Release Notes:
Yeah, I noticed a couple things to recon. Nothing major, just minor continuity errors between seasons that I overlooked. I blame it on the fact that my timeline is all messed up as I shift and change where I think it fits. Doesn't matter a WHOLE lot, I guess as long as the narrative isn't adversely affected. So I won't point them out specifically.
You may notice that I start each "part" as though I'm introducing the story to a new reader, instead of picking up exactly where I left off, sort of repeating myself and bringing everyone up to speed on previous events as they come up. This is why I call the chapters "parts". I do a lot of it for myself as I leave and come back to writing it, and fore anyone who isn't crazy enough to read the whole thing in one sitting (I know it hurts my eyes to read that much on a computer screen). I've sort of adapted it as the style for this story, as if each part is a self-contained "episode" with its own beginning middle and end. Though I really hope people will start from the beginning. Yeah, I know it's bizarre… but it's MY bizarre, bitches!
In case… you know… you care about any of that. I know I sure don't.
The Author
Part Three: In the Pursuit of Exposition
The afternoon was growing late in the middle of the abandoned industrial park. As the sun continued its inevitable decline in the western sky, shadows began to lengthen along the empty buildings. Many had fallen into various states of disrepair, while some were still used for storage by various shady companies and individuals of ill-repute. Well over a third of the area was owned by the wealthy entrepreneur Jack Hench, to act as a buffer between his large industrial complex and the rest of the world. Hench Co patrols frequented the area, typically scaring away the squatters or ejecting the odd tourist who got lost. Typically, they would circle through once every two hours if they could be bothered.
At that particular time, no patrols were out. The entire Hench Co army had been pulled to triple the guard within the main complex in the hopes of catching a thief. Unfortunately, they had been entirely unsuccessful. The thief in question had entered Hench Co Industries undetected and left just as stealthily.
Now, she was stalking someone else through the industrial park.
On top of a two story office building, the female thief crouched low to stay in the shadows of the air intake ducts. Her emerald eyes were fixed on the alleyway below her and the lone figure that sauntered through it. She remained motionless as he passed below, already having observed the dark-dressed figure's alertness. He would often glance up at the buildings around him, sometimes lingering as though debating whether to scale them himself. Then he would clench his injured hand and wince before continuing on.
Shego was not sure how Chris Cutter had injured his hand. She had seen him cradling it as he came sneaking out of Hench Co Industries, only minutes after she had. Though, judging from the embedded grapple hook he had torn out of it when he stopped to rest, she could wager a guess as to who had been responsible. She was surprised at the odd feeling of pride that welled up at that thought.
As the dark man passed her hiding place, Shego stretched her toned legs, first one and then the other, to keep them from cramping up. The skin-tight green and black fabric of her jumpsuit flexed silently with her movements. She stood the moment Cutter rounded a corner, entering another alley. A gloved hand brushed long flowing black hair away from her face and she loped along the roof edge. Coming to the brink of her building, the green woman leapt the chasm to the next roof, landing quietly in a roll that brought her back to her feet to continue her run unhindered.
She jumped two more buildings, once having to heave herself up over the edge because it was too tall to clear. Despite this, she made hardly a noise and came to another crouched stop with scarcely an increase in her breathing. From this new vantage point, Shego watched her quarry exit the alleyway into the abandoned street.
She squinted as Cutter came to a stop. He scrutinized both directions before inspecting his wounded hand. She could swear he was mumbling to himself, though he was too far to properly hear. He sat down on the curb and began to re-bandage himself.
Shego figured the man must be headed towards a hidden transport, somewhere in the industrial park. Her own jet was a good ten blocks away, awaiting her return. But she wasn't ready to leave quite yet. Not until she figured out what this guy's deal was. He had been popping up like some sort of wack-a-mole at every one of Shego's heists for the past 24 hours. Somehow he knew exactly where she was going and what she was stealing. The only other person with that information was Drakken himself, who had given her the "shopping list" of high-tech parts he wanted her to procure this morning. As usual, his latest doomsday device required her to steal pieces from real scientists in order to build it.
Somehow, this Cutter guy knew about Drakken's ray, and obviously the pieces Shego needed to steal for it. At first, she had been convinced that he was foiling her jobs out of spite. When they met the previous night at another research facility, both thieves had been after the same object. After fighting over it, Shego had destroyed the device rather then letting him win by getting away with it. She figured he had been a sore loser and was now trying to get back at her for costing him a lot of money.
But now, Shego wasn't so sure. His actions had been contradictory, hindering her one moment and helping her the next. His motivations were a mystery, one she needed to solve if there was going to be any progress at all in this most recent world domination plot that she was a part of. So far this Cutter had effectively grinded Drakken's scheming to a halt.
Shego winced at the thought of her employer. She had yet to report to him about her latest two failures, no thanks to the bouncing freak that even then sat within throwing distance. She wondered if he was working for a nemesis of Drakken's, possibly Dementor. She even toyed with the idea that he was a black-op mercenary hired by Global Justice to disrupt certain supervillians. But neither scenario seemed to fit in her mind. Why had she never heard of this guy before?
On the curb, Cutter was finishing rewrapping his hand, tugging tightly on the bandage. She could see him snarling at the wound as he did so. He shook his head violently, as if shaking something off, and then finished the knot. His lips moved again, talking to himself as he stood on bare feet. He shook his head again, as if in the midst of a conversation.
Shego's face contorted as she watched the display. This guy was way weird. She wished she could hear what he was saying. Shego leaned forward on the old roof ledge, straining to listen.
A loose brick went tumbling to the ground.
Cutter's head snapped up to look directly at her. His body was frozen in place like a deer caught in the headlights. She remained frozen as well as their gazes locked. She crouched, staring at him. Maybe he couldn't tell who it was that…
"Sweetpea?" Cutter's shouting voice broke the silence. "Are you following me?"
