the base quickly and, given the lack of any defensive activity, undetected. The submarine slowed as it reached the minimum depth it could operate at, and Six spoke again.
"We have arrived," it said calmly.
Shego looked over at Kim, who was up and out of her seat already, so she followed suit. They left the bridge in silence, Six lighting the way back to the hatch. The final door resealed itself and the hatch popped upwards. The floor of the hallway they were in clicked once, loudly, and began to rise, surprising the two once again. It reached the level of the hatch, and Six's disembodied voice announced, "Establishing targeting link. Target acquired. Ranging."
The metal around the hatch began to glow blue, and in the sunlight Shego noted the ship's hull was painted a duller blue than the bridge it was apparently creating. She supposed it made sense to be that color in largely freshwater environments, but it still seemed odd.
Then again, so was Dr. Freeman, she mused.
"Range established. Engaging Dynamic Energy Bridge System."
That caught Shego's attention. She laughed lightly as the blue energy materialized under their feet and shot forward. Someone's got too much of a sense of humor, she thought. You'd almost think he built this for us.
A snort at her side demonstrated the reference probably hadn't made it past Kim, either, a suspicion which was confirmed when Shego looked over her shoulder to see Kim with a hand to her mouth, trying not to laugh. "Best to let it out, Princess," she said, her cocky smirk in place as usual.
Kim dropped her hand and laughed. "I'm sorry," she began, "but…but…DEBS? You'd think he did that on purpose."
Shego shrugged. "Maybe he did."
Kim smacked her shoulder. "Doc Freeman's way too scatterbrained to do something like that on purpose."
"You make a convincing argument."
Six let them know, then, that the bridge had established contact with the shore, so it was safe for them to travel. They settled into more serious moods before dashing down the bridge.
Touching down on the island itself, they watched as the bridge began to retract itself. Shego found herself wondering how sturdy it was—if the sub needed to, could it ram with that bridge thing?
Kim shook her from her thoughts by starting off across the shoreline. It was a small island, totally secluded—they couldn't even see the mainland shore from there—so there was no need to hide the building's presence at all.
As they approached, it was apparent that the lair's builders knew that one fact and exploited it. The place was all weird angles and seeming architectural impossibilities, made merely implausible because, well, there they were and it was all still standing. There was even a giant dome right smack in the middle—and Shego was sure they could only see a small fraction of the whole, given the size of the rest of the compound. The outside walls had to be at least forty feet high, and the complex's footprint came right to the sandy edge of the beach. There was virtually no other vegetation on the island. Even the local wildlife was completely not present. Of course, Shego figured, it seemed awfully small an island to support much in the way of animals.
The only problem either fighter saw was that there was a complete lack of entrances—at least, in the section of building they could see.
"Should we split up?" Shego asked. She didn't really want to, but figured she might as well ask.
Kim, though, vetoed that idea right away. "Not a chance. We don't have any contact between us. Besides, if we stick together, we back each other up."
"'Kay," Shego agreed readily.
They maneuvered along the outside of the wall, inspecting it as closely as they dared—which wasn't very close, for fear of pressure traps.
Suddenly Shego spotted something. She tapped Kim on the shoulder. "Hey, Princess," she said, "I think they know we're here."
"What? Why?"
Shego merely pointed upward and ahead of them. Kim strained to see along that angle until finally she caught the glint of reflected sunlight off of something…something that was obviously shiny and reflective.
"Camera," Kim said flatly.
"Bingo."
Kim sighed. "So much for any sort of surprise we might have had."
Shego shrugged. "Would it matter anyway?"
"Surprise is always nice to have. Ron and I had it often enough with you and Drakken."
"True," Shego mused. "Then again, all that meant is you got close to us really fast. This…might not be so fast."
"What makes you say that?"
Shego pointed again. This time Kim threw in a sigh for good measure.
Several dozen henchmen were pouring out of a hole in the wall of the compound. By the time the door slid shut, a good forty of them had appeared, mostly surrounding the two fighters. Each of them was clad in the usual red jumpsuit, armed with the usual stun rod that glowed with purple energy, and wore the usual angry grimace that accompanied so many of the hirelings that Drakken used.
"Well?" Kim asked.
Shego lit her hands, the grin on her face looking exactly like the one Kim was used to seeing over the years. "Time to play," she said.
Kim could only grin in return.
In perfect synchronization they launched themselves at opposing sides of the ring of grunts surrounding them. In that first round, Shego took down three, and Kim two; Shego, with a grand swipe of her flaming claws, and Kim with a well-placed pike kick. Shego tore to one side, her claws slicing clean through the pole connecting each head of the powered maces. She kept her profile low, ensuring that the first strikes against her missed high as they aimed for what normally would pass for her midsection. She snaked around knees and waists, landing a punch or kick when she could, mostly trying to disarm them so she could manage a fight without risking herself on one or two hits. A few henchmen she managed to trip into their compatriots, sending a dozen sprawling just by that alone. She charged up her fists, sending first one, then a second high-powered plasma shot into the chests of two brutes trying to sneak up on her. They went flying back, a good twenty feet each, and landed in an unmoving heap.
