Author's Foreword
Hey there, everyone! Yes, I've been away for a little over a year and a quarter with no word from me, but real life has drawn most of my attention for nearly all of that time; for that, you have my most sincere apologies. That said, while doing some other FFN related stuff, my muses bit me pretty hard on the rear, and the li'l fic here popped into my head.
What's that other FFN related stuff, you may ask? Well... I'm re-editing and partially rewriting both books of Vacation from the Norm; the reason for the rewrite is that, upon review of my - admittedly very loose - outline for the trilogy as well as re-read the fic proper, I realized that, frankly, it had become screwed up. Badly. There were several inconsistencies (some small, some fairly noticeable, but all of them important to the story's readability), some very questionable choices in timetable, and some outright mistakes in the overall story.
Unfortunately, the most glaring issue was the fact that some things had been interposed from Book III into Book II, and the original intended presentation was screwed up, to boot! This interpositioning threw off the feel, flow and, frankly, the overall progress of the story. As the author, it felt best to fix things from the beginning rather than continuing to present my readers with a broken fic. So look for the revamp of VftN soon, it'll be an M rated fic from the start this time, and let me know what you think!
As for this fic, the only editing that's been done has been mine, so it might not be the best, but I hope you like it. Please let me know what ya think!
Disclaimer: see author's profile.
Kim Possible: Faith
"You shouldn't have done this to me," Kim growled as she stared at the mirror in front of her. She presumed it was a one way mirror, especially with the rest of the room being completely featureless aside from the recessed lighting above her hidden behind obviously thick polycarbonate. That was the only thing she knew about the place, other than the fact that the closest thing to decency was the vest holding her arms behind her back; that wasn't much of a comfort, as it only covered her nude abdomen, leaving both her lower and upper body quite exposed.
"Especially not today." she added as she shook her arms in annoyance. Her eyes narrowed as the vest gave her a fairly mild electric shock, seemingly to let her know it was there and active. That was another reinforcement to her conclusion about the mirror, since the vest hadn't done anything until she'd stood from her apparent slumber after falling through a hole in her hotel room's shower.
"Ms. Possible," the electronically disguised male voice soothed, giving her presumption of a one way mirror more strength, "please don't struggle. It will only make this harder on you." The voice paused, as if waiting for her to say something. Kim continued to stare at the mirror, feeling that odd sensation that she was staring straight at whoever was on the other side, and said nothing. The shrug from the other side of the mirror was almost palpable in the voice as it continued, "We have some important questions for you, and it would be in your best interests to answer them."
"Go to hell." Kim ground out as she crouched and angled herself towards the mirror. The shock vest she wore activated with a much more powerful jolt, causing most of the muscles in her body to spasm at once. She let out an enraged, pained roar as the electricity surged through her, launched towards the mirror, hard enough that the thick material shook slightly. The force of the blow nearly knocked her unconscious, but she didn't fall for the full three seconds of the vest's charge. When it stopped, she fell into an odd position below the mirror, her legs curled up halfway underneath her left side and her torso half twisted such that both shoulders almost touched the mirror behind her.
"Now, now, Ms. Possible, you can not escape-..." the voice began, only to be cut off as the red-head growled out at the voice.
"Anything's possible for a Possible, you moron!" She nodded at the end of her declaration, and paid a price for it; due to her odd position, the slight head movement caused her body to flex, which in turn set the vest off. Again her muscles locked, but, again due to her position, she stayed in place, her hips the only thing moving away from the wall. The bowing of her body was painful, and a ragged half shriek was ripped from her throat, her abdomen and thighs locking in an agonizing fashion. After three seconds the vest cut off, and her body relaxed almost forcefully, shifting her position which made her head loll around on her neck as if of its own accord.
"Calm down, Ms. Poss-..." the voice was cut off as Kim screamed again, the simple movement of her body and head starting up the vest up again, much to the panic of people apparently in the background of the man speaking to her. She barely heard the man's voice panicking slightly and ordering the vest turned off, though she felt immense relief when she fell over onto her right side and rolled onto her back. Her legs and arms were twitching, as were the muscles of her diaphragm, causing her a good deal of trouble breathing.
"We need to get her out of there!" a voice, feminine yet distorted by whatever the man was using, "Her breathing's erratic and she can bare-..."
"Ms. Possible is to be questioned about the break in thoroughly, understood, Ag-..." the man ordered, then paused, "Who left the mic on?" the man's growled question was punctuated by the sound of a microphone being turned off, cutting off the sounds from the room now behind Kim. Although she was barely conscious, she had enough of her wits about her to presume the man had shut off the microphone from his side, and wondered if he had turned off the vest as well.
Shrugging mentally, she asked the air, adding in a non-existant slur to imply she had not only been hurt by the shocking, but the headlong collision with the wall. "Wha's wron, d's'ntention in y'r r'nks?" She let out a coughing wheeze, jumping slighly as the vest gave her a warning jolt, "Or'd'ja re'lize tha' four'a th' mos' dang'rous people in th' whole worl'll be here soon t' rip this f'cil'ty 'part?"
The sound of the mic turning on a few seconds later was surprisingly loud to the red-head, "Ms. Possible, that's a foolish hope to cling to." The voice, despite its distortion, held a distinctly smug edge to it, "You were captured from your hotel at the time and manner you were so we knew you'd have no trackers on your person. You're trapped in a location from which radio waves cannot escape and we ran you through a full body EMP; anything on or within your person was destroyed." She let her head loll as if she'd passed out, getting another warning jolt but not nearly as much voltage as earlier, "As you can tell, we have all the power here, Ms. Possible."
Oh, really? Kim wondered to herself, smirking at the steady almost-beep that was her cybertronic homing implant. The device had been online and transmitting since slamming into the mirror. Even better, she knew that no one short of Team Possible or aliens had tech that could defeat, let alone discover, the device. Well, let's see how you react when my wife and friends get here, hmmm?
KP KP KP KP
"Where's she at, Wade?" Ron growled, his face worried, livid and exasperated as one. The worry and anger were easy to understand, considering Kim had disappeared from her room with no explanation whatsoever. The exasperation, though it would seem out of place, was understandable as well, considering he had spent the last twenty minutes trying to calm down both his wife of eight hours as well as Kim's, who was also one of his best friends in the world.
"All I've been able to discover is that she's alright, 'cause her emergency beacon hasn't gone off ye..." Wade said nervously, but was interrupted by the aforementioned best friend.
"Just tell us if you know where my wife is, WL!" Wade flinched at the dark skinned face that filled his screen, her dark eyes flashing as she snatched the Ron-Com mk. III from the blond's hands. Rufus, who had been sitting on the woman's shoulder, squeaked as he almost fell, holding onto her shoulder as if for sheer life, "My HAH wife's been gone for almost a half hour, and it's interrupting our goddamn wedding night!"