Shego cursed.
She leapt up and ran along the building, intending to close the distance before the man could dart. Though she possessed unnatural strength granted through otherworldly means, Cutter was even stronger and faster then her. However, she had already fought the man twice and beaten him once, not half an hour ago. She was confident she could subdue him long enough to get some answers.
Oddly enough, Cutter simply stood there, watching her with a stupid look on his face. It seemed to slowly dawn on him what she intended to do when she caught him and his eyebrows rose significantly. He took first one step back and then another before breaking into a dead run.
Shego came to the corner of the building and raised her hands above her head. As she had done countless times before, she pulled at something deep inside herself. Something that had burned itself into her body many years ago to become as much a part of her as the blood that ran through her veins. She felt it well up through her arms and into her clawed hands, hot as lava, but as familiar as a lover's touch.
Glowing green plasma erupted into her palms.
Without hesitation, she swung her arms down and sent a fiery blast of energy screaming towards the fleeing man. Unsurprisingly, it detonated into the ground a few feet from him, sending an explosion of debris into the air and causing Cutter to lurch to the side. He instantly recovered from the stumble and continued to run.
Cursing once again, Shego leapt off the corner of the two story building. Before she fell half a story, she reached out to grab onto a fire escape ladder, easily riding it down to the ground. She hopped off and took up pursuit.
Cutter had already reached across the street and entered a parking lot, heading directly for the nearest building. He was quickly distancing her, as she had expected he would. Coming up to the empty office complex he jumped onto the vertical wall to begin scaling up the side, as she had also expected he would.
Shego stopped and braced herself. She held her hands in front of herself as though gripping and invisible ball. As she ground her teeth in concentration, a tiny green light twinkled between her glowing palms. Her lips curled back as the light slowly swelled and grew to fill the void until she actually held a bright glowing orb in her hands. The sphere crackled and pulsed with her green energy as she pulled it along her side. Then, with a loud grunt, she heaved the orb forward to send roaring towards the office building leaving a vortex of drafts in its wake.
The resulting fiery explosion destroyed a full two-thirds of the wall and sent Cutter spinning through the air to crash into the pavement twenty feet from where Shego stood, her long dark hair flipping in the wind. The landing had looked particularly painful and Shego allowed herself a small wince for the black-suited man. She casually walked towards him, fully expecting him to lie there in pain for a few minutes.
She froze in surprise when Cutter's dark head spun and two shining silver eyes focused on her, his sharp face twisted in a feral snarl. With an animal growl, his legs snapped and he spun up and around to land facing her, crouched on four limbs. His eyes bored into hers through his hanging black hair.
Shego's hands instinctively began to glow.
"Damnit, sweetpea," his voice was strained, almost guttural. "You keep hurting me like that. It's not a good idea. Bad things happen."
Shego narrowed her eyes dangerously at the pet name. She noticed that he was no longer cradling his wounded hand.
"Don't call me sweetpea you bouncing idiot." She raised a flaming fist into the air. "Now, you're going to tell me who you're working for, or I'll really hurt your pretty face."
Cutter's clouded face softened into confusion, ever so slightly, at the mention of his face being pretty. Shego cursed herself for not watching her tongue. How was she supposed to intimidate this loser if she stroked his ego? She was getting soft. And she knew a certain redhead was to blame for it.
Her knee-jerk reaction to cover her slip was to toss a wad of burning plasma at the coiled man. She had indented it as a warning shot, missing him by about a foot, so she could bully him into spilling his guts.
She had not expected him to suddenly bolt the moment the blast left her hand.
Across the yard he flashed, dashing on all fours. He ran like some sort of jungle cat, faster then she had ever seen him move before. Even back when they were fighting the robot when they first met, he hadn't moved this fast. What was he?
Shego reacted mere microseconds after Cutter, though she felt much slower. A barrage of flying green blasts was sent after the fleeing man. They exploded around him harmlessly as he dodged and bounced into the air to smash through an office window. Shego sprinted behind him, leaping headfirst into the same window to tuck and roll into a crouched position inside the darkened space. Her glowing hands cast an eerie green light as the afternoon shadows lengthened. The room was empty except for a few exposed wires on the floor and wall where desks had once been. A quick scan of the bare office revealed no sign of Cutter. A single door lay open into an even darker hallway.
Shego's hands were extinguished and she melted into the shadows. Her slender silhouette crept through the door and into the hallway, silent as an assassin.
She was going to catch that idiot. And then she was going to get some answers.
Farther inside, away from the windows, there was no light at all. All the circuit breakers were down in the basement somewhere. Not a light switch worked.
Cutter saw everything. There was no color, simply shades of grey, but he saw everything.
That was a bad sign.
He hung upside down from the ceiling, small retractable claws on his fingers and toes allowing him to stay suspended. He tested the air. He could smell her. Not in the room, of course, but traces of her that had followed his flight. A kind of spicy scent. Almost like cinnamon, but warmer. Cutter's nose was not usually so acute.
That was also a bad sign.
Releasing his toes, he slowly lowered his sinewy frame to the floor with powerful arms. His fingers unhooked and he dropped without a sound. He crouched, listening to the noises of the building around him. Like all his other senses, it had sharpened considerably.
Cutter tested his bandaged hand. It no longer bothered him. Were he to remove the wrapping he knew he would find the once wicked wound almost completely healed. But Cutter didn't remove the bandage, trying to deny what he knew was fact. This was all very, very bad.
Cutter closed his silver eyes and breathed deeply. He needed to get a handle on himself. He quickly ran his tongue over his teeth, testing for any change. His canines didn't feel exceptionally longer then usual. That was good, at least. He forced himself to sit upright, like a man, and tried to find a calm.
