Re-enter the Dragon

By Eoraptor

Kim Possible and all related characters © Walt Disney Corporation 2002-2007.

A/N: All right, right off the bat, expect Kim and Shego and pretty much everyone to be very OOC in this fic. It also ignores most of season 4.

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"Avoidance"

"I give up."

Agent Possible blinked slightly. Three little words tripped her mental circuit breakers and made her stop in her usually confident tracks. These were three words that she didn't even think Shego knew. Her keen olive eyes narrowed and she took in the scene in a trained, accustomed manner.

Slumped shoulders, hair pulled into a limp pony tail, flat simple sneakers. Her clothes weren't trashy, but weren't the high-quality labels Kim remembered Shego favoring either. Had she made a mistake? Were there more people in the world with emerald-tinted skin? She studied the woman further, intently.

Shego, meanwhile, was still standing there, unmoving and doing her best to show she was absolutely no threat. When no commands were forthcoming, she took a chance. Slowly, she turned around to take in the person who had addressed her. She looked towards the floor though, not meeting the eyes of the person addressing her. 'Polished black boots. Important officer.' Her mind told her almost instinctively.

After what, to her mind, was several minutes without a further command, Shego risked raising her eyes up. She wanted to gauge what infraction was causing this protracted silence, and the person who'd spoken to her wasn't saying anything yet. Maybe they didn't know she was an escapee; they hadn't darted or gassed her yet after all.

Slowly emerald eyes made their way up the form of the person who'd approached her. Black slacks, dark blue shirt in a feminine, but not frilly style, hung from a long slender frame. The hands were pale, with short cut nails, but she wasn't close enough to judge their strength or the state of any calluses.

She blinked; the boots weren't actually law-enforcement, they were just very well cared for. Not an officer then? Her eyes darted back down and began their assessment again. It had been a long time since she'd seen someone not in a jumpsuit of some sort, so maybe she was jumping to conclusions. She could tell by the way this woman held her hips that she knew how to handle herself, despite the civilian clothes.

Finally, she made it to the shoulders and her heart started beating again. In fact, it leapt into her throat. Shoulder length red hair dusted across the shoulders. A fine pointed chin came into view, one her fists remembered very well. She clenched them slightly in sympathetic memory. She stopped at the lips and chin, not ready to look up any further for fear her hopes would be dashed.

Kim was getting a little impatient with the silence. Yet she couldn't do anything about it. For one, she wasn't used to this particular vantage. She was actually at eye-level with Shego. The last time she'd met and fought with the malachite mercenary, she'd been a good five inches shorter.

Working past that discrepancy, she stared at Shego's face intently, analyzing every line and feature on the older woman. And older she definitely seemed; Shego seemed to have aged a decade, and the years were not kind ones from what Kim could tell. Okay, so make that two issues leading to her silence.

Shego's eyes were haunted, hunted even, and they made Kim want to reach out and hug the villainess. That wasn't a part of her normal daydreams. Shego wasn't the hugging type; never had been. That was what stopping Kim from playing out either version of her simple fantasy any further.

Shego's emerald eyes finally angled upwards a bit more, and settled on the woman's olive eyes. Recognition flashed like lightning between two different shades of green and Shego was the one to break the silence, barely able to manage a whisper at the fulfillment of her own dream, "Princess?"

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Shego, hardened villainess, mercenary, and all around hard case, sat in her cell trying to ignore the feeling in the pit of her stomach. The last thing she remembered, she'd been walking down the streets in Milan, a bag of clothing in each hand as she enjoyed the Mediterranean sun and searched for the next storefront to catch her eye. The next thing she remembered was a sharp sting in her neck. She swatted at it instinctively, feeling the dart there, and that was all she could recall.

She'd woken up in a holding cell made of some thick clear plastic, probably Lucite or Luxon 2. That meant she could only be a few places since very few agencies could afford such nice cells. She looked down at her hands. No cuffs, which struck her as unusual. She tested a theory by snapping her fingers.

Nothing.

That was when the cold lead ball had formed in the pit of her stomach. The one she was trying to ignore currently. She noticed, upon moving her foot to cross her legs irritably, that her legs were shackled. No cuffs, but manacles; another clue. They knew her fighting style beyond just her fire powers. That narrowed down who had her even further.

Her suspicions were confirmed when a pair of guards in blue jumpsuits appeared at the front wall of her transparent cell. Shego swallowed her lump and stood up, shuffling right up to the wall of the cell to stare at them. "Hello Global dicks... Where's Betty?"

The guards didn't say anything, but one pressed what must be an unseen keypad, because the door to her left clicked and opened inwards.

"Arraignment hearing? Okay then… I'd like to see what they were able to find enough evidence of to charge me with anyways."

Shego was led to a small court room and dumbfounded at what she heard.

Shego couldn't believe it when she'd heard it at the arraignment. Being escorted into the facility in person really didn't solidify the reality for her any, either. She'd always thought things like 'secret trials' and 'secret prisons' were a myth that long-timer's told the newbs in prison to entertain themselves. Right?