"Um," Wade gulped, "H, A, H? That's new..."
"Hot as hell, Wadester." Ron supplied with a heavy sigh, having learned that one from Monique earlier on their trip to Paris.
"Exactly." Monique confirmed, narrowing her eyes at the nineteen year old on the screen. Wade gulped at the livid expression on Monique McCoy's face, still somewhat afraid of the beauty despite his growth spurt and the healthy lifestyle Shego had put him on some six years earlier. Even so, the six-foot-five, three-hundred and twenty pound man went to typing even faster than he had been.
"Not just yours, Muffin." the voice of Shego growled out, the view of the Ron-Com slewing about wildly as she snagged the device from Monique's hands, despite the dark skinned beauty's grumbling protest. A moment later, she'd locked the band to support the device on the table she was sitting next to, her head resting on Ron's shoulder. She also activated the holographic function, so instead of Wade's face on the small screen, a hologram of a two foot tall, floating Wade appearing above the device. She smiled down at the nineteen year old genius, and though it was a strained smile, her voice was soothing, "Go ahead with what you have, Wade."
"Um," Wade nodded distractedly, his face screwing up in confusion. He cocked his head at an odd angle, "According to a recent routine report from the Paris office, an undisclosed prisoner is being held, and was brought in about the same time as Kim disappeared, with a request for orders to Dr. Director... But the orders never got forwarded to GJ HQ. They're supposedly on hold from the UNSC proper, with orders to keep Team Possible out of the loop..."
"Why, Wade?" Ron asked, sitting forward to steeple his fingers in front of his face, "And this is taking a while, even for you..."
"For your first question, Ron, I can't be sure of that yet..." Wade said distractedly. After a long moment of tense silence, broken only by his typing, he continued, his expression becoming bleak, "As to the second, I've backdoored into their communications, and I have to be careful, since we're supposedly locked out and they've changed security over there in Paris..." He shook his head slightly before continuing, "As of about four hours ago... The request went out about two and a half hours ago, the orders supposedly from Dr. Director two hours ago, the orders to Will about an hour and a half ago..." He trailed off, his typing coming in fits and spurts of intense activity, no one noticing Shego's face twisting in confusion even deeper than Wade's.
"But..." Shego murmured softly, standing and double checking her equipment belt, "That's impossible, we spoke to Will when we landed, he's back in Middleton, and m-..." Shego glanced around, her pause drawing everyone's attention, "Well, according to rumor, Betty's supposed to be in a closed session with the UNSC, though it should be out, an-..."
"And I thought Mo was good with rumors, Shego!" Wade said, managing a tight chuckle as Ron, Monique and even Rufus double checked their gear, "And you're right, that's exactly where she is, and it was supposed to be done a half hour ago, which I think is why I've been stonewalled at getting will over at GJHQ... Then again..." he frowned as he read something he'd just seen on his screen, "Okay... The orders came from the UN building, but the closed session's being held in a secure location about an hour's tube ride from there."
"So they might still have a mole, even after Texas." Ron said evenly, his voice suddenly calm and his eyes narrowed to brilliant blue slits. "Or is it something else entirely?"
"I'd like to know that myself, Ron." Wade said just as evenly, his fingers tapping in a rapid fire fashion that they hadn't heard in some time, "I honestly have no idea how they figured out where you guys are, though, 'cause that was only known by us, Will and Betty!"
"Well, TIJS!" Monique hissed, then growled out when everyone looked at her askance, "This is just stupid!" She threw up her hands in frustration when everyone rolled their eyes at her, "Jesus, guys, YKMF-..."
"She's right," Shego said softly, ignoring Monique's annoyed huff at the interruption "what's the hows and whys!"
"The hows? Still finding that out." Wade snipped in indignation, "The why's keep compounding, worst case is that the hotel's a compromised GJ front, one that existed even after Betty and Will's promise of full disclosure after that shit down in Texas!"
"No way, Nerdlinger." Shego said with quiet assurance, "Betty wouldn't lie to me, and Will's never been able to."
"AJWT, Mint?" Monique asked, sighing when Shego gave her a bleak scowl, "And just why's tha-..."
"Don't matter, Muffin." Ron said bluntly, adopting Shego's nickname for Monique in a relatively successful bid to redirect her attention, "What're the whys you do know, Wade?" Ron asked before the simmering Monique could turn her rage at him, giving his friend a quelling look. The chocolate skinned beauty huffed but remained quiet, much to Ron's relief.
"One sec, I'm getting the Paris info now. Sorry for the delay, but I have to be careful just in cas-..." He paused and turned his full attention to typing, his face becoming more and more confused. "According to the dispatch, Will requested, and Betty ordered, Kim's capture, in connection t-..." Wade flinched as he continued reading for a few seconds in silence, "This can't be right..."
"Wade Leshawn Load!" Monique snapped, drawing Wade's attention to his screen, "What CBR?"
"Um, according to this," Wade boggled at Monique, then shook his head slightly, continuing in a mystified fashion, "Will's over in Paris according to this, and Kim was ordered taken in for questioning about a break in at one of the Texas HenchCo bran-..."
"Y'mean the one that happened when we were all in Texas six months ago?" Monique frowned in confusion, her voice rising higher and higher in volume as she continued, "The one that resulted in an underground war between HenchCo and GJ? The one we helped stop?"
"No, that was their Dallas facility, this is a new one that just took place today in Austin..." Wade snapped, his annoyance at her interruption evident enough to make even Monique's temper - a long held secret of the black woman's - quell a bit. "At 3 p.m. Mountain Time!"
"While we were getting married?" Shego murmured, her eyes flaring with anger, "Oh, somone's gonna pay!"
"Ok, someone with a brain finally put me through to Will." Wade griped, typing a command before a flat, six inch holographic 'flat screen' opened a few inches to the right of Wade's hologram.
"I certainly hope this was important, Dr. Loa-..." was all Will managed before Shego started in, beating everyone else to the punch.
"Hey, Willie," Shego said, her voice dripping the faux sweetness that it tended to when she was beyond enraged, "Where you at?"
"Back at HQ," Will blinked, glancing helplessly over at where they figured Wade was on his screens, "Just what's this about, She-..." He gulped when he noticed Ron and Rufus both had glowing blue eyes, and Monique looking at him with violence clear on her face.