After a few moments, Cutter opened his eyes again. He could still see in the dark somewhat, as he always could, but it was much less clear. He couldn't hear every creak and groan as the building settled. His hand even began to throb a bit. He breathed deeply through his nose. He could still smell her, though it was more of a memory of a smell. He exhaled.
As he sat in the dark, Cutter rubbed his face with his hands. Damn that woman. None of it was working out like it was supposed to. Not that Cutter had any idea how it was supposed to work. This was all terrifyingly new to him. Not for the first time, he considered to cut and run. Why was he putting himself through this?
A smooth, cold shape in his pocket reminded him. As he ran the lump of metal, like a polished river rock, through his hands, he smiled fondly. Then he shook his head at his own foolishness.
He clucked his tongue and stared at the metal stone as he tried to think of a new plan of attack.
Shego heard a clicking noise from the room in front of her. The tiny glow from her index finger winked out and she listened. Everything was silent.
Then, she heard an amused snort followed by a deliberate exhale. He was definitely inside the room, probably talking to himself again. The weirdo. Shego crept forward, her hands held in front of her to feel her way. Fingers brushed against the edge of the doorframe and she slid into the room.
Away from any external light source, she couldn't see anything. Her eyes were trying to adjust, but even then she could only catch glimpses of shapes along her peripheral vision. She didn't know about Cutter, but she didn't trust that his strange silver eyes couldn't see any better then her own emerald ones. She needed to stun him long enough to capture.
An idea came to her immediately. As silently as she could, Shego slowly stood up in the black room. She raised both hands into the air. Ever so carefully, she pulled at the power deep inside of her, willing its fire up into her hands. She clamped her jaw and concentrated hard, forcing the green glow to stay just below the surface, building up as much as she dared without lighting up.
Suddenly, she heard a sharp inhale. It sounded so close to her that she almost lost her focus. Again, another inhale. As though the man was sniffing the air. Then the slightest pause.
"She's… here?" a whisper came in the dark.
Shego closed her eyes as tightly as she could and brought her hands together above her head in a powerful clap. She could feel the explosion of heat and saw the blinding light even through her clenched eyelids. She heard Cutter's cry of shock.
She opened her eyes, her hands flaming to light the room in green without blinding her. She immediately saw that they were in a kitchen, or a lunchroom. Empty cupboards and countertops lined either side, with blank spaces where a stove and refrigerator once stood. Near the center, not five feet from where she stood, crouched a wincing Cutter, rubbing his eyes furiously. Shego didn't waste a second in leaping at the blinded man. Her leg snapped out in a vicious kick to his jaw, sending him facedown on the floor. She quickly drove her knee into his back and locked both his arms behind his head with her own, her glow extinguished and the room went black. Cutter snarled. She felt his back flex and push, a deep rumbling reverberating through his body. Shego grunted and held on, pushing her knee deeper into the small of his back.
"You're not going anywhere, so quit growling like a dog, you idiot!" She snapped at the pushing man.
Cutter did stop at the sound of her voice. He was breathing deeply, in through his nose and out his mouth from the sound of it. A calming exercise. Or preparing himself for another push. Shego tightened her hold.
"Argh," he moaned, "damnit, woman! You keep doing this and…" Cutter ended in a chilling growl. That definitely didn't sound human.
"Ok, loser," Shego spoke into the darkness, "you're going to tell me everything I want to know, or I'll break your arms." In her current position, she would probably just dislocate his shoulders before she could actually break anything, but there was no point in telling him that.
Cutter actually snorted in amusment. "That would be a very bad idea, sweetpea. For me and you."
Shego increased pressure, causing Cutter to grunt. "I've told you before. Don't call me sweetpea. Now… how did you know about Drakken's plan? You've been at every heist, stopping me from getting the pieces he needs for his stupid doom ray. How do you know what he's building?"
Cutter snorted again. "Doctor Drakken doesn't exactly seem the type to make a foolproof plan. Looks like Team Possible figured it out. They were at Jack HenchCo to stop you too, remember?"
"Oh, I remember," Shego spat, "which makes me wonder who tipped them I would be there? You just happened to be at all three robberies?" She pushed even harder into his back. Cutter twisted but didn't make a sound. She pushed again. "Who are you working for?
Cutter was silent. She noticed he was breathing deeply again. It occurred to her that she had twisted him quite a bit, more then a normal person could handle. But in the darkness, she could not see how much. Cutter's body started to tense.
"This…" his voice was deep and guttural and he seemed to struggle with the words, "this isn't working. I need to try another approach."
Shego was shocked as the man's back suddenly arched violently. His arms pulled forward, so hard that her pin threatened to break. It had to be extremely painful for him, but he simply growled louder and pulled even harder. In the dark, the green thief struggled to hold on, but with each agonizing drive, Cutter seemed to gain strength. She could feel an underlying rumble growing in his body that seemed to reverberate through the room.
Shego began to grow concerned.
Just barely holding on, she felt Cutter's shoulders threaten to pop. Somehow, she knew that would be a bad thing. He seemed to be losing… something, the more pain he was in. She knew from experience that a dislocated shoulder would hurt a great deal and most likely leave him with little facilities to talk, the way things seemed to be going. It appeared that she couldn't pin him to force the answers out of him. She would have to knock him unconscious.
Shego timed her release, rolling backwards off of Cutter as he collected himself for another push. Her hands relit the room in a green glow as she faced the man before her.
Cutter was already on his feet and hands. He immediately jumped up and attached to the ceiling, skittering along like a lizard into a corner. How the hell did he do that? He swung around to hang off the two meeting walls and faced her.