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Kim couldn't believe the look Shego gave her. In Kim's day-dreams, at least some of them, it was she that was supposed to give Shego that look. Longing, fear, relief, disbelief, and a dozen other things were behind the villainess's electric green eyes.

That look came out of the dream where Shego swept back into Kim's life and took her away from it all. It was one of the older day dreams, from a time before Kim had even fully admitted her feelings, whatever they turned out to be. From the dark days when Kim had left Ron and was lost, and fantasized about just tossing it in as far as heroing went; that was where that fantasy was from, and that look was being turned back on her now.

Shego gave a quick, paranoid look around, and then clutched the dress she had been examining to her body. "Okay Princess, it's your show… how are you going to get me out of here? Where's Dr. D. at? Did you bring the naco-boy?"

Kim stood, dumbfounded, looking Shego over. Her brain had just slipped into neutral and wasn't even bothering to work on the thief's questions. It just spun its mental gears as she stared.

Gone were those dangerous curves the one-time Go City hero was famous for; the kind that stopped traffic and summoned lecherous thoughts. In their place was a hard body, sculpted out of green marble, with every twitch of her muscles evident as she continued to look around. Thick veins fed well-formed muscles in the woman's bare arms, and strong tendons were visible at her elbows and wrists. It was almost like looking at a walking comic-book heroine or an anatomy study. This was a body that could break someone in half if called on to do so.

Yet, the body language spoke exactly the opposite. Shego's shoulders were hunched up in nervousness now; where as when Kim had first come upon her, they'd been slumped defeatedly. She shifted uncertainly from foot to foot as Kim watched her, and her fingers were kneading the fabric of the dress she'd been investigating when Kim had startled her. Her eyes were shifty, but not in a deceitful way, more like those of a small frightened child checking under her bed at night.

'Who is this woman?' was all Kim's mind could come up with when it got back into gear after a moment. 'This is not my Shego. This is a whole different animal.'

"Possible? Please, what's the plan?!"

The urgency in Shego's voice finally pushed Kim's mind fully back in to gear. She carefully rested a hand on the older woman's shoulder and gave her a tiny shake, wanting to snap the verdant woman out of her near-panic. Shaking Shego was like trying to shake a washing machine with one hand, and with similar results. The woman's shoulder was like steel, and didn't move under the gentle pressure.

Still, the contact seemed to pull her back from the brink, and she turned those panicked jade eyes on her perceived savior.

"Come on Shego, let's get you out of here. Have you had lunch yet?"

Shego shook her head, and an audible grumbling of her belly split the silence between them, causing Kim to chuckle softly at the comedic timing. Ron's guts used to do the same thing when she asked that question. Still, she needed to calm and distract the raven-hared vixen, "Were you buying that dress? We can take it with us if you want."

'What the hell is the matter with you? Screw the dress! We need to get out of here before they find me!' Shego's mind screamed. Her mouth said nothing and she shook her head, nervously hanging the dress back on the rack. After a moment, the former thief straightened herself up, preparing for the long-awaited getaway.

Slowly, carefully, she stepped towards Kim, closing the few feet between them as though she were walking the last long mile. She had to consciously fight the well trained urge to hold her hands out, wrists up, to await restrains. Still, Kim was finally here, finally with her. She was safe at last. Days of running, hiding, and evading caught up with the emerald henchwoman then and there.

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She was getting tired of that fucking tazer. Every time someone tried to start something with her, she got fried. As though it were her fault mouthy fuckers wanted to start shit with her? She hadn't even thrown the first punch this time for crying out loud!

Shego groaned and slowly peeled herself up off the ground, wiping some grass off her face. Four days of this, and people still didn't get that she was not the one with whom to fuck. She'd taken the first three inmates to come after her apart even before she could be tazered.

Now the guards were getting faster with their triggers; and she'd only landed four blows after Mulmar had smacked her. "Shit that's starting to hurt…"

She was lying of course, it had hurt the first damned time they'd zapped her, and it wasn't feeling any better with repeated dosages of voltage. These weren't normal tazers, she knew. They were tuned way the hell up, and they kicked like a mule. She stared round the yard, and at the non-descript mountains beyond that framed the nameless valley the prison lay in, trying to catch her breath.

Then Mulmar wandered over and kicked her, spitting on her as well. "Foul woman. Learn your place."

Why the hell didn't they tazer his ass, he'd hit her first for fuck's sake! Okay, so it was just a slap on the face, but still! Growling, Shego got up and flexed her palms, trying to summon up retribution.

Again there was that cold lump in her core. The cold lump was the sensation left in her after her injection the first day she was here. It was also the reason she couldn't summon up her fire to teach Mulmar about a woman's proper place by lighting that beard of his on fire.

Shego's fire was gone, suppressed by that injection four days ago. She felt alien without it, and the repeated shocks weren't helping her to feel any more normal.

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Kim yelped as Shego collapsed forward into her arms. Actually Shego collapsed forward into Kim, period. Her arms only snapped up to catch the unconscious fighter when she flopped forward into the redhead's chest. Kim had to drag her to a near by chair fire-rescue style and set her up on it.

