Kim positioned herself on the left side of the door, Ron took the right. The small laser disguised as lipstick made short work of the lock and they were inside. There were several offices to make their way through. According to their information, Drakken and Shego had broken into the lab from underground. They had no doubt disabled the lab's security systems from there so they had nothing to alert them to Kim and Ron's approach, though no doubt by now they probably half expected the crime fighting duo to show up on every one of their heists.

The door to the lab was secured with its own power source allowing the decoder to quickly grant them access. Kim signaled Ron that she would go low and that he should go high. She keyed the door and they went in fast.

Light shone through a large observation window at the front of the room, but otherwise it was unlit. A door to their right most likely led out to the lab. They eased to it, trying to remain clear of the window though it was unlikely that anyone in the lighted lab could see into the dark room.

The door led to a ten-foot high steel catwalk that ran the length of the lab with a staircase on either end. Drakken was working at a panel on the far side of the room. Shego was not in sight.

"I don't see any way down that doesn't involve the catwalk," Ron said. Any approach on the catwalk would preclude stealth.

"I'm sure Shego's counting on that. She's hiding somewhere with the intent of getting the drop on us."

Ron scanned the room, then leaned out and looked under the catwalk. After a moment he looked up and scanned the room again. He pointed toward the ceiling near the center of the room.

"You see that crane boom?"

"Yeah."

"Think you can hit it with the grappler?"

"I think so."

"Well there are support pilings under the catwalk and I should be able to go hand over hand to the end of the room. If you be sure to make some kind of loud sound, maybe stomp on the catwalk or something, I can time my drop to coincide with the sound of the grappler. You can swing across and I'll be right there when Shego shows and I can get the drop on her."

"That'd be a change."

"Which is why it'll work. They won't be expecting me."

"I don't know, after our last mission I kind of got the feeling they were starting to respect you."

"Got a better idea?"

She thought a moment. "No."

"Give me about a minute. I should be able to get across by then."

"Okay. So stomp, count one and fire," Kim said.

"Sounds like a plan."

He rolled stealthily across the width of the catwalk, grabbed the side, then rolled off and under. Even right above him, the soft slapping of his gloved hands against the metal supports were barely audible. After counting off sixty seconds, Kim stomped on the catwalk, then fired her grappler. Both sounds echoed loudly through the lab, and Drakken turned, but by then Kim was already swinging across. She landed squarely only ten feet in front of him.

"Feeling ambitious, Drakken?"

"You'll not spoil my fun today, Kim Possible. You and your sidekick have been outthought."

"Sorry, Drakken, flying solo today, no sidekick. See, not even started yet and you're already half wrong."

His confident expression fell as he looked around in confusion and surprise. "Huh…no…side…?" Just as quickly, it came back. "Wrong! It just makes my plan twice as right. Shego! Demonstrate!"

Kim suddenly found herself unable to move, encased in a veil of blue energy.

"Ha! Kim Possible, meet the electron disruption immobilizer!"

From the shadows beneath the catwalk, Shego emerged from a small booth, grinning from ear to ear.

"You were right, Dr. D. That was easy."

Drakken grumbled. "I just wish we had got them both."

"Oh, don't worry. I've stopped underestimating the sidekick. He's around here somewhere. But we'll hear him coming just like we heard Miss Priss here."

Ron's voice echoed through the room, close but from no discernable direction.

"Villains," he sighed. "Their overconfidence always brings them down."

The blue glow around Kim faded and she was free. Using Shego's surprise to her advantage, a front handspring put her in front of Shego, and a roundhouse kick sent her flying. She sprawled in front of Ron as he emerged from the booth. He was surrounded by a faint blue/white glow, indicative of his tapping of his mystical monkey powers.

"Glad you've stopped underestimating me, Shego," he said, leaning over her. "But maybe you should start overestimating me."

Shego loosed an enraged shout and pounced on Ron. With the somewhat haughty detachment he usually displayed when exercising his powers, he easily defended himself, though it was clear that the match was a draw. Kim turned her attention towards Drakken.

"And just what were you planning for us when you had us in your clutches?"

"You'll find out soon enough." He removed a small remote from an inside pocket of his jacket and pressed a button. There was an explosion and a section of the wall crumbled, adjacent to the van they had seen as they approached the lab.

Shego was starting to get past Ron's defenses. His haughtiness wasn't gone, but it was clear he was struggling. As the wall collapsed and Drakken dashed for the escape, Shego loosed a bolt of energy at the panel Drakken had been working on. It exploded, exposing spitting wires and jagged shards of metal.

"Magic yourself out of this one, Monkey Boy."

With a shoulder throw, she tossed Ron into the panel and headed for the opening in the wall.

"Ron!" Kim shouted.

He landed directly in the middle of the damage. He screamed as one of the shards of torn metal pierced his side, but the scream was choked off as electricity coursed through his body.