Kim, for her part, was faring equally successfully, though she kept mostly to the air. Her cheerleading training served her well in that regard, and she flipped and sprung and jumped and, occasionally, rolled through the sea of bodies. Since she was using so much energy avoiding blows, though, she made damn sure that if they missed her, each henchman at least hit another, if not take him out entirely. She actually landed on one man's chest, briefly crouching in that horizontal position, and delivered a knockout blow to his face with a fist before springing off his falling body and flipping in midair, landing perfectly on the ground. She didn't stay very long, though, as six more bum-rushed her; she sprung straight upward, and four of them swung their stun poles vertically, intending to beat her back to earth, it seemed. She didn't quite see a way out of it, except for…at the pinnacle of her leap, she lashed out with a foot, knocking one stun pole aside, and it crashed into another. The henchman attached to the first pole let go, but the second wasn't so lucky; he was already off-balance from trying to knock Kim down, so the added sideways momentum twisted him horribly off-balance, and he crashed to the ground. With the air suddenly cleared of half its threats, Kim landed safely again by parrying the stun poles below the heads as they convened on her. The one man on the ground served as a wonderful distraction; she hopped over him and, in their blind rush, two others tripped over him. Kim easily dispatched the remaining three with a spinning assault that they couldn't have defended against if they tried.
With the crash of the last man, Kim noticed she was out of any immediate danger; she cast around, looking for an opponent, but there were none. She saw Shego standing, putting her hands out, surrounded by a pile of bodies not dissimilar to Kim's own conquests. She couldn't help but break out in a big grin.
"Naptime already?" Shego asked, dusting her hands off.
"I guess not everyone likes our games," Kim said, sauntering over to the other girl.
Shego was privately amused to see that, in spite of being flush from excitement and exertion, Kim was barely breathing hard. Shego herself was in the same sort of condition, though if anything, her being flushed made her paler than usual. "Yeah, Kimmie," she said. "You play so rough."
"You know you like it that way," the redhead retorted, her grin turning sly.
Shego laughed.
After a minute to catch their breaths, Kim strode to the wall the henchmen had come through. "Shall we knock?" Kim asked.
"Was always more of a doorbell person," Shego mused.
Kim smiled, digging into her pocket and producing her laser lipstick. She dialed the laser to a higher setting, but not maximum—she needed more than three shots out of it—and set it to the wall itself. She burned slowly but methodically, and after six inches shut it off. She then reapplied it, starting about two inches above the previous cut and extending another six inches up. She repeated the process to slightly above head height and started across, continuing the pattern. On her way back down the other side of her makeshift door, she cut it slightly differently, this time allowing a pair of foot-long "hinges" between cuts.
Finally, satisfied with her work, she stepped back. "If you would do the honors," she said, sketching a mock bow towards Shego.
The green woman smirked her predatory smirk and ignited her hands again. "This is going to be fun," she said. Her hands flared more brightly than normal as she gathered the plasma energy to herself; when she was satisfied, she hurled the contents of one hand like she was a major-league pitcher, followed closely by the second.
Her first shot splattered against Kim's door outline, eating through some of the remaining material; the second shot spanged against the door itself, and the sheer kinetic transfer applied such force to the "door" that it snapped clean away from the wall and bent inwards on the hinges Kim had cut. A godawful screech clawed at their ears, but they were far enough away—and outside—and the sound, while nasty, wasn't dangerous. So it was with hearing intact, vision only very slightly impaired by the remaining smoke in the air, that they made their way inside.
Three sets of eyes watched the two heroines—well, one heroine and one washed-up villainess—force their way inside the lair. The owners of two of those sets of eyes were becoming very, very nervous. The third…well, the third was provably nuts in the first place, so of course he wouldn't be so worried.
"Herr Doctor," Professor Dementor began, his accent thickening in his nervousness, "perhaps we should be leaving this place behind."
Drakken merely raised his eyebrow—the whole thing—at his diminutive colleague.
"They have already defeated a sizable portion of the henchmen we have here," Dementor insisted. "What's to say they won't just wipe the last of them away?"
"And if they do?" Drakken countered coldly.
DNAmy blinked. Since when was he so casual about losing hired help? "But…the only thing left would be us!"
"No," Drakken replied. "There is one more…surprise left in store for the two of them."