She found herself feeling very fortunate that the clothier had a very well stocked first-aid kit available as she drug Shego to the chair. A few whiffs of smelling salts soon had the emerald woman coming around and shaking her head at the biting scent of ammonia. As she did, Kim had the chance to study her face.

Her earlier assessment was definitely accurate; Shego seemed to have aged a lot more than four years if the fine frown lines at the corners of her lips and eyes were any indication. The dark green bags beneath her eyes didn't make her seem much younger either, and Kim sighed as she propped the malachite woman up and waited for her to come 'round.

"Shego, what happened to you? Where have you been?" she whispered as she resisted the urge to caress the older woman's face. She was a bit startled when Shego responded, even though her eyes still closed.

"Prison fucking happened, that's what. Sorry about collapsing on you like that." Emerald eyes opened with a pained expression as she looked to Kim and shook her head to clear it. "Now… I was asking about getting out of here?"

Kim chuckled softly and handed the saleswoman the first-aide kit back, shaking her head and smirking. She chose to ignore the fact that this was about the first time Shego had ever apologized to her about anything. "There's my Shego. Yeah, let's get you out of here before you cause another scene."

As she rose shakily to her feet, she looked over at Kim with a mixture of confusion and irritation. "Your shego? That's news to me, kitten."

"Oh, and you're not the woman who just fell into my arms and begged me to get you the hell out of here?" the redhead smirked and arched a brow at her new companion as she rose and offered a supporting elbow. "Maybe I should just turn you over to the tender mercies of whomever you're so afraid of if that's the case."

Kim's potent smirk died as she saw the ghost of panic roll over Shego's drawn face. It was quickly hidden behind her trademark smarm; but it was there, and Kim saw it plain as day. The smarm itself was something of a ghost in Kim's eyes, a pale imitation of Shego's formerly glass-cutting whit. Still, she figured a good meal and maybe a night's sleep would fix that.

One whisper of a concern finally occurred to Kim as her initial shock with the sitch wore off and the two women exited the store. Just who was it that Shego needed to stay hidden from? She had always been able to take care of herself in the past… in the past…

After a quick stop at Cow & Chow, where Kim watched in amazement as Shego inhaled three half-bulls and a large moo-juice, they returned to Kim's hotel room. Five stars, and in the heart of Manhattan. Yes, Global Justice paid very well indeed. Kim wearily led her green-skinned guest into the suite, watching the hunted way in which Shego moved until they were within the confines of room number 705.

Once again the redhead was struck by the mixed messages Shego's body and eyes were putting out. Her tight body, and it was very tight, moved with her typical confidence and swagger. Her eyes, however, scanned every dark corner and every open space as though it held an army waiting to ambush her.

"Here we are Shego… My home for the next three weeks. And yours as well if you need a place to crash I suppose." Kim latched the locks on the door, and turned to watch her verdant companion again as she kicked her polished boots off.

When she did, she was shocked. Once again, just as she had at Shilo's Clothier, Shego let her cocky illusion evaporate and her body collapsed in a wrecked heap on one of the beds. Kim felt lucky now that she'd paid for a two bed suite despite having no plans of having guests, because the way Shego splayed out she took up most of a full bed on her own. She allowed herself to survey Shego once more as the dark woman mumbled something silently to herself and stared at the ceiling, and then turned away.

The Global Justice agent stepped to the small office space and opened her laptop. She searched for records on Shego once more, just in case something had been posted since the last time she'd done this. Once again, however, nothing appeared. No record of Shego for the last four years, not so much as a parking ticket or a drivers' license renewal. The woman really had just dropped off the face of the Earth it seemed. Closing the laptop, Kim silently sighed to herself and returned to the bedroom of the suite.

She was surprised to see Shego passed out once more. She paused, listening to the sound of the older woman's breathing with a keenly trained ear, and nodded to herself. The emerald woman was soundly asleep now, even though her lips still moved slightly in some somnolent discussion every now-and-again.

"Maybe… Maybe I should call Wade. He might be able to find something on Shego that I haven't. Besides, it would be good to talk with him again." Kim spoke to herself as she continued to look over her guest. She missed talking with Wade, actually talking. Email just wasn't the same these days as talking to him on a vid phone almost daily during her teen-hero years.

She wasn't going to call Ron yet, even though he was still going to school here in NYC. Shego was still something of a sore spot between them and she winced at the thought of reopening that old wound.

'Speaking of wounds…' She thought as she leaned forward. She blinked, now seeing an angry scar running up Shego's abdomen. It was bared as the blouse she was wearing had come untucked and ridden up in her tossing on the bed. About an inch long and very thickly puckered, it stood out smoothly against the rest of her green skin because it looked as though… well the truth was it didn't look like any kind of scar Kim had ever seen.

It was like a deep incision that had been stitched shut and only just finished healing; but there were no stitch punctures along it, not thread marks criss-crossing it. She reached out and very lightly ran the tip of her index finger along the scar, and over the clearly sculpted abdominal muscles along Shego's left side, her green eyes drifting to the sleeping woman's face in deep concern once more. 'Where have you been?'

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