Kim triggered the panic button on her Kimmunicator that would summon the nearest medical unit even before she got to him. His violent shaking abruptly stopped as somewhere a breaker finally tripped. She carefully extricated him from the mess and found neither pulse nor respiration. His wound was only barely seeping with no heartbeat to propel the blood.

She began CPR, babbling incoherently in panic between breaths, attempting to will life into him with each compression of his chest, with each lungfull of air. The paramedics arrived quickly and she explained what happened as they took over. After a brief assessment, the first paramedic looked up at the second and shook his head slightly. Kim felt something inside her begin to tear loose.

"Continue CPR until we reach the hospital and the attending can pronounce." He gave Kim a sympathetic look as they rolled the stretcher to the ambulance.

Her legs failed her and she collapsed as a great black emptiness filled her. One of the paramedics attempted to persuade Kim to ride to the hospital with them but she neither saw nor heard him. The police arrived and a female officer assured him she would bring Kim along shortly. She didn't hear that either. She did hear the doors of the ambulance slam shut. They might as well have been cannon shots and she flinched at each one.

The next instant she found herself standing outside the hospital with no memory of how she had gotten there. Unbidden, an image of Ron lying on a stainless steel table, snow-white sheet pulled to his shoulder, face slack, filled her mind. Heavily guarded ramparts would not have been as effective at keeping her out of the hospital.

Finally, the emptiness began to fade. But it was not filled with grief, as she expected, but with a ferocious rage, icy cold yet burning her like fire. It coursed through her, filled her. Driven now by forces she could not hope to control, she turned from the hospital and set out in pursuit of Shego, stopping briefly to add one more piece of equipment to her gear.

"Really, Shego, it was a bit harsh, even for you."

"Well, Monkey Boy's really starting to tick me off. Maybe he won't be so cocky next time."

"Maybe, but it doesn't matter. I got what I needed."

"I still don't see how this stupid plan is going to work."

"You always criticize, Shego, but you never listen."

"No, I always listen, that's why I always criticize."

"Your criticizing days are over, Shego."

The voice was familiar, yet she couldn't quite place it. She scanned the room, searching. The figure that emerged from the shadows was Kim Possible, yet it was not Kim Possible. She seemed somehow…darker.

"You again?" Drakken asked. "So soon? Shego, I assume you can handle this. I'm quite busy."

"You've got until I finish with her to be gone, Drakken, if you know what's good for you. And I won't need long."

"Oh, really? I think-."

"Zip it, Dr. D.," Shego said. "Something's not right here."

There was something in her voice, in her posture that made her seem sinister. She approached Kim slowly, cautiously, hands glowing, ready. She looked around for the sidekick but didn't see him.

"Where's your sidekick, Kimmy? You know the same trick never works twice."

"Ron."

There was something in her voice, in the way she said it that made Shego stop. Kim continued to advance. Slowly but deliberately.

"Huh?"

"His name. Ron. Say it. Say it!"

"Okay, okay, Ron. Your sidekick Ron. Where is he?"

"Not just my sidekick. My partner. My friend. The love of my life without whom I will never be complete. You took him from me."

Shego began a slow retreat, propelled by the tone, the accusation in Kim's voice.

"Took him? What are you talking about?"

"You murdered him. You killed him." She drew a long, wicked looking knife from a hip sheath. "And now I'm going to kill you."

Shego laughed nervously. "Okay. Uh…this is a bit much for a distraction." She looked around again.

"Distraction?" she said, incredulously, her voice rising to a shout. "You think this is some kind of distraction?" With a sudden speed that would've beaten lightning in the quarter-mile, Kim struck. The knife flashed, drawing a trace of blood across Shego's abdomen as she was not quite close enough for a killing blow, though honestly that was not yet what Kim had in mind.

There was no question now of her seriousness. Shego had not meant any permanent harm, but apparently she had, indeed, killed Ron Stoppable. And grief turned rage of the depth and intensity of Kim's destroyed rational thought, but sharpened senses, reflexes, and instinct. Shego knew that at the moment, Kim was very, very dangerous.

"Look, I didn't mean-."

"I don't care what you have to say. If you think you're going to talk your way out of this one, you're wrong."

Deciding that the prudence of retreat outweighed her pride, Sego turned and bolted only to suddenly find Kim in front of her again. She didn't see the blow that sent her sprawling.

"You ripped out my soul. And since you don't have one, I can't return the favor. So I'll just rip out your fucking heart."

Another retreat failed and Shego found herself on the floor again. She took up a defensive stance, realizing she wasn't going to get out of this without a fight.

"So, what, you think you can just gank me with that pig-sticker and be done with it?"

Kim held out her hands to show they were empty, then balled them into fists again.