Cutter's shining eyes flickered in the green light, narrowed into two slits. His lips were curled back to bear his teeth. He had fangs. Where the hell had fangs come from?
Shego was more then a little taken aback at the sight. Her fists swelled and crackled as she prepared to fire a blast of plasma. Cutter blinked and shook his head at the dancing flames, seeming to snap out of something. He regarded Shego.
"Don't you get tired of hurting people?" The hanging man asked.
Shego stopped in surprise. The question had caught her off guard.
Taking advantage of the pause, Cutter shot towards the open door. He was through before she could react.
Cursing the man, as well as herself, Shego took up pursuit. Through the hallways she ran, following the scampering idiot as he leapt along the floor, walls and ceiling, moving more like an animal then a man. The green thief had enough difficulty keeping up without trying to blow him out of the air.
They entered a stairwell and Cutter headed up, Shego in close pursuit. She took a couple opportunities to send screaming fireballs up between the rails and unsurprisingly, the dark man dodged them all. Two floors they climbed before reaching the ceiling access door, which Cutter burst through as though it was made of cardboard. A few seconds later, Shego followed into the dimming evening light.
In the quiet suburban town of Middleton, a violet car made its way down the quiet streets. But this particular car was unlike any vehicle in existence. With smooth, sweeping edges and a futuristic aesthetic, it was a custom design that housed a myriad of technological advancements, each one more fantastic then the last. The car was well, and truly, "all terrain". Including underwater terrain. It was arguably the fastest street-legal automobile on the planet, powered by an experimental fusion reactor, compliments of the Middleton Space center, and one of its most prominent members on staff. All of this had been hand-built by two of the most intelligent minds on the continent, a pair of identical twins whose combined intellect was only surpassed by their ingenuity.
Behind the wheel was their big sister.
Kim Possible smoothly turned another corner. In the passenger seat next to her, Ron Stoppable barely noticed a shift in speed. The way he figured it, the car could probably drive itself, though he hadn't found a button to make it do that yet.
On a built-in computer screen in the dash, a dark freckled face looked out at the two teenage crime fighters. Wade Load was a number of years younger then the other two members of Team Possible. However, if Jim and Tim Possible, the younger twin brothers of Kim, were classified as child geniuses, then Wade was in the realm of super-genius.
"So," Wade casually typed at his keyboard, seated at his command center in his room elsewhere in Middleton, "A Nuclear Capacitor Switch, the Quantum Matrix Amplifier and now the Reversal Drive. That's quite a list of high-tech parts."
"Yeah," Ron chimed in, "but they didn't get the Reversal Drive, we managed to scare em off, Kim and I!" The blond teen beamed at the young woman driver, who smirked in response. "So Drakken's got nothin'!"
"I'm not so sure," Kim responded, glancing at Wade and Ron before looking back to the road, "I don't trust that Drakken won't find another way to build whatever it is he's building. I mean, it's not like Jack Hench wouldn't still sell him the stupid thing even after he tried to steal it. And I don't want to wait until then to find out we were wrong."
"Gotcha," Wade nodded at the red-headed cheerleader. "I'm still running some sims on what those combination of parts could build, but the list is pretty long. And not much of it is pleasant."
"Not suprising," Kim sighed, "just do what you can Wade, thanks."
"In the meantime, I've been looking into that Cutter guy you were describing..."
"Hrmph," Ron grumbled and crossed his arms at the mention of the dark man they had met at Jack Hench Co Industries. "A lying thief is what he is." Ron was particularly bitter about his meeting with the man. He didn't want to admit it to anyone, but he had actually liked the guy and chatted with him like old buddies. That was, until he turned on both Kim and himself, helping their nemesis Shego escape. He had lied right to Ron's face, smiling the whole time. And Ron fell for it like a fool.
A supportive churp came from his lap, where Rufus, the naked mole-rat, sat comfortably. The small pink-skinned mammal had been the only one to immediately distrust Cutter. As if he had sensed something off about him. That fact didn't help Ron's mood, as he had ignored Rufus's warnings at the time. One more strike against him. Some sidekick he was.
"Well…" Wade continued, "I haven't pulled up much of anything. Which is odd in itself. His description has been linked to a couple high-level robberies, but that's about it. His name doesn't pull up."
"Must be a fake name then." Ron announced.
"I don't think that's it," Wade frowned, "it's like whenever I do a search for his name, there is a blank void in the system. Normally I'll get the usual false hits and dead ends. But with this… there's nothing. As if someone has gone through and deleted any trace."
"Hm," Kim's eyes narrowed, "that's not a good sign."
"The thing is," the young boy continued, "the last time I came across a similar pattern is when I tried tracking information related to WEE."
"The Worldwide Evil Empire?" Ron straightened from his slouch.
"Gemini?" Kim spoke the supervillain's name in surprise. "He's working with Drakken?"
"It's possible," Wade shrugged, "or at least this Cutter guy is a member of WEE. There is still a lot we don't know about them."
"But Global Justice does," Kim responded. "Wade, can you get some info from the GJ database on WEE? See if they've been tracking anything related to us or Drakken."
"Done and done." Wade smiled as he set to work. "I'll get back to you with the results in the morning."
"Thanks, Wade." Kim smiled as the monitor winked out, leaving her alone with Ron.
"Not bad for a Friday," the young man stretched in his seat, "aced a history test and stopped a robbery. Now I got cartoons to look forward to in the morning!"
"Mmm, hmm." Kim Possible's eyes never left the road. Ron watched her for a minute.
"What's wrong, KP?" The young man asked his best friend. Kim glanced at him, hearing the uncharacteristically serious tone to his voice. "You've been distracted since we left Hench Co. Something you want to talk about?"
