Even Evil Has Standards
Set during 'Steal the Wheels' this story examines the reason Shego objected to stealing Felix's wheelchair.
I own nothing but the concept and one original character. If you saw it on Disney, they own it.
Chapter One: A Crime Most Foul
She hadn't even thought about it in years, but then Drakken and his annoying cousin decided it would be 'totally radical' to steal that kid's wheelchair. Seriously.
It had kinda been her first moment of being heroic as well, even before the green space powers and the crippling teen angst that accompanied them. Right back in high school, when she wasn't even Shego.
"Hey c'mon man!"
"Sorry sit n' spin, got no time to be waiting for a jerkass cripple."
The pack of teens ran away up the stairs, laughing and high-fiving each other.
"Ugh," The boy grunted, "Just my luck." He started manoeuvring his wheelchair, trying to turn round.
"What's up?" The girl who skipped up was his age, with long hair dark enough to look black, and pale skin.
"Nothing, just some jerks not telling me where the ramp was to get to the hall."
"It's round here," She pointed to a side door, "Want me to get it?"
He nodded a little, and she held the door as he wheeled through, "So why do you want to get to the hall?"
"There's still some forms I need to sign, but it's harder for me to get to the office, so they said I could fill in the forms in the hall instead."
"And the older boys wouldn't help you?"
"It happens all the time; I'm used to it by now."
"Well that sucks," She said, looking at him in wonderment, "Why don't you say something?"
"To who? If I said anything to them they'd beat the crap out of me, if I said anything to the teachers they wouldn't believe me. Better to keep my mouth shut."
"This has happened before?"
"Everywhere I go, same story."
***
Shego snapped out of her funk to toss Drakken and Motor Ed to one side. Now was not the time to be remembering nonsense from her childhood, now was the time to be concentrating on making sure Dr D.'s pet "Doomvee" didn't go flying off the road. Motor Ed might have been a genius, but he had a little problem working out the power to control issue. He certainly came down too hard on the power front.
Though she tried to remind herself that this was just another of Drakken's crazy schemes, and she was just the sidekick doing her job, something didn't sit right with this one. It cut just a little too close to home for her.
***
"So you've been in that chair..."
"All my life."
"All your life?"
"All my life."
"That's gotta suck hard," She said idly.
He managed a smile, "You get used to it after a while."
"I guess, but I would hate to not be able to run and climb stuff."
"But you know what it's like to do stuff like that. I've never been able to, so I don't mind so much."
She frowned, "That kinda makes sense in a weird sort of way."
She waited off to the side while he filled in the forms, then followed him back down the hall. "So... what class have you got now?"
"Gym."
"Gym!"
He smiled again, "I like that look on you, it's a good look. Yes, gym. I can still throw, can't I?"
She shrugged, "I'm going to insult you a lot in the next few days, I can tell."
"The next few days?"
"Well, I want to see you again, so I hope there's going to be more days. Is that okay?"
"That would be great! Hey, so my name's Dan, what's yours?"
***
"SHEGO!"
"Argh! Doctor D.! No distracting me when I'm trying to make a quick getaway!"
He lowered his voice, "If you don't slow down Ed won't be able to get back in."
"Great, fine, let him stay out there with his stolen wheelchair." She wasn't exactly feeling waves of good intentions towards the irritating rock wannabe.
"I get the impression that you like this plan even less than some of our take over the world schemes. Why aren't you pulling your full weight?"
She was silent for a long time, wondering just what she could tell him, eventually she sighed, "I just think this is low, even for you. Even we have to have standards, don't we?"
"We want to conquer the world Shego, not run for government."
"Exactly my point."
His temper returned, "Just do sidekick things, and get us back to the lair!"
***
He did see her the next day, and the day after that, and the day after that. Although they didn't share any classes, she met him after every lesson, and walked with him around the school, opening doors for him and talking all the time. She learned that he had been moved from school to school because everywhere the bullying had reached a point where he couldn't deal with it anymore, and all he wanted was to go somewhere where his disability wasn't an issue.
They were friends in a week, close friends in two, she told him everything about her older brothers, and how their parents heaped all the praises on them. How she was treated like a silly little girl who didn't know anything, even if she was smarter than any of them. He was a good listener, and she liked hearing him talk as well.
