DISCLAIMER: Nothing belongs to me if you've seen it on TV. Soundtrack for this chapter: Magnetic Fields, Zoolook, Equinoxe, Oxygene and Oxygene 7-13 by Jean-Michel Jarre'.


"So zhis is vhy you needed zat positronic colloid stuff so urgently." Dementor walked around the immense computer again, examining it in detail, hmming and hawing intermittently, listening with amusement to the gentle purring of the mighty positron globe at its apex. "It zounds like a kitten. Ze globe resonates vith ze positronic currents, ja?"

Drakken sullenly nodded his head. He had been tied securely to the chair usually in front of the readout terminal.

"It must ze awful racket make vhen it is, shall ve zay, 'agitated'."

"Terrible. In fact, you really don't want to be down here if that starts. Maybe we could go back up, I could make some cocoa-moo –"

"Vhere did you steal it? Military installation? Cyrus Bortel's lab? Area 51?"

"I didn't steal it anywhere."

"Zhen your sidekick stole it for you."

"No." Even under these conditions, Drakken's voice held a note of pride. "It's my invention. My very first invention. My best invention. Ever. "

"You built it?" Dementor fixed him with a disbelieving glare. "So vhere ist ze rest of it?"

"I – I don't know what you mean. It's just a computer. A toy, really. Nothing to get your shorts in a knot about—"

"Do not ze GAMES play vith me! I am a REAL SCIENTIST, not a thieving fraud."

"Sticks and stones may break my bones –"

"Shut up ze MOUTH! Even zhese patch-bay labels give it avay: Upper Lumbar Region. Lower Lumbar Region. Tactile Function. Optics. Weapon Systems. Und zhis tesseract transmitter. A perpetual wireless connexion. It could be on ze other zide of ze GALAXY and still be in contact vith its body."

"Its what?"

Dementor backhanded him. "I told you I haff not ze PATIENCE for ze GAMES! Zhis is ze brain of a mobile robotic organism. So I ask you again: vhere is ze REST OF IT?"

Dr. D. did not answer.

"Geh zum die Teufel," growled the giant. "I'll find out myself." The huge fingers laboriously fumbled out a command on the readout terminal, only to receive the message "ACCESS DENIED." He tried another command, and another, and still another, always with the same results.

The purring of the positron globe had become a complex buzz, a hundred nests of angry hornets.

"You vill give me ze access codes, Drakken," Dementor commanded. "Its inner vorkings I vant to see. Its secrets I vant to learn."

Drakken laughed mirthlessly. "Even if I gave you those codes, you couldn't learn that machine's secrets. It's unique. An accident of creation." Another laugh and a shrug. "Its secrets are its own, believe me."

"Zhen I vill simply DESTROY it." The massive fist tapped the positron globe, jarring the whole structure. "If I break zhis glass, your cherished, vunderbar invention is NOT."

"Don't!" It was almost a scream.

It was Dementor's turn to laugh. "Give me ze access codes, and I vill maybe spare it. As a trophy, perhaps. Or maybe it vill vork for me, once I see the REST OF IT."

"No. It won't. It can't be reprogrammed. You'd destroy its personality vectors."

"Robots need no personality. You should know zhat."

"Why are you doing this? Don't you have bigger fish to fry? Like, oh, I don't know, a world to conquer or something?"

"Oh, I haff every intention of owning ze vorld, absolutely. But first, an EXAMPLE must be MADE." He leaned down to bellow in Drakken's face; the blue man squirmed, but couldn't quite get out of the line of fire. "I vant ze VORLD TO KNOW vhat HAPPENS to ANYONE WHO BETRAYS PROFESSOR DEMENTOR!"

"What does happen to anyone who betrays Professor Dementor?" a familiar feminine voice snidely asked. "Free chimmeritos at Bueno Nacho? Year's subscription to Humans magazine? Enquiring minds want to know."

"Shego?" Drakken exclaimed.

The harlequin woman stood in the turbolift, an evil smile on her face. "Oh yeah, you don't like to be reminded of Bueno Nacho. Sorry about that." She sized up the colossus before her with a critical eye. "Steroids aren't good for you, Dementia."

"Dementor! My name ist DEMENTOR!"