Kim pressed her lips together, the way she always did when she was holding on to something. Ron had known her so long, he could tell these things.
"It's…" she began, and then sighed, "it's Shego. I've been noticing that it's been getting… harder and harder to fight her."
"She's getting better? Well I guess that if she…"
"No," the young woman brought the car to a stop. They were parked in front of Ron's house. "It's not that. It's…" She struggled with the words. "It's, like, we've been through so much. She's been my arch nemesis for so long, it's like I can't remember a time before. And… it's always been simple. We're enemies. I'm good and she's bad."
Ron listened quietly. Trying to let his childhood friend get it out. It was obviously a difficult thing for her to explain.
"I guess we've always sorta had a professional respect for each other," Kim shrugged, "I mean… it's always ended up between us, one way or another. But.." Kim sighed again. "Ever since that time when her mind got scrambled…"
"Yeah," Ron remembered the incident vividly, "she got turned into a goody-two-shoes by Hench's Attidudeinator. You two were pretty tight when she wasn't trying to kill you."
Kim smiled, despite herself. "Yeah, we had so much in common. She was… like the big sister I never had. It's so weird being best friends with someone that you've convinced yourself you hate. I guess it kinda confused me."
"No sweat, KP," Ron reached over to squeeze her shoulder gently, "I've been on the receiving end of that thing. More then once. The whole deal is confusing."
"Yeah, I know." Kim's hand met Ron's. "But ever since she was switched back, it's been like… I dunno, like she's not fighting me like she used to. It feels… more personal. Like she's angry at me for being her friend. But then, other times I swear she's hardly fighting at all. Like she's letting me win. She's even saved me, once or twice, under the pretense that she won't let anyone beat me but her."
"Yeah," Ron nodded, "I've noticed that a couple times. I thought it was weird… but then, so is Shego."
Kim grinned again. "That's an understatement."
Ron matched her smile, glad to see that she was feeling better. He couldn't think of anything more beautiful then when Kim smiled.
"I just… don't want to fight with her, Ron. Not like this. I know it's our job and everything, but it doesn't feel right anymore."
"Sensei once told me," Ron said as he recalled his time training in Japan, "'Combat should never feel right, no matter how well you fight. The day you desire to do combat above all else, is the day you are truly lost.'"
"Thanks, Ron." Kim leaned forward and kissed him lightly. As always, the act left his heart pounding in his chest. She pulled back, inches away. "I can always count on you to make me feel better."
Ron reached up and gently cupped her face. She was the most amazing girl in the world. "Hey, what's a BF's for, KP? Except to make you feel good?"
Both teens blushed at the accidental entendre. Ron cleared his throat awkwardly while Kim ran her hand through her long red hair.
"Uh… goodnight, Kim." Ron opened the door to exit the vehicle. "See ya tomorrow."
Kim reached out to grasp her boyfriend's hand. "See you tomorrow, Ron."
An explosion of green flames sent the entire metal structure that was the fire escape squealing to the ground. Bounding along the building's vertical exterior, as if he was running along a slight slope, the black-clad man narrowly escaped the collapsing steel framework. Sprinting along the top of the opposing building, Shego yelled in frustration. Two more blasts of plasma flashed into the wall, detonating behind the evading man.
Leaping off the edge, the green thief flew across the chasm, her leg kicking out at Cutter. Surprisingly, the man suddenly dropped straight down, sliding along the sheer wall face on three limbs. Shego's foot connected with the mortar exterior where he had just been, leaving a cracked crater in its wake. She absorbed enough of the impact to kick herself back out, flipping backwards to find purchase on a narrow window ledge. Both of her clawed hands dug into the building to gain her balance. Meanwhile, Cutter simply sprang up the opposing wall with spider-like agility. By the time she had established herself for another attack, he had flipped over the building's edge out of her sight.
Shego ground her teeth and drug her claws along the wall, leaving deep and angry furrows. She swore she was going to break all four of this idiot's limbs when she caught him. Let's see him bounce up the walls then! She swung herself around and leapt up to catch the ledge above her, easily pulling her athletic body up. She quickly climbed her way back to the roof, though not half as quickly as Cutter had.
Shego was growing increasingly frustrated with the chase. It had gone on like this for at least half an hour now, the dim light of the sunset quickly disappearing. Leaping from building to building, climbing walls and clearing fences. She had to push as hard as she could, almost to the point of recklessness, just to catch up with the free-running man. And even then, he would keep distant from her deadly hands, easily dodging her ranged attacks only to distance her again. Shego knew she could kick the guy's ass; she had done it twice already. But now, out in the wide open, his superior speed and agility gave him the advantage. It was beginning to dawn on the green-skinned woman that she could not catch his ass.
In fact, the only reason she could surmise that Cutter hadn't left her completely in the dust already, was that he was lost.
Shego knew, already being familiar with the industrial park, that the dark man had been traveling in circles and backtracking, trying to get his bearings. As she originally thought, she suspected that he was trying to locate his transportation. However, in the course of their subsequent chase, Cutter seemed to have lost his orientation.
Taking a brief second to examine her environment, she immediately saw the man's silhouette jump and swing onto a steel girder structure a block away. He stood easily on the foot-wide surface several floors above the ground, looking in multiple directions. Shego quickly closed the gap between them, clearing two buildings and hotfooting down a loading bay, a tool shed and a dumpster to enter the construction site at ground level. She bounced of equipment and steel structures alike to climb and swing her way up into the criss-crossing maze of girders.
She froze in the shadows as Cutter suddenly came leaping overhead. He didn't notice her and passed by, climbing and swinging up to take vantage out the other side of the structure. She heard him swear to himself.