***
It was two months in when she saw him he was waiting by the drinking fountain, struggling to pull himself up to drink. She saw the older boys coming before he did.
"Out of the way crip!" The biggest one laughed, shoving the wheelchair over, Dan tumbled to the floor, his useless legs tangled up in the spokes.
"Hey!" She yelled, running towards them, forgetting for a moment that she was outnumbered, and there were four of them. "You can't do stuff like that! He's in a wheelchair!"
"Oh, and the little bookworm's gonna stop us?"
She slapped the big one as hard as she could. He barely flinched, then backhanded her across the face, "That's how you slap someone," He told her icily, "Let's go boys."
She lay staring at the ceiling for a bit, until a moan from Dan reminded her that she had other concerns. Head spinning, she rolled to her feet and went to help right the wheelchair and haul him back in. "Are you alright?"
He grunted.
"Hey, I'm sorry I couldn't do anything else, but they're really big, and I'm just a girl..."
"Exactly, I may be useless, but I don't want some girl fighting for me!"
"Wha?"
"Just leave me alone, you're just as bad as everyone else, thinking I can't stand up for myself."
He rolled away, leaving her standing in the middle of the corridor, tears leaking into her eyes.
She was inconsolable, nothing her parents did could convince her to eat, or work. She spent the entire weekend in her room sobbing, alternating between throwing her things around and huddled in a corner with her head in her hands, wondering what she had done wrong.
In the end it was Jerry who braved the yelling and flying objects to see her. He came in brandishing a dustbin lid, cowering behind it as he peeked round to see where she was.
"Hey sis."
"Whadya want?"
"I'd like a cookie, and since He's hogging the kitchen table, I wanted to come to the only place where He won't come."
He, their oldest brother. She smiled, "Alright, come in, but don't try and talk to me because I don't want to talk."
"Alright I won't." He sat at her desk and laid the plate of cookies in front of himself, munching happily on the first one. She watching him suspiciously for a while, but he didn't communicate, just moved from cookie to cookie with determined glee.
"It wasn't like I thought he couldn't handle it." She mumbled eventually. He ignored her and carried on with the cookies, "I just thought that it was what a friend should do, stand up for him and help him." Jerry continued his way through the cookies, "But maybe I should have explained to him, maybe he didn't understand, maybe I didn't understand!"
She looked to her brother for confirmation, but he was halfway through a chocolate chip, eyes closed and sighing in happiness. "Maybe I didn't think about his disability the right way, I don't like anyone doing things for me; he must be the same way. He's not a jerk, he's jus stubborn! But I'm stubborn as well, so I'm going to talk to him on Monday whether he wants me to or not!"
Jerry finished another cookie and patted his stomach, "That was great, thanks for letting me hide out here sis."
He left the plate, gathered up his dustbin lid and exited without a farewell or backwards glance. Annoyed, she went over to the plate, where she found one final cookie and a piece of paper with something written on it.
There's a guy called Dan who's been ringing since Friday. Dad wants to know how he got our number. Mum seems to be doing some weird girly thing about it.
She ate the cookie slowly. Maybe she wasn't the only stubborn one around.
Shego shook the memory away. If she wasn't thinking about Dan, she definitely wasn't thinking about Mego, not when she had to find some way to put a stop to Drakken and that ridiculous baby mullet.
Seriously.
AN:-
I always wondered just why Shego raised an objection to stealing Felix's wheelchair. I was also always curious as to what she was like when she was good. I decided to explore both in this fic, which is my take on a younger (13/14) Shego and someone she might have been friends with.
Jerry is Mego, his name is taken from Mego's voice actor Jere. The mysteriously unnamed "He" will go on to become "Hego", appropriate, no? I didn't really want to reveal (alright, guess) the Go family names, since it ruins a lot of their mystique. Hence the little "SHEGO!" jab later.
Dan is my own original character, as you can probably guess. I get the impression that he's older than Shego, but not by much. He's a pretty beat up guy, who I imagine spent his whole life doing nothing but getting beat up and spat on. The timing of this story is a little inaccurate, but if we take Shego to be about 10 years older than Kim, this story is set 20 years before Season 1, sometime in the early 80s, when people were still a little wary around disability.
And yes, I snuck in a joke about corrupt politicians and world leaders.
As you can probably guess, this takes place during ep 55. 'Steal the Wheels'