The cemetery was beautiful. Everything was trimmed grass sectioned off by flower beds, surrounded on most sides by woods that were just big enough to seperate the place from its surroundings. The result was a colourful, peaceful place to lay the recently deceased to rest.
Mourners gathered. Words were spoken. The coffin was lowered into the grave.
The ceremony ended, those assembled began speaking among themselves.
One among them caught a hint of movement at the edge of the woods, a figure they believed they recognised. Excusing themselves with a whisper, they left the congregation for the treeline to seek the figure out.
"Miss Possible?"
The teen hero edged around the tree she had been hiding behind. Not looking directly at him, she mumbled, "Hego."
The superhero regarded her with a conflicted gaze, before deciding, "You can join us, if you'd like to pay your respects."
Kim looked up at him, aghast. "How can I? It's my fault she's... that she's..."
"She never would have helped us with Aviarious if not for you. That's enough to prove she respected you. I'm sure she even appreciated your rivalry. As I understand it, you were the only one who could stand against her since she turned to evil."
"Hego, I killed your sister!"
"I'm sure you didn't intend to."
Kim stared at him for a moment, then burst into tears. The overbuilt man in blue hemmed and hawed at the sight, scratching his head, at a loss for what to do.
"You don't... know..." Kim managed to exhale between tearful gasps.
"Well, uh... perhaps if you told me exactly what happened..." Hego trailed off as it occurred to him that such a request might not help matters at all. He considered himself fortunate when the teen hero responded to his suggestion by pulling herself together as best she could.
"Drakken activated the little diablos in Middleton first. They need a command signal to work. While we were busy taking out the local transmitter, Shego went to the school dance and kidnapped my boyfriend to hold him hostage. We went to rescue him and foil Drakken.
"I was wearing a prototype battle suit. It could repair itself, had all kinds of gadgets built in, enhanced my strength... and had a few tricks to nullify Shego's glow advantage."
Even Hego could tell Kim was not speaking of the battle suit fondly. "Well, that sounds perfectly reasonable under the circumstances."
The redhead only sighed before continuing. "I fought Shego and found my boyfriend... who turned out to be one of Drakken's synthodrones. He... he hugged me, zapped me, and when I woke up, we were captured. Rufus - Ron's pet, you remember, the naked mole rat - managed to free us, and we disabled the main transmitter, destroying the synthodrone in the process. Drakken and Shego tried to run, but Ron handled Drakken... and I..."
"You handled Shego," Hego said softly.
"We'd already foiled them," Kim said inconsolably, "I didn't have to... it felt like we had to capture them after this one, but... I was so angry at myself for not realising he was a fake, and Shego for playing me like that, and..." she started crying again, "I told her I hated her. Then I kicked her into the transmission tower. It electrocuted her until the impact brought the whole thing down. I watched, and... I was glad. I'd finally beaten her. I never thought I'd..." She broke off, the sobs threatening to return as well.
Hego was a stone. He had never expected to find himself in this position again. The last time had been with his sister; now it was with the girl that had killed her. He believed he had been right during that final argument, but look how that turned out. Whetever he was going to say, he had to be very careful.
"Shego killed someone in the course of her heroics."
The statement interrupted Kim's sniffles as she stared up at Hego in shock as he watched the congregation across the clearing. To her knowledge, Shego had never been directly responsible for anyone's death.
"It was the straw that broke the camel's back," the superhero continued, "The reason she left. I told her that as a hero, we had to hold ourselves to a higher standard. It was our duty to apprehend villains. Perhaps the world is better off without the man she killed, but that isn't our call to make. Killing another human being is something you can never take back."
Hego finally looked back to the redhead with an ambivelant gaze. "You are a hero, Miss Possible... but you succumbed to vengeance. You are better than Shego because you feel remorse for your actions. I think you should keep that in mind."
"I've already had Wade disassemble the battle suit," Kim told him as she wiped her eyes, "But I don't know if I can save the world anymore. Not after this. I... I feel like I betrayed her, in a way." Now it was her turn to look across the clearing. "We may never have said it out loud, but we respected each other. And I know for a fact that she enjoyed fighting me. We forced each other to improve, kept pushing each other to be better. I don't think she would have had it any other way." The teenager actually giggled. "She even had a few pet names for me. Sometimes it was almost... um, almost like flirting."
She seemed embarrassed by that final admission, but Hego took it in stride. "I wouldn't be surprised. She was always... rebellious in the face of normalcy." He took a few steps away from the treeline, then turned to look back. "Perhaps you'll miss her as much as we do."
"I do. Tell your brothers... I'm sorry."
Hego nodded and went on his way. As Kim watched, he seemed to persuade everyone to move along. The mourners slowly departed, allowing Kim to approach in solitude. She didn't say anything, just sat beside the grave and cried until there was nothing left.
She was still there when night had fallen and Ron, prompted by Wade, arrived to take her home.