"There is?" Amy echoed. Her mind offered a couple of possibilities for that surprise. Perhaps he'd rigged the lair to seal and self-destruct, taking them with it. Or perhaps it was designed to simply trap them inside forever, stuck in its maze-like corridor system like lab rats. She offered both scenarios to Drakken, who chuckled.
"No, my dear DNAmy. You see, their mega-sized menaces are far from used up. Why, as we speak, the cheerleader and the…traitor," he spat the word, "are headed for the Biological Growth and Gamma-Emission Reinforcement Ray chamber, where they will meet their doom at the hands of three untested specimens from our latest batch."
"Untested?" Dementor asked.
"Yes," Drakken said, touching the fingertips of his small begloved hands together. "Your controls were altered to give the rats less restraint. They are better killing machines now than any previous group."
Dementor simply stared. This new development was a bit alarming…though, he supposed, if the rats were not to be released but instead kept here, that killer instinct wasn't as big a problem as he initially thought.
Still, Drakken was even scarier right now than what passed for normal these days. Dementor made a mental note to bail at the first sign of trouble.
Resistance inside the lair itself was pretty light, which Shego thought was a bit foreboding, but Kim's calm reassured her somewhat.
Kim decided Shego felt a bit strange being on the other end of Drakken's lair and scheme for a change, so she rested a hand on her shoulder. "Don't worry," she said. "It doesn't get hard until I find you guys…and since you're right here, how hard could it really be?"
Shego half-smiled. "If that comes back to bite us, I am totally going to kick your ass."
"If that comes back to bite us, get in line; I'm kicking my own ass first."
"Nuh uh. Your ass belongs to me, which gives me full primary kicking rights."
"Yeah, but it's still attached to me, which means—"
She broke off as they reached a door. It wasn't like any of the other doors they'd encountered, though. This one was very, very large; painted a light blue where everything else was either bare steel or rock tones; and graced with a plaque of sorts proclaiming it to be the Biological Growth and Gamma-Emission Reinforcement Ray Chamber.
Shego slapped a hand to her forehead. "Can it with the stupid names, Dr. D," she groaned.
Kim puzzled her way through the acronym. "BIGGER ray chamber?" She then felt suddenly and inexplicably ill. Shego must have noticed, because she nodded at Kim.
"Yeah. I think that'll kill us before whatever's in there will."
Kim could only nod in agreement.
Having no other direction to go, though, Shego blasted the door controls, and the heavy metal slid open.
Seeing darkness beyond, Shego lit a hand. Then both adventurers plunged forward.
Drakken's attention was absolutely fixed on the monitors showing Kim and Shego's progress. The audio pickups built into each camera captured their derisive commentary on his proudest achievement, and he frowned heavily at them. Even Possible's apparent discomfort—she was holding her arms over her stomach—provided him with little enjoyment. "Would you hurry up and enter already?" he growled at his monitor. To his joy, Shego blasted the door open, holding her other hand as a makeshift torch as they entered the darkened room.
DNAmy and Professor Dementor watched warily over Drakken's shoulders. Well, Dementor more from around Drakken's elbow; Amy could still see over his shoulder. They both knew what was coming, and for whatever reason they were still nervous.
Drakken caught Dementor's tight expression out of the corner of his eye.Pfft, he scoffed mentally. What can he possibly be so worried about?
Drakken waited until the two women were well inside the vast chamber before deciding to indulge his gloating tendencies. His hand reached over and flipped a knife switch.
Down below, Kim and Shego flinched as the room they were in suddenly flashed into bright, unforgiving, fluorescent light. From the sound of their footsteps earlier, each knew the place was going to be huge, but that knowledge did nothing to prepare them for reality.
From the outside, the cylindrical structure had seemed to be immense, rivaling most football stadiums in terms of sheer size. Now that they were inside, though, the true extent of the chamber's expanse was revealed to them. It was easily half a mile in diameter, and at least two hundred feet tall. The lighting was provided by what seemed to be an endless number of standard fluorescent lighting tubes. The floor, walls, and ceiling were all a clinical white, seamlessly blending together, except for a single "hole" in the center of the ceiling. It looked deceptively small from their current vantage point, but with the size of the place to scale it, Kim had to guess it was at least three hundred feet across.
All of that paled in comparison to what stood in the chamber with them. Three of their absolute favorite titanic rodents, the white-furred Giant Mutant Killer Cyborg Rats (of Doom, Shego was sorely tempted to add in a parody of Dr. D's voice), were clustered under that central "hole" in the ceiling. Shego wasn't sure how they hadn't seem them before, but when she cast a quick glance at that hole, she noticed that it was slowly lightening—Probably he can polarize the glass to let in however much light, she guessed.
The rats were eerily calm at the moment; they looked like they didn't even notice the ladies' arrival.