"Well, according to the Paris office, you're there," Wade said, forestalling anyone else speaking, "while in addition, Betty ordered - based upon that request from you - to have Kim arrested by GJ. Which she apparently was." Wade watched Will's shocked face, and typed in a command, the words 'He's being truthful.' appearing only on Team Possible's side of the conversation. "Oddly, only you, Betty and us knew where they were staying, and Kim disappeared out of her and Monique's rooms." Will looked absolutely furious at Wade's information, but before he could say a word, Wade continued in a calm, matter of fact manner, "We know it wasn't you or Betty, but as soon as I find Kim, we're going in, and going in hot..."
"Let me make some calls before you do, please!" Will objected, already signaling someone in the GJHQ command center to make a connection, most likely to Betty, "We don't need any more of our facilities damaged due to someone screwing up somewh-..."
"Then you shouldn't have let someone take your place over here in Paris, Willie." Shego said calmly, drawing a nervous gulp from Will, "You didn't happen to note down anywhere in the GJ servers where we were going, did you?"
"No!" Will answered in turn, glaring at Shego much like he used to glare at all of Team Possible's members, "I'll get Dr. Director in on this an-..."
"We're moving as soon as Wade has her location, Will." Ron said firmly, "Whether your people here are ready or not. Just keep that in mind."
"This is apparently in relation to the break in at HenchCo's Austin facilities, Will." Wade interjected before things could get worse, "I... Think I might have an idea why whoever took Kim knew where she was." Another panel opened, showing a French blog with pictures of Team Possible at Charles de Gaulle Airport, as well as outside of the hotel they were staying at, "If they randomly called rooms, they'd've been able to figure out what room you were in. As to how they grabbed Kim?" Wade shrugged helplessly, drawing frustrated growls from Team Possible's field team.
"I'll ask just what was grabbed from HenchCo" Will said, shaking his head, "And hopefully I'll be able to get ahold of Dr. Director or the Paris office by then..." Will sighed, then looked over to his right, muting his side of the conversation for a moment. Wade was about to ask what he was doing when an alarm on his side of the conversation went off, drawing his attention.
"Guys, her emergency beacon just went off!" Wade declared as he tapped several commands into his keyboard, and their communicators all went off, "There's her location, looks like one of the old, deactivated GJ interrogation safehouses..." Wade quirked his eyebrow, "It was brought back on about ten minutes before Kim was taken..."
"We're on it." Ron declared as he grabbed the Ron-com from the table and put it on his wrist. He touched the face and his clothing morphed into a high tech shinobi shÅzoku, thanks to the nanosuit similar to Kim's old supersuit. The only thing that remained visible was the gadget belt, though it now seemed to be built into the suit proper.
A suit similar to Shego's old one, but with lighter, dark charcoal gray replacing the black and a darker, forrest green replacing the former, nearly florescent green sprang around her frame from her own communicator. She glanced over at Monique, her mouth opening when she noticed Monique's suit was already forming about her, and she smiled. "Gettin' better, girl..."
"Don't care how much this freaks me out," Monique commented as they walked towards the balcony, where the Sloth V2 - the former Sloth having long since been destroyed by a villain and replaced with a sleek, almost concept car looking sedan - was just easing up for entry, "IGMGB."
"I'm driving, Doofus." Shego snarked, earning a shrug and a nod from Ron, who was in tactician mode with Kim out of the picture, then looked at Monique over Ron's back as he slipped over into the front passenger seat. "And mission speech only, Muffin!" Shego snapped good naturedly.
"I'm gettin' my girl back, Mint." Mo shot back as she buckled herself into the rear seat of the Sloth.
"Well, keep the text speak down 'til we get back here, 'kay?" Shego all but ordered, earning a grudging grunt from Monique.
"Will, details about this facility." Ron asked as Will unmuted, glancing at the dual hologram he'd transferred over to the Sloth's communications system, "And any word from HenchCo?"
"A prototype of some kind, but no details about what it is." Will sounded frustrated, "I think Wade's already checking out what it was?" At Wade's innocent smile, Will managed a slight curving of his own lips, before sighing heavily, "As for the facility, there shouldn't be any way for them to get power there, let alone working holding facilities." Will paused and set his mind to work, worrying the problem from the inside out, "Then again, they managed to convince the entirety of the Paris office that I was there, so they have inside information, or at least, an angle on the inside, so they could have used some of the Possible, Lipsky and Porter nanobuilders Global Justice keeps on hand as a way to get the structure in usable form again..."
"And obviously they could've used portable generators for power." Monique pointed out as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. At the two second pause following her suggestion, she glanced about, "What?"
"I should've thought've that." Shego shook her head, smirking, "I used to have at least one portable diesel genset on hand whenever Doc was working on his greatest new plan ever, so I could keep on tanning... Just in case he blew the power out doing one experiment or another."
"Well, that was Dr. Director's presumption as well." Will nodded, then shook his head, "And apparently, one of the members of the UNSC was double dealing, and had the idiotic idea of having an alleged witness as to Dr. Director's suitability as General Director and First Agent of Global Justice a phone line into the session location."
"What, did they trace the call and come in guns blazing?" Monique asked in a nearly sing-song tone.
"Not exactly." Will said in a droll tone, "But the transportulator Dr. Load mentioned?" Everyone nodded at him, "That's how the Betas got to the meeting..."
"And that's what was stolen from HenchCo this afternoon..." Wade said grimly, an angry frown on his face.
"When I get ahold of whoever took my wife..." Monique started, but trailed off, cracking her knuckles loudly.
"I just sent Wade the general layout to the safehouse." Will spoke into the silence after Mnoique's statement, "The areas marked in dark blue will be ones the nanobuilder couldn't have changed, other than that..."
KP KP KP KP
"Miss Possible." Kim didn't move when the undisguised, whispered voice of a young woman spoke, but watched her through slit eyes. The woman spoke with a German accent and while only a little older than Wade, she moved with as much assurance as Kim had at her age, and despite being somewhat busty, had the fit body of an experienced GJ field agent. Her blonde hair cut in a no nonsense yet fetching bob, big, open gray eyes clouded with worry and a button nose cuteness to her face.
In her hands, she carried what looked like a spare GJ uniform, but that wasn't what had Kim seething inside. The young woman was quite familiar, and Kim now placed the voice she'd heard earlier with the blonde standing in the room: Agent Helga Lange, recently promoted to Senior Field Agent after three years of exemplary work with both the European and American GJ offices and passing an advanced training and tactics course Team Possible had taught for GJ at Betty's request. The recognition forced Kim to rely on meditation techniques Ron had taught her during their first year after high school while training at Yamanouchi. After all, the woman was good, and the red-head had been in talks with Betty - and still held high hopes for - recruiting the blonde as a permanent liaison for Team Possible with GJ. Seeing her here, however, had the red-head's famous temper flaring. How could Helga betray us and GJ like this?