As quietly as she could and with the balance of a gymnast, Shego made her way along the narrow walkway towards the searching man. Her eyes were glued to his trim frame, watching for signs that he had spotted her. He suddenly turned and she froze again. Across the maze he quickstepped to look out from another angle. He still hadn't noticed her.
It took a great deal of willpower to keep from lashing out with her glow, but Shego managed to keep herself hidden. She wanted this idiot. He had stuck his fingers in her business over and over, screwing up her heists and causing her grief. But more then that, he was messing with her head. He had fought with her one minute and then turned around and helped her the next. Her thoughts were drawn back to the strange question he had asked her, not forty minutes ago. "Don't you get tired of hurting people?" She refused to look for an answer. It wasn't relevant to her job. She was an evil henchman, damnit. She fired destructive energy from her hands. She could punch through solid concrete. She was a force of devastation, forged by the cosmos themselves. There was no point in fighting what she had been made into, what she had been designed to be: a weapon.
He was playing her. And she wasn't going to stand for it.
Cutter swore again. Much more colorfully this time. Had Shego not been in her present mindset, she might have smiled at his creative use of expletives. Instead, her face was stone as she crept within ten feet of the mumbling man. Suddenly he straightened and leaned forward, looking carefully at the street in front of him.
"A ha!" Cutter exclaimed excitedly, seeming to recognize something. He turned as if to leave.
Taking careful aim, the green woman focused a powerful blast from her fists. She knew how to modify the power inside of her depending on the situation. In this case, the discharge was concussive, not hot enough to burn or melt, but potent enough to hit with the force of a speeding car. She was counting on the impact being enough to knock the tough man unconscious without killing him.
Cutter spun a microsecond too late. The force hit him sideways and he went spinning through the girder maze. Shego immediately jumped and hopped along in pursuit, intending to catch him before the stun could wear off. He bounced off one beam and clipped another as he fell two stories down. Then an arm shot out and grabbed at the steel. Shego saw sparks fly from Cutter's fingertips as he dragged them along the metal surface, slowing his decent until he stopped suddenly. His face snapped up to look at her, twisted into a familiar feral snarl. His eyes were two glimmering silver points.
"Not again," Shego groaned.
Hanging by one arm, Cutter swung himself into and easy flip and landed in a crouch. She expected him to bolt away like he did before, but she was surprised as he jumped up towards her with an animal roar. With terrifying speed he flew through the structure, jumping through the girders with inhuman ease. His shining eyes never left hers.
Shego actually stepped back. Something was different. He seemed to have lost something again, like before. But even more so. He came snarling at her like an attacking dog, leaping up and on to her with his arms reaching for her throat. Shego rolled back with the pounce, holding his wrists with her hands and kicking into his stomach to send him flying over her. She spun to her feet on the narrow beam and faced the wild Cutter.
The growling man hadn't even stopped moving, bouncing off a vertical column to come roaring back at her. He smashed into the green woman and they both went flying into the air.
Shego instinctively brought her knee up into the man's chest. He hardly flinched and responded with a vicious backhand. The two tumbled, punching and kicking towards the ground, Cutter displaying a shocking ferocity that Shego hadn't seen from him before. She blocked and attacked with all her martial skill, a blurring display that only one other person ever managed to bring out of her, but it was like fighting a rabid tiger.
The earth came rushing up to them.
Shego brought both hands up to Cutter's chest. With a shout, she unleashed an explosive blast of green plasma that blew them apart. She went flying up. Cutter went whistling down. The green woman spun in the air and reached out to grab onto a passing girder with a painful grunt.
Below her, Cutter smashed into the concrete floor.
Shego hung, suspended in midair. She looked down at the man lying in the center of a spider web of cracked cement. He did not move.
She let herself breathe and then painfully pulled herself onto the girder. She immediately began a calculated decent to the floor. Any normal human being would be dead, but she had seen Cutter shrug off some pretty hefty blows in the short time she had dealt with him. She surprised herself with that hopeful thought. Why should she care if this loser was dead or not? She already knew the answer to her own question. She may be a weapon, but she was no murderer. Not if she could help it. Not even if the guy was a total spaz.
She approached Cutter cautiously. She had played possum more then once in her career as a supervillian. When he didn't move, she pulled off one black glove and tested his jugular with her bare fingers. He still had a pulse. Shego released a breath that she didn't realize she had been holding and shook her head at how soft she was getting.
She looked the man over. His black shirt looked scorched in several places, particularly the front where she had just blasted him. She could see small patches of skin through the holes though nothing looked serious. His black pants were slightly torn in places and his bare feet were callused and scratched. Even though he was quick to dodge most of her attacks, it seemed collateral damage from the explosions still managed to batter him.
Shego opened the utility pouch that was strapped to Cutter's thigh. She found nothing terribly exciting; some bandages, a pocket knife, a set of keys, rubber gloves, some lock picks. Not a fifth of what she would expect a professional thief to carry on his person. Her own ankle pouch contained a multitude of compact burglar tools above and beyond what this man had.
She reached into his pockets with her bare hand. Out of one, she pulled a wrinkled piece of paper. Unfolding it, Shego's mouth opened in shock. She recognized the scrawling writing. It was the list Drakken had given her in the lair. The exact list of parts he had wanted her to steal for his Reverse Engineering Ray and where they could be found. She had memorized the list and tossed it away, right there in front of Drakken. This freakin psycho had taken the discarded note from right under their nose. From inside the freakin lair!
Shego incinerated the paper in an angry fist. She was so damn sick of how easy it was to find Drakken's 'secret' lair. The blue idiot wouldn't know secret if it bit him in the…
A quiet groan came from the unconscious Cutter.