"No, that's not it. I'm going to beat most of the life out of you first. You're going to hurt. Like I hurt."

Shego blocked a punch, ducked a roundhouse kick, but took the backhand that followed to the face and found herself on her knees, spitting blood and a couple of teeth. But Kim didn't wait for her to rise this time. A fierce kick to the gut knocked the wind out of her and she rolled, only to receive a kick to the small of her back. She tried to get up, but Kim stomped on her back and she felt as well as heard at least one rib crack. She was breathless, unable to move.

Kim lifted her effortlessly by the front of her jumpsuit and drove a knee hard into her sternum, then followed with a vicious left cross to her face, then another. With a primal scream Kim hurled her across the room where she crashed into the wall and crumpled into a heap. Kim advanced slowly, menacingly. Shego managed to pick herself up off the floor. Simply drawing a breath was painful. Her nose bled freely, along with a cut on her cheek, and her left eye was beginning to swell shut. She managed to loose two emerald bolts of energy, both of which Kim easily dodged and then was upon her again.

Shego kicked, but with cat-quick reflexes Kim caught her foot and twisted violently. The sound of her ankle snapping was like the sound of a branch being broken, then Kim threw her against the wall again. Shego was unable to defend herself as Kim pressed the attack, pummeling her with a volley of blows to the head, chest, stomach, side, finally letting her crumple to the floor, only half conscious.

Finally now, the knife. Shego saw her draw it with a slow, deliberate motion. She straddled her and brought it to her throat.

"Beg," Kim spat. "Tell me how sorry you are. Tell me how you'll do anything I want. Beg like a dog."

Shego spat in her face. Kim backhanded her, then moved the knife to Shego's breast, pressing the knife just firmly enough to draw blood and make Shego hiss with pain. Then she raised the knife above her head, ready to deliver the killing blow. But as her muscles tensed to strike and the knife began its descent, she heard Ron's voice whisper her name. She looked up.

"Ron?"

Shego used her hesitation to try and buck free, but Kim only backhanded her again. Shaking off the imagined voice, she raised the knife again. Then she saw Ron's face, heard his voice in her mind, telling her to stop.

"Come on, Possible! Do it! Or haven't you got the guts?"

"He wouldn't want it," Kim whispered, too softly for Shego to hear.

She looked at the circle of blood over Shego's heart, the X marking the spot she intended to strike. She lowered the knife to her side, let it clatter to the floor.

"Can't do it, Kimmy?" Defiance was all Shego had left.

"Oh, I can do it. Want to do it. But Ron wouldn't want it. He wouldn't want it."

She rose and walked a few paces away, then turned back.

"You owe your life to a dead man, Shego. A man you murdered. Live with that."

The fight was gone from her, the rage burned away by its own white-hot intensity. Kim walked away, hunched over, head down, shoulders slumped; victorious but defeated.

Kim walked slowly up the walk to her parents' house. Finally, she was fully adrift in the anguish of her grief. Random images from the enormous amount of time she had spent with Ron ran rampant through her mind. She had long exhausted her tears, so even that small comfort was denied her and she could do nothing more than endure the pain. And minute by minute she believed she was coming closer to the point where that would no longer be possible and her only other option would be madness.

Her feet felt like lead and her legs like Jell-O, and just when she thought she could go no further, the door opened and her parents came rushing out to her. She collapsed into their arms and that comfort unlocked a reserve of tears and she sobbed uncontrollably.

She felt like a child again as her mother knelt with her, stroking her hair and speaking nonsense words to her, trying to calm her.

"I can't do it, Mom. I can't go on without him."

"What's wrong, honey? What are you talking about?"

"You don't know?"

"Know what?"

"Ron. He's…."

She could not force her mind to accept the concept of Ron's death, and thus could not form the words, could only sob again. Her mom gently took Kim's chin and lifted her head.

"Is that what you think? Honey, Ron's fine."

Those two words, the reality of what they meant was something she wanted so badly that she could not make herself believe her mom had actually spoke them.

"Wha…what?"

"You haven't been to the hospital?"

"No, I…He…Ron…."

"He's fine. They revived him on the way to the hospital. He's minus his spleen, but he's going to be just fine."

She was dreaming. She actually had collapsed moments before her parents came rushing out. Her mind was dealing with the grief the only way it could. So she simply stared at her mother blankly. She knew it was a dream, but wanted it to be real so badly she made herself unable to distinguish between dream and reality. Her mother helped her to stand.

"Come on, I'll drive you."

As each mile passed, she began to think that maybe, just maybe, she wasn't dreaming after all. As the elevator rose, so finally did hope. As she approached the door to his room, time slowed. Each step seemed to take forever. Finally, the door opened and he was there on the bed. His eyes opened, he looked at her, smiled, said her name and she knew it was for real. She crossed the room at super-luminal speed, sobbing again but this time with unimaginable joy and relief.