"I'm sorry I couldn't help earlier," Helga murmured, almost making Kim drop her ruse in shock as the blonde seemed to answer her unspoken thought, "but I've only recently been able to create a situation to draw everyone else away from here..."
A few loud clicks stopped her speech, but Kim remained as she had been for the prior ten minutes. She seemed to have convinced everyone in the apparent GJ holding facility she'd passed out, and didn't want to give up that advantage. The clicking didn't repeat, and seemed rather far away, so Helga returned to her approach to Kim. She tensed herself as the agent approached, preparing to strike if she needed to, remembering how well the young woman had done in the training Team Possible had given a hand selected group of GJ agents a few months earlier. She felt a brief moment of elation when the blonde pointed a control wand at the vest and heard the devices capacitors whine in the declining note of powering down. Maybe she hasn't betrayed everyone, Kim concluded, though she wasn't ready to dismiss her worry that easily, but I'm not taking any chances...
Helga then went about releasing the velcro straps of her suit, then unlocking the cuffs that held her arms behind her. The young woman kept her eyes slightly averted as if embarrassed at Kims essentially nude state, which was to the red-head's advantage. As soon as the vest was completely removed and the shackles dropped to the floor, the heroine spun onto her knee and grabbed the left side of the woman's neck in a vice-like grip while driving her thumb just inside and about three-eighths of an inch forward of the angle angle of her jaw. The thumb applied immense pressure on the mandibular foramen, which in turn put that pressure on both the mandibular and inferior alveolar nerve, as well as the inferior alveolar artery.
She used that pressure, which had Helga for all intents and purposes immobilized, to pull her down and close to Kim's face, where she stared deeply into the woman's now even more frightened eyes, hissing quietly, "How do I know you're not working with this fake Will Du, Helga?"
"You don't." Helga grit out despite the pain, "But I managed to fake a cardiac emergency to get the other two agents out of the room; they'll be back with Agent Du soon, and we must get out of here!"
Kim took in the worried eyes above her, and the trust Helga still seemed to have for her despite the painful nerve hold Kim was using, and saw the truth in those eyes. She let go and Helga let out a mild gasp of relief, far less than Kim would have expected, even from the talented agent above her. "Please, get dressed, ma'am."
"Thanks." Kim nodded, slipping into her borrowed uniform with easy practice. It was, she guessed, a spare of Helga's, as the woman was a few inches taller than Kim's five-foot-four, and the chest left a little spare room. Kim let out what she hoped was an unobtrusive sigh of annoyance at that observation, but shook it off as she glanced at Helga. "You must know that's not Agent Du," she murmured softly, bending to pick up the shackles, "He's still over in Middleton as of forty-five minutes ago."
"I thought so," Helga nodded, frowning in anger of her own, "When he asked for volunteers to help with a high threat interrogation, about two dozen agents raised their hands. However, he only picked people holding their hands a certain way, all of whom were not only transfers from our Southern European offices, but had arrived within the last forty-eight hours. I mimicked them and he chose me. When I saw you..." Helga shrugged helplessly, her eyes speaking to a complex mass of emotions, though rage was the most easily digested, "We should go, I don't think we hav-..."
"Going somewhere, Agent Lange, Ms. Possible?" the voice from the control room startled both women, as did two agents entering the room wielding GJ issue 'Taser shotguns', heavily built quad barreled Taser units that fired over twenty barb tipped wires per barrel, designed for crowd control. There were two more agents in the hall, carrying heavy stun batons, though these were HenchCo Bigger, Better ShokStix, obviously not GJ issue.
"BB ShokStix?" Kim asked, smirking in an almost evil manner, "Let's see... Relatively new item, HenchCo only allows villains with a double plutonium credit line to purchase them, and considering that the none of you look like Russia's Black Legion, Japan's Red Dawn or Australia's Drop Bears, you must be WWEE. And judging by the fact that you're able to disguise yourself as Agent Du, you're obviously not Gemini, so..." Kim paused, bringing her right hand up to her face to tap her chin as if in thought. The men with the Taser shotguns almost pulled the triggers, but held off, and Kim chuckled with a smug smile on her face, "If I had to guess, Agent Alpha?"
"My, aren't you a clever bitch." the voice snipped at her, "But it doesn't matter... Soon we'll have you subdued, and not long after that, we'll not only have Ms. Possible as our cooperative, if not willing pawn, but a trusted, up and coming GJ agent as well."
Kim opened her mouth to speak at that point, when the entire building shivered, as if a dog shaking water from its back. The red-head smirked, her eyes glowing in anticipation, "I guess you were wrong about my backup arriving."
"Considering you interrupted Mrs. Possible's honeymoon," Helga added, a smug grin alighting her lips as well, "I'd give up..."
KP KP KP KP
"I can't believe this..." Monique grumbled quietly to Rufus, his sympathetic gaze offering no solace for his friend. While that bothered the smallest member of the team, he was glad she wasn't using 'Mo-speak', "A year pining away for and then a year fighting to get Kim and Ron together when I thought she was straight as an arrow..." She turned a brief glare on Shego, continuing with a quiet huff, "Then two years later I'm away at college and I find out after the fact that she 'n' Ron broke up, and after getting dragged into that mission against the Fashion Disasters, I got bit by the mission bug and joined up with you guys."
Rufus glanced up at the front when Monique glared ahead. His Human's Lady was, as usual, lost in the act of flight, a half distracted grin on her face. His Human, however, was watching the dark skinned beauty with his peripheral vision, and had what Joss Possible often termed a 'shit eating grin', as if he knew something that Monique didn't know. Rufus knew why Ron wore that smile, but wouldn't dare reveal it. Monique, similar to Kim, had a scary temper, but one that took longer to set off, and while shorter in duration, tended to be more explosive.
"I mean, I was always happy for my girl, but it sucked watching her 'n' Mint play kissy face and more for those two years... Even worse than all those horrible dates I went on during that time!" Monique's frustration was bubbling just below the surface as she turned towards their destination, shown as a red flag in the enhanced reality HUD of the Sloth Mk II. Her voice finally began to raise as her anger began to bubble over, "And on our wedding night some douche captures her for whatever reason! And I had everything set up perfectly, and I mean everything!"
"At least you're not suffering alone, Muffin..." Shego drawled with a sardonic smile, "I know you had your romantic night laid out as fashionably as everything else, but remember, the Doofus an' I had our evening planned out as well..."
"Yeah, I know..." Monique sighed, puffing her cheeks out and grimacing, "Sorry, guys, I'm just..."
"Worried sick?" Ron offered, his smile dropping into his serious face, "Pissed off? Feeling sorry for the target of your ire?"
"Not feelin' sorry for them," Monique griped, "that's for sure!"
"Neither am I." Shego said with a sharp nod.