A riot of insane laughter blasted through the chamber suddenly, spooking both girls. It wasn't hard to recognize who it was, though, once they regained their equilibrium. And of course, the next words put any lingering doubt to rest.
"Welcome, welcome!" Dr. Drakken's voice boomed around them. There were no visible sources for the noise that Kim or Shego could detect. Kim glanced worriedly at the rats, but the titanic teethers seemed unaffected by the racket, staying absolutely motionless.
"You know, Kim Possible, it almost saddens me to see you go this way," Drakken continued. "But with the kind of thorn in my side you've been for so many years, it had to be done. What self-respecting villain would allow the bane of his existence to continue to exist?"
"Key word being self-respecting," Shego drolled, rolling her eyes.
Drakken apparently considered his rant a rhetorical exercise, so he hadn't been expecting a response; that much was obvious from the sputtering he did after Shego interrupted him. "That is enough out of you, you traitor," Drakken spat. "Have you no sense of loyalty?"
"Hmm," Shego thought. She put a finger to her chin. "You know, I thought I had left something in my other pants, but the problem with pants is, Kimmie here likes me better without 'em, I think."
She turned her smirk over to a bright-red Kim. Drakken's voice blubbered again, incoherent noises of rage at her display of casual insolence polluting the air around them.
Kim couldn't help but giggle at the aural display of discombobulatedness Shego caused.
Finally, though, Drakken managed to bring himself under some semblance of control. "Enough of your word games, Shego," he said. His voice sounded almost normal to them, back to its usual haughty tones and pretenses of gloating. "As soon as I push this button, your life as world-saving hero will be—"
"E-rat-icated, right?" Kim asked, her whole body language the very picture of bored professionalism. Shego was very proud of her.
"E-rat-i—GRAH!Must you finish every one of my clever rants for me?"
"Yes," Kim answered. The smirk on her own face rivaled that on Shego's.
An inarticulate snarl was the last sound over the speakers, wherever they were, that the two heard, before the three GMKCRs in the middle of the room opened their eyes as one. The effect was almost as creepy as them standing there stock-still. Again as one, their noses began to twitch, and they swiveled their gazes to lock right onto Kim.
In spite of their previous dealings with the rats, Kim found herself vaguely intimidated. They were huge…and there was nothing to hide behind, or climb, or use to her advantage. It was her, Shego, and three mutant monsters.
The rats took the first move, lumbering towards the girls. Kim and Shego leaped away in opposite directions when a giant foot descended towards them; thankfully, they were still in the air when it impacted, and the ground shook. Their footing on landing was only slightly disrupted.
A second rat attempted to tail-sweep Kim, but she vaulted over the ugly appendage with barely enough room to spare. The tail had to be thicker than an average man's height, she figured, but her mind was soon occupied with other things than observations—namely, commands like Dodge! Jump! Run! Twist!
After the initial jump, Shego watched in almost complete passivity as the three giant rodents focused exclusively on Kim. A part of her looked on in complete fascination as Kim held the rats at bay, so to speak, by simply avoiding them altogether. With one flip, in fact, she actually caused one rat to knock a second in the head with its tail; Shego couldn't tell if Kim had done that on purpose, or if it was just an added bonus. Regardless, the second rat was stunned and briefly out of the fight.
Watching Kim, Shego was reminded of the many times they'd clashed over the years and how she'd come first to respect, then appreciate the redhead's skills and athleticism. Even now she was slightly awed at how lithe and agile Kim was; where Shego utilized brute strength, Kim emphasized dexterity and quickness. Of course, Shego's plasma helped in her decision of abilities, and she was no slouch in the quickness department, either. But Kim was another story altogether. The only thing Shego'd ever known to be faster than the cheerleader was Drakken's BeBe dolls, and they had a decidedly unfair mechanical advantage.
Shego was almost as fast as Kim; Kim, almost as strong as Shego. That was one reason their fights always seemed to go on forever—Kim was frustratingly hard to hit, and Shego was frustratingly hard to beat down. It wasn't as one-sided in either direction as it might seem—Shego landed plenty of her own hits, and Kim could take the damage amazingly well—but the difference was noticeable to them, as close as they'd become.
And now…now Shego felt a sort of warm pride for Kim as she watched the younger girl bob and weave, generally being a pain-in-the-ass for the giant rats. A flash of red and a squeal of pain told Shego Kim had brought out her laser lipstick again.
Then something worrisome happened: the injured rat leveled its glare at Kim, and its eyes…Shego shuddered instinctively. Its eyes were huge, the eyelids opened as wide as was physically possible—and then some, the whites around the colored irises now completely bloodshot. In fact, the rat's eyes looked entirely red, and if Shego didn't know better she'd say they were glowing.