"Shego, get out of here," begged the blue man. "Please, for once, just do what I say. I can handle this."

Her laugh rippled through the room. "Yeah, you're doing a great job so far."

"You're supposed to be on vacation!"

"I just felt like something was wrong. Call it intuition. So I turned the jet around and came back. And, yeah, you've got some trouble." She raised her hands; emerald light flickered on the titanium walls. "Nothin' I can't handle." She faced Dementor, every muscle in her body tensed for action. "How'd you survive the fall, Nutzi?"

"Jet boots. I am ready for EVERY EVENTUALITY."

"Jet boots." She shook her head in mock dismay. "You know, I should have seen that coming, but I was having a hard time focusing that day. Having a screaming Bavarian midget underfoot can do that. Well, I don't have a zeppelin to throw you from this time, Prof. When this is over, you'll wish I did."

"Is zhat so," he said, watching not Shego, but the giant computer. Watching the readouts change, the lights flash, the gauges move. The light of an astounding revelation dawning in his eyes. "And vhat are you going to do to me, Shego?"

"I'm going to kick your Bavarian – hey, Prof, I'm over here."

"I… don't think… you are." A malicious smirk stole over his blunt features. "I congratulate you, Doctor Drakken. All zhese years, und I haff had no idea. No vun has."

"What's he on about, Dr. D?" asked the green woman, her hands still blazing with green flames. "'Idea' about what?"

Dementor guffawed. "Even it does not know! Very goot, Herr Doctor! Duplicity is an excellent trait for a supervillain!" Contemplating Shego's confusion, he began to laugh again. "Look at its face. It does not understand. Zhis is entertainment."

"It?" Shego spluttered. "I'm not an 'it', you little lunatic."

"LITTLE?" Dementor roared. "I am EXACTLY 3.048 METERS TALL!"

"You're still just a puny little man. Come on, then, bring it, if you've got anything to bring."

Without warning, the giant moved, but not to attack Shego; seizing a group of cables on the side of the computer, he ripped them from the Weapon Systems patch bay.

Shego's plasma was instantly extinguished; the angry hum of the positron globe became a howl of anguish. The young woman stared at her powerless hands, astonished. "What th—"

"No!" shrieked Drakken, straining at his bonds. "Don't hurt her. Please, Dementor. Take it out on me. Let her go."

"You zhould haff thought of ZHAT before you let it THROW ME FROM ZE ZEPPELIN," he jeered. "Come on, zhen, Shego. Show ME vhat YOU'VE got!" Almost faster than the eye could follow, he yanked out another set of patch cords; the green harlequin crumpled to the floor.

"My legs – I can't feel my legs—"she gasped, but neither Drakken nor Dementor heard her over the howling feedback of the violated positronic brain.

The mad Bavarian coldly watched her writhe. "I had planned," he said to Drakken, " to tear her apart before you, vun limb at a time. But zhis, oh, zhis is zo much better." The giant lifted the chair and its occupant, set it down in front of the struggling woman. "Tell it goodbye, Doctor," he gloated, "und zhen I destroy it forever."

"So that's what that machine does," Shego sobbed, tears of anger and betrayal rolling down her cheeks. "That's why you built it. To control me."

Drakken was horrified. "No! No, Shego, it's not like that. That's not it at all. It's –"

"I haven't forgotten the compliance chip." She was still vainly struggling to stand. "You've always wanted to control me. Ever since we teamed up."

"Compliance chip?" Another false memory, he realized. "That didn't happen. It was a Fearless Ferret episode. The one with the Obedience Disc."

She stared at him as if he'd lost his mind. Oblivious, he continued his plea.

"Brainstorm's Obedience Disc. Fearless Ferret, episode 53. It didn't really happen. Please believe me, honey. It didn't really happen!"

Her anger and fear were swept aside by surprise. "What did you – call me?"

"Say gute nacht, Gracie," Dementor interrupted, and swung with all his monstrous strength at the lightning-filled, screeching glass globe.

A grappling hook shot through the air, the cable winding itself around the giant's legs; a powerful tug tumbled the behemoth, his fist swinging harmlessly through the air as he fell with a crash.