Shego watched the man's face, looking for the first sign of awareness. He went quiet and still again. She went back into his pockets. That was one mystery solved, namely how this moron managed to figure out Drakken's plan and effectively ruin her day. Her fingers brushed against a solid shape in his pocket. Now if she could just figure out why this guy was…
She paused as she pulled a smooth lump of metal out of Cutter's pocket. Her eyes narrowed in confusion. This looked familiar. She ran her fingers over the surface, seemingly like polished stone. She had seen this thing before. The night she met Cutter for the first time. They had fought over a small metal box, the Nuclear Capacitor Switch. All that was left after she melted it had been a shiny lump of metal. He… kept it?
Suddenly, there was a grip like iron on her wrist.
Cold silver eyes snapped open and looked directly into Shego's. She knew instantly that Cutter was still gone. His dark eyebrows furrowed and his sharp face twisted. Lips curled back to bear four sharp fangs. A growl escaped from deep inside his chest as the pressure on her wrist threatened to snap her forearm.
Shego knew she had a choice. Cutter was getting stronger and seemingly crazier the more she hurt him. There was the chance that if she continued to fight him this way, he would get too ferocious to handle. He was no longer the bouncing idiot that she had been chasing. He was an animal. Her only chance was to kill him.
Her free hand raised into the air and glowed with swirling green flames. She knew she could blow a hole right through his chest at this range without difficulty, or crush his skull with a concussive punch. There were any number of ways that Shego, the living weapon, could kill this man.
But she paused.
In her mind, Cutter asked her the question. She didn't even know how to answer it. Did you ask a dagger if it got tired of stabbing or gun if it hated shooting? A tool didn't question its purpose. Shego hurt people. It was what she did. It was the role she had been given.
Their gazes were locked. Emerald and silver. Shego could see the animal fury in those glinting eyes that promised death she let them. But how far away was the man who had saved her life last night when he could have saved his own? Why had he? She looked at the metal lump in her bare hand, cold and smooth. The light of her green fire reflected off its surface.
Cutter's feral gaze followed hers to the metal stone. He stared at it, as if trying to remember something significant. Something important. The green fires reflected back at him.
The dark haired man blinked. His eyes softened. They looked back to Shego and then widened in horror.
"Oh no," Cutter whispered, reaching up to feel his teeth. "Oh no." He released his grip and skittered backwards, away from the confused woman. "Crap, crap, crap! This isn't what I… damnit!" He spun and sprinted away.
"Hey, wait!" Shego shouted after him. "I'm not going to…"
He was already gone.
Shego wasn't sure what to do. So she ran after him.
Across two parking lots and around a warehouse he fled. She followed and saw him dash into an open loading bay, disappearing into the black void inside. Shego came jogging up, still trying to figure out what she was going to do. She couldn't catch him and she couldn't hold him, she simply didn't have the means available to her at the moment. Not without killing him, or at least crippling him severely. Something she couldn't bring herself to do at the moment, which was even more confusing and frustrating.
She knew she had to stop him. He was a threat to the big plan. She had to find out who he worked for. She had to report to Drakken. She had to complete the mission.
She had to figure out who this guy was.
As she neared the darkened entrance, she heard the roar of an engine. She skidded to a stop as a single bright light pierced the black. Cutter shot out of the bay on a black sport bike. He had a full face helmet with a reflective chrome visor stuffed on his head and a hastily donned leather jacket seated on his shoulders. In one hand he held two black boots while simultaneously trying to work the bike's clutch, obviously not having time to fit them on his bare feet. The motorcycle screamed passed Shego, who sent a half-hearted blast of plasma in its direction, knowing full well that it wouldn't catch him. Down the abandoned street sped the turbocharged machine, its lights quickly disappearing from sight, though the wailing engine could still be heard as it faded into the evening.
Shego stood in the fading twilight, facing the direction Cutter had fled. In her bare hand she still held the lump of metal she had taken from him. She took a long, deliberate breath and swore into the night.
A few hours later. And a few thousand miles away.
In the dark depths of a viciously villainous lair, a scarred man with blue skin and a greasy ponytail paced through a cavernous room. He grumbled angrily to himself and would glance at the giant computer screen that dwarfed everything else as well as the complex control console that sat at its base. Dr Drakken would never admit it, but he had no idea what many of those buttons did. It wasn't kosher to admit any sort of overarching flaw as a supervillian. At least Shego knew what it all did.
The thought of his smart-mouthed sidekick made the mad scientist gnarl and stomp his feet. Where was that woman? She was supposed to be back by now.
"If she spent the day getting a massage again," he spoke aloud, "I am going to…"
On the control panel, a red light started blinking with a corresponding chime. Drakken spun in surprise.
"Oh, oh, oh…" the supervillian skipped over to the console and hopped from one foot to the other anxiously. "Wha'do I do, wha'do I do? Sheg-" He stopped himself from calling for his absent sidekick with a growl. He could figure this out! He was an evil genius!
Draken pressed a button. Suddenly, red lights started flashing throughout the room and on the massive screen a giant timer started counting down.
"Warning." Came the automated voice, echoing through the complex. "Self Destruct Initiated. T-minus 50 seconds until detonation."
"Aaahh!" Drakken screamed. He started pressing more buttons. "Turn it off, turn it off!"
"What the heck are you doing?" A smooth and irritated voice came from the room's entrance. Drakken spun to see an athletic, green and black form enter the cavern.
"Shego!" Drakken shouted in panic. "We have to escape! The computer has gone insane!" He dropped to his knees and raised his fists dramatically. "Why? Why did I have to play god!"
The dark haired woman sauntered up to the control panel. She pressed two buttons.
The lights stopped flashing. The voice stopped counting. The chime stopped chiming. On the massive screen the timer disappeared. Shego turned and leaned against the console, arms crossed. She looked at Drakken in annoyance.