Her observations suddenly took a back seat to worry as the rat lunged with uncanny speed at Kim. The cheerleader barely dived out of the way, but at least she was spared the clumsy paw that had reached out to grab her.
Unfortunately she was not quite fast enough to avoid the tail swiping into her side from one of the non-crazed creatures. The blow knocked her several dozen feet sideways, and she landed hard on her other side, finally turning it into a body roll that got her feet underneath her. Her injured side twitched in protest when she landed on it, but she pushed it aside as she shakily stood.
The rats pursued her, including the berserker version, but she'd been knocked far enough away to keep them at bay for the moment. The problem, she knew, lay in the fact that they were so damn tall, and she wasn't, and so she had to run fast to keep any semblance of distance between them. She was very quick, and she knew it…but she also knew she would tire eventually, and sooner than the rats would. Her lipstick laser had served, apparently, only to mildly injure and severely annoy the berserked rat, so her options were a bit limited.
Well, okay, "a bit" was being optimistic. She had two options: get the rats to fight each other, or die trying. She'd been successful at the first one so far, but that one tail slap had taken a good chunk of the wind out of her, and she wasn't sure how many more of those hits she could take; of course, every hit would only decrease her ability to not get hit again.
Shego watched Kim lead the rats on a desperate chase around the huge chamber, trying desperately to think of a plan. She jogged behind the rats to keep up in case Kim needed some emergency help; she didn't understand why she was being left alone like she was. It didn't make any sense; Drakken knew that Shego wasn't going to come back any time soon—like, ever, she scoffed mentally—so he'd have to take the both of them out…
Then it clicked. Divide and conquer, she thought sullenly. So my little "talks" with Dr. D actually sank in, huh? Shego didn't know how many times she'd chided Drakken about the need to separate Kim and the buffoon, else the two figure out how to escape death trap number eight-hundred-twenty-seven (or whichever one it was at the time...she'd thrown The Book of Diabolical Death-Traps away her first day on the job) and foil Drakken's plans yet again, but he'd never listened then. Now, though…Shego didn't know what had changed, but it seemed Drakken was playing a whole new game of smart, and she didn't like that. Didn't like it one bit.
Deciding to experiment, Shego ignited her hands again and lobbed a pair of plasma balls at the back of the rearmost rat, ergo the one closest to her. Unexpectedly—but in a very welcome manner, inasmuch as that was possible—the projectiles exploded violently, giving that rat a bit too much extra forward momentum. It stumbled, and two large circles appeared on its back, smoldering and smoking. The rat seemed to totter for a moment, but it regained itself quickly, and Shego thought she noted the same reddened, bloodshot quality to the one eye she could see, before the rat took off after Kim again, moving faster now than before. Shego gave chase, hurling plasma at what she hoped counted as vital areas.
Kim, meanwhile, had reached Wade on her wrist-mounted Kimmunicator. "No time for pleasantries—I need a scan of me," she said, mentally cursing herself for not having done this earlier. She'd meant to, but after coffee in the morning she'd attacked her homework with as much vigor as she could muster and had forgotten completely.
"Got it," the young genius said, fingers flying as he worked the Kimmunicator in reverse. From one of several micro-sized lenses a thin green beam shot out, impacting Kim's forehead. It swept sideways, forming a horizontal bar, before it descended head to foot in half a second.
"Today, Wade," Kim growled, dodging to the side and rolling into a somersault as a giant paw swiped at the space she'd just occupied.
"Hmm," he said.
"Details! I need more than 'hmm'!" Kim snapped.
"Sorry, Kim," he apologized, "but this is odd. According to my scans…you smell funny."
"I what?"
"Your body's giving off some…scent, some kind of marker, that makes the GMKCRs focus exclusively on you."
"Okay, so odd," she muttered, before recognition flashed in her mind. Her other hand flew to the back of her neck. "The spider-thing!"
"Details," Wade teased.
"That mecha-spider, it pricked my neck. It must have done something then!"
"Ah hah," Wade answered, bending back over his keyboards.
Kim kept up her evasive maneuvers; she knew she couldn't outrun the rats forever, so in a desperate move she stopped dead in her tracks, turned, and ran right back at the rats. At the last second she ducked and activated her rocket skates. The gadgets punched her forward with a speed she could never have achieved on her own, and she flew under all three of her foes faster than they could react, even the berserker ones.
Faster, even, than Shego could react.
Kim slammed into her lover rather unceremoniously, and Shego whoofed as the air was driven from her lungs, but the skates weren't finished with them yet, and the two blasted clear across the room, almost back to where Kim had started running in the first place.