"I don't know what that is," said Kim Possible, standing on an overhead catwalk, an opened air vent in the wall behind her, "but if you want it broken, I want it whole."

"You." The giant's face was a mask of hatred; his huge hands seized the cable, snapped it like thread. "Ever since I learned you had survived, I knew zis moment vould come. But I did not expect it here."

"I'm full of surprises."

"Zhey VILL NOT help you HERE."

Confident and unafraid, Kim faced the behemoth. "You know you can't win, Dementor. Why not just go quietly?"

"Professor Dementor does NOTHINK QUIETLY," he roared. From his outstretched hand thundered a sizzling ball of pure energy. Kim dodged, spun, reached out with the Battlesuit's hand scoop to intercept the power and fling it back at the maniac that had released it.

The explosion left her stunned, sprawled on the floor.

That energy burst had cost Dementor nearly a foot in height, but he was still gigantic. His huge boot came down, aimed at her head; she rolled, tried to cartwheel and fell.

It was difficult to cartwheel with a missing hand. She stared at the stump in horror.

"I vill cut you to HAMBURGER," screamed Dementor, but before he could unleash another blast, a figure leaped from the air vent, surrounded by azure energy. Defying gravity, Ron spun in midair, seized the giant and flung him across the room, barely missing the positronic brain, to slam into the titanium wall.

"Got lost in the ductwork, KP," he shouted. "You all right?"

The blue aura of retro-metabolism had just faded from her regenerated hand. She flexed the fingers. "You bet."

"Then let's finish this – awp!"

With the unnatural speed he possessed, Dementor had lunged forward, seized Ron by the leg as he hovered there. "I am SMARTER than ze LORWARDIANS, Monkey Master. " Waves of unknown force began emanating from the giant, aimed now at the young man, tearing the energy of ch'i from his body as easily as they had torn electricity from the Navarez dynamos.

Now at least fifteen feet tall, the madman let the unconscious body drop to the floor. "Such power," the monster scoffed, just before Kim kicked him in the face. A huge tooth went flying through the air, but the Professor had little time to mourn it. Kim was an avenging dervish, a hurricane of super-speed kicks and punches, a distaff David pummeling a Goliath of super-science. There was no time for banter. She had to end this quickly.

Both Drakken and his stricken creation stared in astonishment as the young woman drew on the strength and reflexes of her Hydraian heritage, buffeting the behemoth scientist without mercy, dodging his frantic energy blasts with her Earth-born cheerleading skills without ever letting up on the attack.

"Get him, Possible!" shouted Dr. D, hardly believing what he heard himself saying. "Let him have it!"

"ENOUGH!" bawled Dementor, and the unknown force came into play, coruscating through the air, snaring Kim in its intangible web. Valiantly she struggled against the evil power, to no avail; her strength exhausted, she fell to her knees, drenched in sweat.

"He… he's winning," whimpered Shego, unable to accept what was happening before her eyes, unable to stand and change it. "No."

Dementor towered over his fallen red-haired foe in triumph. "An ALLEY CAT haff fewer lives than you, but I zhall DRAIN EVERY LAST VUN OF THEM!"

Suddenly the blue glow of retro-metabolism flared wildly around her, was sucked into the diabolical vortex. Both Kim and the scientist were limned in its eerie light.

"Vat is ZHIS?" said Dementor in awe. "I can feel it – my vounds, zey are healed – my strength, my youth, zey are RETURNED TO ME! So ZHIS is how you survived my crack shots. ZHIS is how you haff defeated me, all zhese years. Und now zat power... IT IS MINE!" He laughed, revealing a full set of teeth. "So many secrets. It has BEEN a DAY of REVELATIONS."

Kim felt her heart fluttering, the breath catching in her throat, and realized, dazedly, what was happening.

"My matter/energy integrator suit is consuming your lifeforce, Fraulein Possible. Your regenerative power cannot keep up with it, und your spring-stepping, self-healing Battlesuit is zo much yesterday's news." He grabbed her by the throat, lifted her into the air, pleased with her weak, strangled struggles as the energy-absorbing waves continued to leach away her life. "I haff calculated every element. Zhis vill be our last encounter. NOW, Kim Possible – YOU DIE!"