He remained on his knees for a few moments, sheepishly. Then he leapt to his feet and pointed at the multitude of lights and switches.
"There was a blinking light!" He whined. "I had mere seconds to…"
"Was it this light?" She pointed. "The one that tells you when someone lands a plane in the hanger?"
Drakken worked his jaw. He whirled and paced into the center of the room, launching into a monologue. "Yes, now that the mystery of the blinking light has been solved, we can finally move onto phase two of my devious plan! With the final three ingredients… and the, uh… one piece still on back order, I will complete my Reverse Engineering Ray! Shego, hand me the…" He suddenly noticed that she was empty-handed. "Shego? Where are the parts you were supposed to steal?"
Shego winced. "Yeah, about that… um." She adjusted her hair unnecessarily. "The thing is… I couldn't steal the Quantum Matrix Amplifier or the Reversal Drive."
"What?!" Drakken shouted. He shook his little fists and stomped his feet. "Three times! Three times you have failed me, Shego!"
"Hey!" The green thief snapped. "It wasn't my fault. Someone else got in the way…"
"Kim Possible!" The blue man jumped to the obvious conclusion. "I should have known! Mark my words, Shego. She has foiled me for the last time!"
The green woman paused for a brief moment, and then shrugged her shoulders. "Yeah, Kimmie. That's who it was. Yep… good ol' Princess as usual."
Drakken narrowed his eyes at his sidekick. "Is that all? Where is the last piece?"
Shego stood from the console and made to leave. "I'm tired, Dr. D. I'm going to bed. I'll get your precious part tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" Drakken whined. "But I wanted it tonight!"
"Listen, you little baby!" She whirled on her employer, who cringed at her anger. "You can't do anything without the other pieces anyway. So you can just sit tight and wait another night. I had a really crappy day, and I don't need your bitching!" She stormed out of the cavernous room. "And don't you dare bug me any earlier then ten o'clock!" She was gone.
Draken pouted alone in the chamber. He knew he had to figure out another way to get his parts. And the last piece, that Shego had yet to attempt to steal, was possibly the most important.
Draken rubbed his bare chin. He needed to make sure that Shego was successful on this last caper. He couldn't afford another failure. And so, the evil genius set out to guarantee victory in the morning, laying plans for an assault not even Team Possible could stop.
The door opened into a medium-sized room and Shego entered, closing it behind her. Her green and black motif had been carried throughout the quarters she had claimed in Drakken's bizarre castle base. She had one of the best views on the island, if the perpetual gloom ever lifted that was. Her queen-sized bed was covered in black sheets and green blankets across from her black vanity table with rounded mirror. There was a doorway into a small bathroom with a shower and tub. Next to it was a fair-sized closet that housed a large assortment of green and black uniforms as well as a collection of 'civvies' that she hardly got the chance to wear.
Making sure the two tamper-proof locks were engaged, Shego pulled off her gloves and tossed them on the vanity chair. Then she sat on the edge of her bed and pulled her boots off with a groan. She was feeling particularly stiff after all the running around she had done today. Any other person would have collapsed from exhaustion halfway through the exertion she had put herself through. But Shego was in peak physical condition. And she had the gift of otherworldly endurance bestowed upon her at a young age. Even so, she still needed rest and recuperation.
The woman stood and began the arduous task of undressing. Her jumpsuit fit her perfectly and allowed her to work without restriction, but after a day wrapped in the thing, it was heaven to get out of it. Snaps and buttons released allowing her to pull a smooth-running zipper along the edge of her uniform where the two colors black and green met. With a sigh, she pealed herself out of the sweaty suit to drop it to the floor. Stepping out of the pile of clothes, clad only in her underwear, she felt greasy and disgusting. She headed straight to the bathroom.
A bath was drawn while she pulled her black hair back into a pony tale. She inspected herself, hands running over smooth, pale green skin, pausing on each new bruise and scratch. They would all fade quickly, as they always did. Shego sighed and stripped herself naked.
The near-scolding temperature was perfect. She never burnt easily and handled extreme heat without difficulty. A pleasurable groan escaped her lips as she sunk into the tub. She closed her eyes and relaxed all her muscles. Above her, the showerhead dripped rhythmically, adding to her comfort.
Her mind wandered to the metal lump she had stuffed in her ankle pouch.
She hadn't told Drakken about Cutter. Walking into the control room, she had intended to do so. But she hadn't. It didn't really matter that he blamed Kim. In truth, he'd probably find a way to blame her anyway. She smirked slightly at the thought of Kimmie driving Drakken nuts, even when she didn't do anything.
Her smile disappeared as thoughts returned to Cutter. That weird, bouncing, stupid, spazoid. The thought that he had been in the lair, right under her nose, made her mentally remind herself that she had double locked her door. Though if she did catch him in here, he would be nothing but a boiling stain on her floor.
Shego sighed yet again. Something was off about that guy. She couldn't figure out what he was after. He wasn't acting like a competing villain or like a secret agent, or even a simple henchman. She was starting to suspect that he was part of an even larger plot. Something bigger then Drakken's latest doomsday device.
A soapy sponge ran up over her shoulders and Shego bit her lip at the pleasurable sensation. There had been one other object on Drakken's list, odd as it was. Cutter had stolen the list. He knew where she was going tomorrow and what she was after.
She wasn't going to tell Drakken. She would go through with the heist and see what would happen. Would he show up, yet again? Would he try and stop her, like he did before? Or would he help her, like he also did on occasion?
Shego scrubbed herself deliberately, suds slipping along her bare skin.
Tomorrow, she was going to expose his plan.
OMG! WTF is gonna happen?? LOL, I have no idea, NOOBZ! It will happen when it happens… and when it happens, it definitely will.
Happen… that is.