She felt his arms around her and kissed his face over and over, babbling his name and 'I love you' like a broken record. He took her face in his hands to stop the onslaught.

"Hey. What's wrong? Where ya been, KP?"

"In hell, baby. I've been in hell. I thought I'd lost you. I thought you were dead."

"Well, I was. For almost ten minutes, they said."

"No, you don't understand. I didn't ride in the ambulance. Never came to the hospital. I pictured you…I…I couldn't come in. I didn't know they'd revived you. I just found out. Just now, and even then didn't really believe it until I saw you."

Ron gaped in horror, unable to imagine what the last twelve hours must have been like for her. "Oh, Kim."

"But it's okay now. It's okay. I thought I would go insane with grief, I think I did a little. But it's okay now. It's okay. It's okay."

She lay her head on his chest, relishing in the sound of his beating heart. His wonderfully strong beating heart.

"So where'd you go? What'd you do?"

The memory of her lopsided fight with Shego suddenly came to the forefront of her mind, and she was mildly horrified. She would not have thought that she possessed the ability to be so mercilessly violent. She even felt a little sorry now that she realized she had punished Shego rather severely for a crime that she hadn't committed.

"I…I bought a twelve inch bowie knife and went looking for Shego."

Ron's face fell. "Oh, Kim, no. You didn't. Please say you didn't."

"I didn't. But I beat her almost to death. The knife was just meant to be the coup de grace. I was so enraged it wasn't even a challenge. It was like fighting a child. I pounded her until she was almost unconscious. She lay there, and I raised the knife, was bringing it down to finish her."

"And?"

"And I heard your voice in my head. Saw your face. Heard you clear as a bell tell me not to. And I let her live. Didn't want to. Still, I wanted to cut her heart out. But I knew you wouldn't have approved. So I left her there in a bloodied heap. I hurt her awfully bad, she may still have died. I don't know. Don't care. It's what she deserves."

"From the way you describe it, I don't think anybody deserves the full blown wrath of Kim Possible," Ron said with a smile, stroking her face tenderly. Kim smiled back. "Why don't you check in with Wade, see if he can get a bead on Shego?"

"Oh, I forgot. I turned the Kimmunicator off." She switched it on and Wade's face appeared as soon as it powered up.

"Kim! I've been trying to reach you for hours."

"Sorry, Wade. I was trying to make myself scarce."

"I take it you've found out Ron's all right."

"Yeah. But thanks. Think you can check on something for me?"

"Sure thing."

"See what you can find out about Shego being taken to either a hospital or a uh…um, morgue."

"Morgue?"

"Afraid so."

"Um…okay." His hands stroked the keyboard. "Got it. Shego was admitted to Middleton Hospital four hours ago in critical condition. She had…." His voice trailed off and his eyes widened. "Kim, you did this?"

"Well, it wasn't me, not really. What, exactly, did I do?"

"She had three broken ribs, two more cracked, broken right ankle, punctured lung, fractured sternum, multiple lacerations to the face and body, including one above the left eye that required fourteen stitches. Severe concussion, multiple contusions over thorax and abdomen and three missing teeth. They've just upgraded her condition from critical to serious and expect her to be out of ICU in a couple of days. So it looks like she's on the mend, despite having had a rough time of it."

Kim flinched as every injury was read, but then realized that her remorse would not heal Ron any more quickly, and that it was only by the slimmest of margins that he was alive at all. It also occurred to her that Shego's lack of intent to kill meant nothing, and that she was still responsible for throwing Ron into Death's arms even though he had not been able to hold on. Her remorse abruptly vanished, and some of the anger even returned, now that the relief of Ron's survival had begun to fade. She thanked Wade for his help and signed off.

"Not near rough enough," she grumbled.

"Kim, I'm surprised at you," Ron said.

"Ron, she almost killed you. And as far as I knew, for a while she had. I've no more sympathy for her than she would for me were our positions reversed. You can't know how it felt to have lost you."

"No, I can't. But I can certainly imagine, 'cause I would feel the same way if I lost you. Still, I'm going to pop in on her tomorrow, if for nothing else but to let her know she didn't give me a bucket to kick after all."

"Do what you want."

"I will. And right now, I want nothing more than to sit here with you."

Kim smiled and pulled the bedside chair close so she could continue to hold his hand. "I think I can handle that."

This story is the one that originally grew from the seed that became The Son of Amyntor. However I came to the conclusion that both Shego and Kim were portrayed out of character as I don't believe Shego is capable of cold-blooded murder (if indeed she is capable of murder at all) and find it highly unlikely that Kim either could or would react as she did. I also decided that the story itself lacked substance and so decided to take it back to formula and start over. I post it here merely out of curiousity as to how people react to a story that I consider to be sub-par.

O.S.