Betty Director's face cam up on a holographic screen similar to Will's earlier appearance, looking quite ragged. There was a butterfly stitched cut on her right cheek that looked to be from a meaty fist, some of her hair was singed and her lip was swollen, but her eyes were clear and sharp as she spoke, "Good evening, I'm sorry for the interruption this has caused."
"Since you weren't a part of this, no prob, Betts." Ron smirked at her eye narrowing, then sobered, "We're going to be on site in about five minutes."
"Good." Betty nodded, "Will and Wade brought me up to date on the situation. I can confirm thanks to questioning one of the Betas here that the operation against both the UNSC and you was perpetrated by Gemini."
"Wasn't he captured ten months ago?" Shego snarked at the woman on the screen, earning a wince from the one eyed woman.
"Yes," Betty nodded, her expression dark, "Unfortunately, one of the oversight committee members got with one of the UNSC members to free him secretly. He's been in France for the last two months; the French councilwoman had he would help her gain more political clout within the EU, but that obviously backfired." She grimaced, then, realizing someone was missing from the conversation, "Were's Wade?"
"Doin' something or another." Shego murmured without any hint of evasion, then gave a dismissive snort, "As to the politicos, business as usual..."
"Unfortunately." Betty agreed. She was about to speak when Shego looked over at Ron.
"So how we gonna do this, Monkey Butt?" she asked, smirking when Betty glowered at being dismissed so easily, "Kimmie's usual way, your way, or shock and awe?"
"I'd like to do it my way..." Ron started, and saw Betty opening her mouth to object. He continued before she could interject, "Considering how this place might've changed?" Ron's tone was mildly questioning, as if asking for input from the rest of them, "I'm thinking shock 'n' awe."
"Uh-huh, uh-huh, yup!" Rufus agreed, Monique grunting out a wordless assent.
"As loathe as I am to go that route as a rule," Betty said with surprising firmness, "I agree."
"Oooo, goody!" Shego squirmed in her seat excitedly, "How hard we gonna hit 'em?"
"Keep in mind there might be duped agents there..." Betty interjected, earning a scowl from Shego.
"She has a point..." Monique murmured in concerned agreement, her anger cooling slightly as the normally coolest head in Team Possible began to calculate probabilities in the same way she chewed on gossip.
"Well, if there's real GJ agents in there that've been duped, it might be risky..." Ron began, then his face darkened a bit, "But if they've hurt KP?" He glanced at his wife, and best friends, then back to Betty, "there's no tellin' how bad it might get."
"Just try to keep things under control," Betty requested, adding with a pointed gaze to Shego, "And no showboating..."
"Oh, c'mon, it's us, Betts!" Shego chortled, then glanced over at Ron with a devilish, seemingly aroused grin, "Besides, I have a feeling Ronnie wants to show off for his new wife, just a li'l bit..."
"Shego..." Betty began, her face a mix of concern and almost parental exasperation, even as Ron chuckled in seeming agreement with Shego.
"Besides," Shego continued, "If they've got Princess on lock down, goin' in full burn might be for the best..."
"Girl's got a point, Blondie, Betty." Monique agreed, pursing her lips. After a moment, with Shego tapping a few commands into the computer system, she gazed through the windshield at the approaching compound, "So, we gonna land and have Ron monkey out, or what?"
Ron started to speak, when Shego pressed a button on the dash and called out to thin air, "Got control, Nerdlinger?"
"Yep!" he confirmed as the flying car dove, and Shego slapped the quick release on her four point restraint.
"Shego, what are you doing?" Betty and Monique asked at the same time, even as Ron groaned and half laughed at the same time.
"Catch you guys on the ground!" the pale woman chirped. The window of the super sedan rolled down almost instantly, and the heroine used the quasi-freefall engendered by the Sloth's brief dive to slip out the window. She then used the 'B' pillar to shove off, even as she tilted her head downwards, drawing her arms close to the side of her body and her feet close together and pointed behind her. The Sloth had already been traveling at over 200 miles per hour, with her arrowhead freefall position she increased that to nearly 300 miles per hour, a nimbus of power beginning to glow about her entire body.
As soon as Shego had been out of the car, the Sloth's window snapped up faster than a human could blink. "That's going to be noisy..." Ron snickered as he watched his wife hurtle towards their target's western side.
"I was going to request you did the ingress, Ronald." Betty fumed, her face oddly worried.
"Nah," Ron murmured, "We're gonna do a flyby and drop Mo 'n' me out. I'll float us down to the top East of the roof, and we'll join Shego in the middle." Betty gave him an unreadable expression, which drew a chuckle from Ron as the Sloth slowed to a paltry thirty miles per hour. Rufus jumped to Ron's shoulder as the blond and Monique opened their doors, and he turned to Betty's scowling face, "Don't worry, Betty, we'll make sure she stays out of trouble!"
"That's now that I mean-..." was the last thing either of them heard as they jumped out into the space above the Chambly, in the Oise department northern France.
Ron was at Monique's left side within two seconds, his right arm sliding easily around her waist, her left about his shoulder, the blond calling out, "Hold on!"
"Don't drop me, Doofus!" Monique called out worriedly, gazing over to the corner of the building which was now lit with not only Shego's landing crater, but bright flashes of the superheroine's plasma. When Ron's chuckle sounded over their coms, it was anything but calming.
"Don't worry, Mo," Ron chirped, "No stunballs comin' up requiring me to drop you!"
"Oh, that makes me feel so much better!" Monique answered sarcastically, even as they angled towards the roof, and the half dozen goons spilling out of the roof access hatch...
KP KP KP KP
"Agent Lange here has a poit," Kim said as she glanced over at the agent. The sounds of combat were quite audible coming from above and to their right rear. The heroine gave a nearly imperceptible nod to her left, to which Helga gave a smirk that would have done Shego proud. "Give up and it'll go a lot easier on you, though maybe not so much for the fake using Agent Du's face." Kim declared easily, leaning back on her right leg, incidentally hiding the tension of her hand in the shackles still in her hand.
"Ms. Possible," the voice scrambling had been dropped, revealing a voice that sounded just like Will Du's, "there are over ninety Alpha agents in the building." The voice was quite stuffy and arrogant, something else that tipped Kim to this being a simulacrum of some kind, since the agent in question had finally grown out of a little over a year earlier, "Not even your esteemed colleagues could get through that many before we have you under control... And not even the blond moron would risk your life in this situation!"
"My title," Kim growled, her whole body tensing as if angry, Helga bristling as if in sympathetic annoyance, "Is Misses Possible, since I'm," she suddenly spun about, the shackles barely clearing Helga's head as she whipped them at the two supposed GJ agents holding the Taser shotguns, finishing her statement with a roar of rage, "married!"