The first rat stopped when Kim flashed under it; the other two didn't notice in time, which resulted in them barreling into the first. In spite of their increased strength, their momentum proved too much, and they went down in a heap. Animal instincts took over, and they bit and clawed and scratched and kicked at each other as they tried to sort themselves out. The sheer noise involved assaulted both Kim's and Shego's ears, the sealed, dome-ceilinged room doing nothing to abate the noise. Kim's rocket skates finally shut off, and they coasted to a stop a good five hundred yards from the rats. She set Shego down, then flopped on the floor herself to catch her breath, closing her eyes.
Shego looked down at her Princess, one eyebrow raised. "That had to be the strangest game of tag I've ever seen."
Kim opened one eye and stared up at Shego. "Wade says they're all stuck on me thanks to that spider."
Right on cue, her wrist beeped its typical happy-minor-third melody. It seemed strangely out-of-place in the current situation.
Kim raised her arm. "Go, Wade."
"You were right, Kim," Wade said. "The scan says you've got a…marker, of sorts, on the back of your neck. It looks like you got tagged, genetically, to be especially appealing to the rats."
"Great," Kim groaned. "Not only that, but they're, like, berserking or something. Every time they get hurt, they just get angry…and faster, and stronger."
"Yeah, I noticed that, too," Shego put in. "I blasted one but I think it just made it mad, even if it exploded better than usual."
"Hold your Kimmunicator up," Wade said, and Kim did as obeyed. A small slot on the far side of the device opened, and a small piff of compressed air heralded the launch of…something, Kim couldn't tell what, from the area. After a few seconds of waiting, she heard a beep come through from Wade's end of the connection.
"What's the sitch?"
"Just launched a probe," Wade answered distractedly, his eyes—and mind—clearly on another monitor as he continued typing furiously. "Just like I thought. Based on blood work, the rats this time have been engineered to do just like you said. The more they get hurt, the angrier they get, and the stronger and faster they get."
Kim moaned. "So is there any way to stop these?"
"Two options. Calm them down enough and they won't even move…or take them down hard and fast. They can still die, they just disregard their injuries while alive."
Shego, keeping an eye on the rats in question, pulled a protesting Kim back to her feet. "Looks like the second option," she said grimly. "That little prick of yours"—she smiled involuntarily—"seems to have gotten their attention again."
Sure enough, two of the three rats were back on their feet. Both were also turned toward Kim and Shego. To Kim's horror, the third rat lay on the ground broken and bleeding, deep wounds visible over various parts of its body—including a large gash on its neck, leaving a flap of skin hanging freely over what used to comprise that rat's jugular vein.
As they watched, the rat began to shrink, just like the other ones a few days ago; without a living being's bioelectrical systems to power the cybernetics, there was nothing holding the growth ray's power in place, so it dissipated harmlessly while the rat reduced in size to what it ought to have been, lying there in a pool of blood.
Shego's strong arms under her own were what saved Kim from simply dropping bonelessly to the floor. The young adventurer felt so weak-kneed from the sight of the dead rat that she even tuned out the approaching ones. She barely even registered her girlfriend behind her, holding her up—that is, until Shego shook her once, sharply.
"Head back in the game, Princess," Shego said, and her tone was grim. "It's nasty, yeah, but you got two things to remember. One, it's just an animal. Two, its brothers are coming back to do that to you."
Kim slowly came out of her funk. It was almost too slow, though; by the time she returned to reality, the other killer rats were only a few steps away.
"Okay…I'm okay," Kim said, fighting to keep the contents of her stomach from once again seeing the light of day. Shego removed her arms and stepped up next to her, her hands once again going alight with her trademark green energy.
"Keep running, if you can," Shego said. "I'll try and buy you some more time while you think of something."
Kim cast a quick glance at her. Those sounded an awful lot like last words, she thought, but from the look of concentration on Shego's face, she could tell that the former mercenary was far from looking to die.
"Go!" Shego shouted, and Kim went. She ran off straight to her left, casting one look behind her. It seemed, for the moment, that the animated patterns of Shego's hands had the rats entranced, but she couldn't count on that lasting forever, especially with the trigger scent Wade said she bore.
Speaking of whom…
"Wade," she called, thumbing her Kimmunicator to life again, "got anything to shut down the mechanics in those rats again?"
"Another EMP should do the trick," Wade answered, "but the batteries in your Kimmunicator are only good for one shot, and it would be really tough to get both rats in a small enough space to affect them at the same time."
"Don't think I can do it?"
"I don't doubt your abilities, Kim—the rats' heads are simply too big to get into the right-sized small space."
A heavy thud shook the floor just then, and it was all Kim could do to maintain her balance.