Kim followed the vicious swing of her arm into a tumble forward and to her right, while Helga took a step before jumping into a crouch, the vest in her hands coming up in front of her. Helga's move managed to take most of the Taser darts to the vest, and those few that passed through the arm holes discharged their electrical payload against the electrically resistant surface of her jumpsuit.
Kim managed to dodge the few darts that angled towards her with her desperate tumble, then breathed a sigh of relief as the shackles managed to swing around the man's left forearm and neck, throwing his aim off entirely. She continued her roll until she was on her feet, then jumped to spring into and then off of the wall, driving a hard sidekick to the man's helmeted head. The blow wasn't enough to knock him out, but the upwards driven elbow she followed up with worked quite handily. She caught Helga out of her right peripheral vision, the agent delivering a nearly textbook perfect TaeKwon-Do turning kick to the man's inner right knee. The blow lurched the man down and to his right, which delivered him into Kim's range. Kim shifted her stance to her right, driving a double palm strike to the man's breadbasket, dropping the man forward. Helga followed her move with an elbow, managing to slip it under the rear brim of his helmet and to the temporal bone.
They were moving even as the man dropped, and Will's voice called out over the building intercom, "Alphas fifteen through thirty to the interrogation room now!"
"What's wrong?" Helga asked with a devilish smirk, slipping around the guard of the Alpha to the left side of the door, barely dodging his swinging ShokStik.
"Running already?" Kim asked, leaping over Helga and the man's wild swing, using a so-called 'Superman punch' with her left hand to the second Alpha's right biceps to stop his more controlled, knowledgeable swing in its tracks. She immediately grasped onto his forearm with her right hand, her left slipping up to grasp his shoulder, before pulling herself in with her whole body, wrenching her legs around and bracing them against his chest. She shoved off and towards the other Alpha, and Helga, as if feeling her intent, began an oddly flowing series of Krav Maga, Savate and TaeKwon-Do strikes onto the man. Then Kim was on the alpha she was flying towards, delivering several punches to his helmeted head, his shoulders chest and back as she flew over him.
She landed behind him and grabbed his right arm, and seeing the ShokStik set to heavy stun, brought it down on his gut. The man screamed as she dropped him, slipping the ShokStik from his hand to arm herself. "Grab hi-..." Seeing that Helga was already standing from a crouch, the other Alpha's ShokStik in hand, she grinned and winked at her, "Never mind..."
"Shall we?" Helga asked, barely breathing hard.
"Yeah..." Kim murmured, running off down the hall, seeming to ignore the sounds of over a dozen feet stamping towards their position, "We need to get to the center of the building before this poser does!"
"Why," Helga queried, but not in disagreement, "escape vehicle?"
"I was brought here by transportulator." Kim grumbled, "I don't want this moron getting away."
"I won't disagree!" Helga exclaimed, before pointing ahead of them, "Though they might..."
"Good!" Kim grinned in a manner that would have made Shego proud as she looked upon the wall of meat seemingly blocking the way ahead of them, "They've got themselves right where we want them!"
KP KP KP KP
"Alright, numbnuts..." Shego growled, stalking forward to pick WWEE Agent Alpha-3 bodily off of the floor. The big man winced as his broken wrist was further strained, but his eyes went wide as the superheroine lifted the huge man up and pinned him against the wall, raising a plasma wreathed hand in front of his face, "Where's Kimmie?"
"Screw you, bitch!" the man snapped, sweating visibly as he stared around at the nearly twenty unconscious men in the room, "I talk and I'm dead!"
"Your boss'll kill you for even being here and failing when we get her back," Shego hissed, dropping her hand and hovering about an inch from his groin, "But I can make you sing a higher note than Falsetto Jones if you keep screwing with me!"
The man's eyes widened even more than they already were as the heat began to seep through the supposedly heat and fire resistant suit, and Shego leaned in slightly, her voice a disturbingly soothing whisper, "Don't let it cross your mind that I can get my plasma well over twenty-thousand Celsius..."
"Center of the complex, bottom floor!" the man screeched, "There's about seventy-three Alphas left her-..."
The man's speech stopped as Shego reached up and touched a glowing hand to his forehead, her 'knockout' plasma burst leaving not a mark on him but easily sending him into unconsciousness. She then snagged the RFID tag from the collar of his suit and walked towards the doorway leading out of the loading dock she'd penetrated to during her fall. As she approached, but before the tag could have opened the door, it opened on its own, about thirty Alpha agents screaming, "That's Stoppable back there, all agents bug out! Not even Gemini will fault us for running away from him!"
"Oh, what'm I, chopped liver?" Shego yelled, lighting up both hands with roiling plasma. The man turned and paled even more, promptly passing out from his fright.
"It's the traitor!" one of the braver men yelled, turning to bring a weapon of some kind to bear on Shego.
"Traitor?" the pale woman pursed her lips in distaste, sending a fast moving, kinetically charged ball of plasma at the man's weapon. It struck true and the weapon flew apart in his hands, the small explosion of the battery pack blowing the man back against the wall close to him and into unconsciousness. "Next?" she asked, smirking and cocking her right hip out, her weight balanced on her right leg, tossing a plasma ball up and down in her left hand like a baseball.
"Run!" one of the men screamed, and an instant later thirty big, burly men turned on their heels and dashed for the inside of the complex.
"Hey, come back and play, assholes!" Shego called out, laughing half-manically and tossing more kinetic plasma balls after them...
KP KP KP KP
"Look out!" Ron growled, the steel bo-staff in his hands turning into a blurred whirl as he intercepted several darts from a Taser shotgun.
"Thanks, Ron!" Monique said, swirling around his body with a smooth capoeira ginga, followed up with a double palm strike taken straight out of traditional Shaolin Kung Fu, "And watch your own back, too!"
"You kiddin' me?" Ron asked as he brought the spinning staff around his upper body in an undulating fashion, taking out four Alphas as he did so, "KP'd kill me if I let anything happen to you!"
"Bot' wa'ch't!" Rufus declared as he came sailing between their heads, riding atop a CO2 fire extinguisher, using the nozzle to direct it into the heads of any Alphas he could.
"Got it, li'l buddy!" Ron said, dodging the falling forms of three of the men Rufus had taken down. The flood of Alpha agents had first run away from them, then were forced back into their path. At first, they'd been confused, but then the flashes of green followed the agents. Now Ron, Monique and Shego had them boxed in, and were making quick work of them. Monique, despite lacking their martial skill and superpowers was nonetheless holding her own, having dropped fifteen with her last strike. She glanced to her left down a hallway and saw a few Alphas running into what looked like someone running from one broom closet to another, and called out, "More down this hallway, I'm following!"
"Got it!" Ron called out, "Shego 'n' I'll finish these guys off and catch up!"
"Watch your ass, Muffin!" Shego called out over their communicators, her tone that of someone reveling in what she was doing.
Monique shook her head as she approached the door, hearing the sounds of a brief scuffle before the door flew open, nearly striking her face. She blinked as she saw the man in the hallway with a severely broken nose and a few missing teeth. When she looked into the room, she realized that a familiar blonde woman wailing on a big Alpha agent in the room. She opened her mouth to call out to the women when she saw what was inside the room.
Along one wall was a series of monitors showing the complex as well as several views of the European GJ headquarters and one screen with the words 'Target room sensors'. Connected to the console was a series of wires and what looked like a teleporter pad from Space Passage, about which two Kim Possibles wearing a standard GJ uniform were wrestling.
"Shego, Ron, I found my wife..." her voice stopped the fighting, which was a mix of serious grappling and high school cat fight, and added, "Sorta..."
"Good, we're done here." Shego answered.
"And on our way." Ron continued, his voice filled with annoyance more than anything.
"Hey, beautiful!" the Kim that had been doing more grappling than scratching quipped.
"What brings you here?" the other asked in a similar tone, earning a glare from the first Kim.
"Finding you..." Monique growled, her eyes narrowing sharply, "Now which one's my wife, hmmm?"
"Me!" both chirped, then started fighting again, the first Kim snapping, "Bitch, don't even try and hook up with my wife!" This Kim managed to get a solid elbow in on the second's chin, growling out, "Not to mention kill me or mind control me!"
"Bull!" the first Kim countered, managing to roll them over and get a couple hits into the second, hits that seemed to take more out of the second than the elbow had the first, "You were going to mind control me into betraying Team Possible and GJ to Gemini!"
"Clever trying to use your plans against me," the second Kim laughed, then glanced over at Monique, "Baby-girl, a little hand here?"
"You cunt!" the first Kim cried, rolling them again and trying to gouge out the eyes of the first, "That's my baby-girl, you blonde slut, and I'm going to kick your loose puss-..."
"Both of you, knock it off!" Ron snapped as he walked in, his tone cutting through the cussing and fighting. He felt he knew which Kim was his best friend, but before he could say or do anything, Monique stepped forward and shoved the first Kim off of the second.
"Thanks, bab-herk!" the second managed before a supersuit enhanced hand closed about her throat and lifted her up from the floor.
"Do you have any idea how long I worked on getting this honeymoon set up, you worthless piece of shit?" she seethed, her hand constricting tighter on the woman's throat. The woman, of course, didn't answer, and began kicking ineffectually, even as she began to shift her form to that of a skinny blonde girl with sharp features.
"Oh, great..." Ron groused, tapping his wrist, "Hey, Wade, Gemini's got Camille Leon working for him."0
"Let her go, Mo, she's out!" Kim snapped, walking over and placing a hand on her wife's arm. Monique looked at her, and the smirk she wore, and shrugged, dropping the unconscious villainess to the floor. As soon as she was released, Kim leapt into Monique's arms and all but attacked her with a deep kiss.
"Well, that's different..." Wade smirked at the scene as he appeared above Ron's Ron-Com, "And based on her uniform, she's his new Alpha."
"One he'll probably keep around, even if she did fail..." Shego spat, then glanced over at Wade's hologram, "Unless you can use this thing to get us to dear Sheldon Director, Wade?"
"Erm, yeah, but why?" Wade asked nervously, glancing at what was obviously one of his other screens. They heard Betty's voice call out and Wade reluctantly patched her through.
"You'll do no such thing, Shego!" Betty snapped as soon as she appeared in a flatscreen hologram next to Wade.
"Oh, no..." Shego snipped, "I told you, the last time he tried screwing with Team Possible what would happen, and it wasn't a threat!"
"Um, what's go-..." Helga started, hoping to stop an argument between one of her favorite heroines and her ultimate boss, but Betty rolled over her with her own statement
"Shego, just hear me ou-..." Betty sighed, reaching up to rub her temple with her thumb, her fingers splayed out along her forehead.
"No!" Shego snapped, "He interrupted our honeymoon, tried to hurt my ex-girlfriend - who, I might add, is one of my best friends - and had the gall to send this ugly, shapeshifting slut after us?" She shook her head, "He's going down, Betts, and that's final!" Betty opened her mouth to say more, but Shego held up a finger, "Uh-buh-buh-buh-buh-buh... I don't care! Sheldon's finally and thoroughly pissed me off, and I'm done with his shit, family or not, got it?"
Betty was about to say more, but Shego had stared straight at Wade and made a cut gesture across her throat. Monique cocked her head, "Family or not?"
"I thought you already knew Betts and Sheldon Director were siblings?" Shego asked, her normally smooth evasion not hiding the fact that she was leaving things unsaid. Almost as if she realized this, she pushed on, her tone becoming agitated, "Besides, I used some old contacts to make sure even Gemini knew not to screw with us toni-..."
"Mint..." Monique began, narrowing her eyes, "What in the hell's going on?"
"That's not important," Kim snapped, turning her angry gaze on Wade, "what is important is whether Wade can get us to Gemini or not!"
"Yes?" Wade squeaked, more willing to incur Betty Director's wrath than the wrath of either Shego, Kim or Monique, let alone any combination of the three.
"Then do it." Shego said, adding, "Please and thank you."
KP KP KP KP
Three hours later and Team Possible was flying back towards the hotel they were staying at. Kim, smirking like a Cheshire Cat, was in the rear behind Ron, who was piloting the Sloth back while wearing a self-satisfied smile of his own. Monique was half glaring at the back of Shego's head, while the superheroine was tittering, even a half hour after finishing up at the WWEE's new headquarters building.
"Okay, Shego..." Monique finally griped, "So, you're telling me, this whole thing could've been avoided if Betty would've admitted that Gemini had played her down in Texas?"
"Yup..." Shego chirped, shaking her head in amusement, "And now, Gemini's never going to do anything like this for the rest of his life."
"How?" Monique half yelled, "We teleported over that screwy device, fought our way through to his command center, and then you got to him, whispered something in his ear, and he just... Stopped? Gave up? Said he was done?" Shego nodded to each question, then half turned in her seat to regard Monique with a surprisingly beatific smile. "What did you say, Mint?"
"Oh, nothing much..." earning devilish snicker from Kim and a barely suppressed snort from Ron.
"Hnk, ou' wit' it!" Rufus, who seemed to be as much in the dark as Monique, demanded.
"Y'notice how, for the last couple weeks, Betts has been unusually worried?" Shego asked leadingly, "Especially when I get involved in the action?"