Far behind her, Shego watched in morbid fascination as the rat she had just dumped a double-fistful of plasma into keeled over. She'd tried a couple of normal shots, just like last time, and was rewarded with the same brilliantly-successful explosions she'd seen before.I guess these ones are rigged to blow, instead of being fireproofed, she'd mused, before charging up her hands and letting loose. The high-powered shot lacked any sort of grace in its execution—she'd almost fallen over from the force—but it more than made up for that in its effect.
The double-shot had landed square under the left shoulder blade, exploding violently. She'd known something different had happened when the fur surrounding the shot began to rapidly take on a red coloration, but with the smoke from the blow still in the way she couldn't see any other sign of damage.
Then it fell over.
In the few seconds from the rat standing at its full height, to dropping to the ground, Shego saw what she'd managed: a still-smoking hole was visible in the rat's back, and she could see a few organs from her vantage point, as well as the rapidly-draining blood staining its coat.
When her shot impacted, the explosive force tore the skin apart without abating much, if any, of its imparted energy. As a result, the plasma ball heated and weakened the rat's ribcage, and the kinetic energy snapped the stressed bones clean apart. Momentum—and its little brother, impulse—being their usual uncaring selves, it had driven the bone fragments forward and sideways, tearing clean through the rat's left lung and shredding its heart...and quite obviously killing it instantly.
When the ground finally settled, Shego's stomach took up the rocking motions; she turned around and retched, vomiting up what felt like everything she'd had in the last week. And that, ladies and gents, is why I couldn't ever kill somebody…
The final rat, though, remained focused on Kim, who once again resumed her dodge-and-dance routine, evading as many blows as she could while Wade continued to fill her in on what to do.
Dr. Drakken continued to watch the video feed of the epic battle taking place a few rooms away, but his confidence was growing thinner as he watched the rat supply dwindle to a single crazed, bloodthirsty maniac. He began muttering under his breath, speaking obscenities that anyone that knew him would be shocked to hear, while pacing side to side in front of the monitor.
No one else, though, was there to comment; Professor Dementor cast one last look as his obviously-crazy comrade before slipping into the escape tunnel and sealing the door behind himself. It hissed shut, but as no further noise came, it was obvious that Drakken was too absorbed to flee.
Dementor put the crazy man out of his mind and concentrated on his own well-being.
Kim directed herself back towards Shego, who was standing again. A touch on her Kimmunicator activated her rocket skates again, slowly increasing the distance between her and her pursuer. She swept Shego away again, but the skates quit early, running out of power only another hundred yards away.
That's far enough, Kim thought. "You okay?" she asked the obviously-shaken woman.
"I'll get there," Shego replied. Her green skin was far paler than normal.
"Okay. No time to waste, but I got a plan."
"Give it to me."
Kim nodded. "Wade's got an EMP pulse set up to fire and disable the cybernetics in the last rat. Problem is, I need to get to its head level. Only way to do that is to use the walls."
"Look, Cupcake, your skates are out of juice, and you plain can't run up the walls." If there was any doubt as to Shego's doubt, the raised eyebrow put it to rest.
"I know, which is why we do this…"
The conference was hurried, and rightfully so; in the ten or so seconds it took, the rat closed the remaining distance. Shego turned and shot at its foot, slowing it down for half a second as it recoiled from the surprise and regained its balance, but that half-second was all the two ladies needed to start running toward the wall.
By the time they reached it, though, the rat had managed to close the distance once again. Still running, Kim looked over at Shego and nodded; as one, they jumped.
Athletic leapers both, they easily cleared the level of the rat's knees before their jump paths crossed; Shego crossed her arms in front of her face, and Kim planted both feet on the intersection before shoving off once again. The force of Kim's jump shoved Shego back toward the ground, but she righted herself and landed in a crouch, letting her knees and ankles absorb the force. She placed one last shot at the rat's foot and was rewarded with it flailing around as it tried to keep its balance.
Kim continued her flight toward the wall, twisting in midair to land against it with both feet before pushing off again, sailing up and away toward the rat. She was close…getting closer…so close…but not close enough for the Kimmunicator to do its job, and she began to fall.
Her hope sinking faster than she was, she unexpectedly stopped as she landed on the rat's forearm. She slipped and fell, landing hard, but the reality of her situation presented itself quickly enough and she got back on her feet.
The arm she was on swept suddenly upwards, and Kim leapt when she felt the upward momentum cease.
This time she was close enough.
With a touch on the side of her Kimmunicator, she sent the signal to Wade, who in turn executed his preprogrammed command.
The same hatch that had released the dart probe earlier slid open, and a cone of bluish energy lashed out, bathing the rat's head in pulse after pulse of disruptive electromagnetic energy.
The rat jerked once and began to shrink.