"Yeah, and it's been disturbing the hell out of me!" Monique said, Rufus adding a squeak of agreement, "I mean, she hasn't given half a damn until the Tuesday before last..." Monique narrowed her eyes when Kim snickered again, this time bringing up a hand to chew on the knuckle in an attempt not to laugh outright, "And you stop with the snickering, you obviously know what's going on, so quit trying to pull a Stoppable and give me an answer, dammit!"
"I'm gettin' to that, Muffin..." Shego continued, her smile the same, oddly beautifully happy expression that was throwing Monique into an even more confused state. The superheroine turned a loving gaze on Ron, ignoring Monique's glower and the light growl she let out at seemingly being ignored as she reached her left hand out to rest on the center console. The blond dropped his hand from the control and found her hand unerringly, despite not looking, and gave it a gentle squeeze. "It's the same reason Gemini outright gave up his whole empire. Y'see, despite his whole thing about Betts being his younger sister, he still holds family above all else, and that's all it took to stop him."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Monique asked, her voice suddenly calm and steady, which told the group of friends that her temper was literally on the verge of exploding.
"I should add that the reason Princess here's so amused is that she was there when this tactic presented itself..." Shego turned to her and smiled softly, bringing her hand to rest absently on her belly as she continued, "I just told Sheldon, quote, 'If you ever want a chance to see your grandniece in person as opposed to pictures, you'll dismantle the WWEE and stop the whole sibling rivalry thing with my mom.' unquote." She paused for a moment, adding, "I might've told him that if he didn't I'd let Ron go full Monkey on WWEE and wouldn't stop him this time."
"Wait..." Monique paused, turning her head upwards slightly and blinking several times through unfocused eyes as she ran the comment through her head. "Are you saying that Gemini's your uncle?"
"Yup." Ron confirmed, literally biting his lips to stop from saying more as Monique parsed the rest of the statement once more.
"No way!" Rufus protested, having figured out what it all meant and wearing an expression somewhere between betrayed for not having been told and as jubilant as he'd been during the double wedding of his best friends in the world.
"So..." Monique started as her attention shifted to Ron at his comment, as if expecting more. The blond didn't oblige however, continuing to stare out the windscreen, occasionally squeezing Shego's hand. Then her eyes widened and she snapped her gaze back to Shego, who now wore a positively evil grin on her face. The dark skinned beauty stared for a few seconds more, her mouth working as if to speak. Finally, instead of speaking, she let out a squeal of sheer delight, half diving over the seat to give Shego a hug, "Omigod, girl, you're pregnant? You're... A little girl, you know already?"
"MMP has a few advantages." Ron declared with an easy laugh, a content smile on his face.
"And you've only known for two weeks?" Monique prodded, her words flowing together such that they were almost one word. She then turned a suddenly angry expression on her wife, "And you didn't tell me, oh wife of mine?" Rufus chittered in indignation, and she added, taking all of them in with a glance, "Or Rufus?"
"I only found out 'cause I was at home when Ron went all 'Boyaa, Ima be a daddy!'" Kim laughed, then looked at Rufus, "And Rufus was with Hana, and we knew he'd tell you in a heartbeat." Monique started to pout, even as Rufus shyly nodded in agreement with Kim's assessment.
"Well, you know I can keep mad secrets when they're important." Monique said in a dejected tone, frowning slightly.
"Yeah, and you'd've probably freaked and thought we were only gettin' married 'cause of the baby." Shego contended softly, letting go of Ron's hand to reach back over the seat to grasp Monique's shoulder gently, "Even if we'd planned this over a month and a half ago..."
"Well, if you hadn't mentioned the MMP, yeah," Monique agreed, her pout lessening but still prominent in her features, "But..."
"Didn't wanna take the chance, Muffin." Shego interrupted gently, giving her shoulder another squeeze before turning back to stare out the front of the vehicle. She let out a soft chuckle as she added, "And I'll make it up to you by letting you design the baby clothes..."
"Y'mean it?" Monique all but squealed once again, earning a laugh from the other four occupants of the vehicle...
KP KP KP KP
"So you're really just..." Betty sighed as she leaned against the wall outside of the high threat cell in GJ's most secret holding facility, waving her hand in a vague fashion, "Giving up? Just like that?"
"Well, li-..." Sheldon 'Gemini' Director paused and sighed at Betty's raised eyebrow, "Sis... Yes, yes I am."
"Just because the hothead I call a daughter threatened you with not seeing her daughter?" Betty prodded, her face showing the disbelief she felt.
"Not just that..." Sheldon countered, before grimacing, "But mostly, yes."
"What do you mean by 'Not just that...', Shel?" Betty prodded, overemphasizing the word he'd emphasized as if to make a point.
"Well, she did threaten to unleash not only her husband on me, but all of her powers." Sheldon shrugged, shaking his head, "And we both know their powers are uncharted..."
"I find it hard to believe my daughter would threaten someone, let alone her own uncle." Betty declared, shaking her head in disbelief.
"If you remember," Sheldon countered, "She threatened to geld Gregory when he stopped the beating she was giving the man that tried to rape her first girlfriend."
"And you didn't help matters by supporting Greg's heroic BS that night." Betty snapped back. Sheldon had the decency to look chagrined, knowing she blamed him for the rift he'd engendered between her eldest children, one that was only healing over the last several months.
"The past is the past." he shrugged, his grimace growing as he shook his head, "I guess... I guess it's time I finally grow up."
"There's a first..." Betty grumbled, then sighed, running her hands through her hair, "So the threat of both the Mystical Monkey Master and Shego finally stopped your stupid crusade?"
Sheldon didn't say anything, but looked away, fuming at her tone. After a moment, he sighed again and grit out, "Yes."
"Good." Betty nodded, then turned to leave.
"Betty..." he called out to her in a startlingly gentle tone, "If... If you love her so much, why do you still call her Shego?"
"That's what she legally changed her name to." Betty said, before turning halfway back to him, and favoring him with a brief half smile, "Besides... She decided that her daughter deserved her birth name more than she did."
"So my niece..." Sheldon started, but stopped, as if afraid saying it aloud would change it.
"Yes, Shel..." Betty said with a smile her brother hadn't had directed at him in years, "She's naming her after our mom."
Betty turned away again, but heard Sheldon murmur in wonder just before the outer door to his cell closed, "So... Faith Stoppable..."
KP KP KP KP
Ok, a bit cheesy - especially the ending - but that li'l scene is what prompted this whole mess of a fic in the first place... I may write other one shots in this li'l tangent, since my scatterbrained muses never let me know what'll come up with next! XD Hope you enjoyed it!
As always, remember that although there's lots of fics out there, authors like to know what you think, so if you like what you've read, give the author a review!