Kim landed back on its chest, scrambling for fur to hold onto as the rat returned to its normal size; at about halfway down she released and landed hard on the floor. The rat continued to shrink. When it regained its normal size, though, it screed and ran after Kim once again. The tired adventurer only watched as a green energy missile darted in from the side and obliterated the rat entirely; there wasn't even a trace of it when the light disappeared.
Kim flopped onto her back, breathing heavily, and turned her head to the side to see Shego stalking over, a frown on her pretty face. "Didn't have to do that," Kim chided her.
"Shut up, Kimmie," Shego said, and Kim was surprised to hear the other woman's voice so thick with emotion. "C'mon. We're not done yet." With that she pulled the protesting teen to her feet once again, this time marching them over to the doors.
Drakken backed away from the monitor slowly, watching as Kim and Shego left the camera's viewable area. Every instinct told him to make a break for the escape hatches…but reason said he had to destroy the evidence of his lair and their experiments, even if it meant taking the whole base with it. So he ran back to a console and began to furiously input the commands for the self-destruct sequence (a compromise between himself and Dementor; every base needed a self-destruct, just in case, he reasoned, but Dementor had ruled that there was no reason to have it tied to a single red button).
He was about to strike the enter key for the final command when the door exploded open, and a pair of very tired-looking, but also very very pissed-off-looking, women strode through the debris. His hand twitched toward the keyboard, but a green blast of plasma beat him to it and melted the device into so much plastic-and-metal slag.
"Ah ah ah, Dr. D," Shego tsked, even going so far as to wave a plasma-sheathed finger at him. "Naughty boys lose play time and have to go sit in a corner!" So saying, she gave him a not-insignificant boot to the rear, and the blue-skinned madman flew across the room, smashing into—what else?—the far corner of the room. Emitting a pained groan, Drakken slid down the wall until he was an unmoving heap on the floor.
"The others got away," Kim growled from across the room.
"Thought it looked a bit empty in here," Shego confirmed. "And I'll bet here"—she blasted a plain-looking segment of wall, which vaporized and revealed a long, down-sloping passage behind it—"is where they went."
Kim shook her head. "How'd you know that?"
"First, it was the only blank wall in the place. Second, I was a Bad Guy for a long time, remember? They do things in certain ways."
Kim shook her head, instead occupying herself with calling Wade and getting him to contact Global Justice to come sweep the rest of the place up.
As they waited, Shego remarked, "Frankly, I'm surprised there weren't more goons, real or otherwise."
"Otherwise?"
"Syntho-drones, you know?"
"Right…well, we did see a lot outside."
"Yeah, and this is a big place. There should've been more here."
Kim shrugged. "Maybe they were counting on those last rats too much."
"You're probably right," Shego conceded.
It was only a few minutes later that the Kimmunicator crackled back to life, this time showing the face of a certain eyepatch-bearing, underground-police-force-directing, jumpsuit-wearing woman that both Kim and Shego knew very well.
"Well done, Kimberly, and you too, Shego. This catch will mean the menace facing the city will be greatly reduced," Betty Director congratulated them.
"Yeah, but the other two got away," Kim said, sounding disheartened.
"That may be so, but the greatest threat here was them working together," Dr. Director assured her. "While they may be on the loose, they were hardly a threat to you before, and I see no reason why, separate once again, they will be a threat to you now." She cast a knowing glance to the side, where Shego was watching the conversation over Kim's shoulder.
Kim turned to see what the one-eyed woman was looking at, and smiled when she saw. "Especially now," she agreed, taking a step back and throwing an arm around Shego's shoulders.
Shego just rolled her eyes. "So, Dr. D, about our arrangement?"
Kim blinked. "But I thought he was unconscious…"
"She means me, Kimberly," Dr. Director sighed. "An…unfortunate similarity in names. Back to you, though, Miss Go…I'm afraid I have to ask that you remain with Miss Possible until the other two are brought in, as well."
"Was afraid of that," Shego grumbled.
Dr. Director gave her a wry smile. "I was under the impression that the…conditions for your behavior were not that much of a burden."
"Yeah, but they're still a burden, which I'd like to be gone."
"I can understand that." The leader of Global Justice nodded. "Go home and get some rest, you two. With what's been done here today, you deserve it…and I have a feeling that, after today, things will be pretty quiet around there for a while."
A/N: I could keep going, but that would kill this even more than it's already dead.
Anyway, I was originally planning on having them nab all 3 villains at once…but with the plans I have so far, piecemeal captures work much better. Fear not, though; it won't take 8 chapters each for the next two, 'cause really the GMKCRs started as a laff-a-minute idea that I got way too carried away with. Hopefully they won't seem like easy victories; they'll just be more structured and easier for me to set up.
Anyway, hope you enjoy this one. Close of Major Villain Arc #1. As always, constructive reviews help me make this more enjoyable for you. 'Cause you are what it's all about.