Boilerplate Disclaimer: Disney owns all the Kim Possible characters. Cheap shots at celebrities constitute fair usage.
OCs in this chapter appeared in Domus dulcis domus, chapter 7.
Interlude – Making Up Is Hard to Do, part 2
Joss wondered why it bothered her that Bego and Wade had plans. She certainly didn't think her 'sister' was in any trouble. It made sense. Even though Joss and Bego had become separate individuals before Joss started dating Wade the two of them shared many of the same ideas and attitudes because of their shared memories. If she'd fallen for Wade, then certainly Bego could fall for Wade. Was that what bothered her? Was she afraid of Bego developing a crush and Wade not returning the affection? Was she afraid of Wade returning the affection? Shouldn't she simply be happy for Bego?
At the end of the first session on Saturday morning Joss realized she had no idea what the panel discussion had talked about. She resolved to focus better in the afternoon session, but achieved only slightly better results. She had seen Bego, who was dressed too well to go to a movie - which made her feel even worse.
"They think I'm Wade's girlfriend so I get to sit up on the stage again," her blue sister told Joss.
"You've got no business up there," Joss snapped. As she found a fast food place in Kendall Square for a bite before Vivian Porter's keynote address Joss calmed down and realized she would need to apologize to Bego.
Drakken could only have enjoyed the day more if he had received an honorary doctorate. Because he was not on the program he had suffered the injustice of anonymity on the first evening. By Saturday his identity was better known to those attending the conference and he handed out and accepted enough business cards to please Zita as well as receiving his own pile of résumés from students and recent graduates so eager for jobs they were willing to endure long rambling stories from the blue man on the success Lipsky and Load enjoyed and the future of the alien technology project.
Vivian Porter had served on the morning's panel discussion during which Joss had spaced out. She worked on her speech during the afternoon and confessed to Wade that she had a bad case of butterflies in her stomach as they ate dinner.
The evening convocation began very much like the meeting began the night before. The crowd in the hall was larger, but Wade felt no jealousy that Vivian had a larger name in cybernetics. He was better able to face the prospect of Joss in the audience that evening. At least he didn't have to talk. Seeing her last night had reminded him how much he still cared for her. Seeing her made him feel wonderful, but her words from the night before were still seared on his heart, "We're not gettin' back together. We both know it." He might know it in his head, but he still hadn't accepted it in his heart.
Wade followed Vivian's lecture as closely as many of the men followed every movement of the blonde woman. Bego, who couldn't make sense out of most of what Dr. Porter said, let her mind stray and noticed the problem first. She nudged Wade, "Trouble," she whispered. "Look at the exits."
The three hulking thugs at each doorway were not campus security, they had henchmen written all over them.
Before either Wade or Bego had a chance to act a man at each doorway handed a long staff with glowing red canisters at each end to the other men, who moved into the lecture hall while the third man kept watch at the door.
"What are those," Bego whispered as the lecture hall erupted into chaos.
"Pain sticks," Wade answered fast, "Drakken sometimes used 'em. Lot of pain, but one hit shouldn't kill."
"You will all remain seated," an amplified voice with an odd intonation thundered. One student, unwilling to listen, sprang to his feet. A blow from a pain stick sent him to the floor, screaming in agony, and the others remained in their chairs. Something that looked oddly like a garbage can on wheels, with a fishbowl on the top, rolled in from a back exit and took up a position in front of the stage. "Do not even think of touching your cell phones. My partner and I do not wish for anyone else to be hurt," it announced.
Wade frowned, he had heard of Alien Brain before, but the thing usually worked alone. Who was its partner and what was their plan? He received answers to both his questions quickly. Two henchmen entered the back of lecture hall carrying a litter which held a plant stand with a large cactus.
"Isn't that--" Bego began
"It is," Wade groaned, "Spiny Norman."
"We will hold the scientists for ransom," the cactus announced. "We have no need to hold students and will free you when we leave."
"Our men will ask for identification. Show a student ID and turn in your cell phone and move to--"
"Wallets!" the cactus shouted. "They must hand over their wallets also."
"Small timer!" Alien Brain bellowed, "We've got a big plan and you want a little cash?"
"Fine, I won't split it with you," Norman shouted back.
Alien Brain would have slapped his forehead in disgust, if he had a hand or forehead. "Students will turn in cell phone and wallets and move to the back of the room," he said in exasperation.
A black MIT student in the audience whispered to his neighbor, "What's this move to the back of the room shit?" Despite the tension the person beside him giggled, drawing a hard look but no other reaction from the henchman closest to them.
The scientists in the front of the lecture hall were herded onto the stage with the guests of honor as the villains separated the two groups. It gave Wade and Bego the chance to quickly confer with Drakken and Vivian Porter.
"What's going on," the blonde woman whispered. "Hold us for ransom?"
"More likely he wants us to build a better robotic body for him," Wade guessed.
"Do what they're asking now?" Drakken asked.
"I vote no," Bego answered. "You don't know what kind of a hideout they might have. Catch 'em by surprise here and end it now."
Vivian Porter seemed nervous, "There are a lot of them, I don't know that I--"
"You don't need to do anythin'," Bego assured her. "I'm guessin' Joss has the same idea. They're all spread out now. Once they have us in two groups the henchmen have to bunch together for crowd control."
Joss moved cautiously toward the edge of the group on the stage, with Drakken and Wade behind her.
The young looking Bego caught the attention of one of the henchmen, "Hey, you're no scientist."
"She's my daughter," Drakken told him, putting his hands on the blue girl's shoulders - as if to reassure her.
As the three reached the edge of the stage they were able to see Joss among the students gathered at the far end of the hall. The blue girl and her sister exchanged smiles of recognition and wished their mental contact didn't require them to be touching. As Bego had predicted however Joss was waiting for the perfect moment. The sisters watched the henchmen as they finished their job of separation and the two kept watching each other.
Bego made the first move. She stood on the edge of the stage. A trio of henchmen were clustered together on the floor of the lecture hall, three feet lower than the stage and Bego jumped on top of them. The blue girl looked like she weighed little less than a hundred pounds, but her metal construction meant her real weight was far more. The trio went down, and two were in no condition to arise after her weight knocked them out.
The noise caused those guarding the students to turn and see what was happening, which is when Joss struck. She had positioned herself near two of the thugs. When they turned away she grabbed a head in each hand and slammed them together. There was a sound of melons colliding and the two dropped.
Wade nudged Drakken, "I'll go for the Brain, you take Norman."
A third henchman had run toward Joss, his painstick on the ready. Before he could swing at her, however, the slim girl grabbed it also. At twice her size he had no fear of her taking it from him when she suddenly dropped, she jerked as she went down - sending him off balance and flying over her into the middle of the students. Three students promptly sat on him. Joss arose, painstick in hand, and headed for more henchmen. The thugs started to back up. There were more of them, and they were all much larger than the girl who confronted him but the joy and confidence in her grin said she was going to enjoy what happened next - and that scared them.
Wade went straight for Alien Brain, and at the moment there was enough confusion no one tried to stop him. "You're busted," the young black man told the metal construct.
"I don't think so," the villain retorted. A port on his metal shell opened and a glowing red rod emerged, "Exterminate!" It rolled towards Wade.
"That looked like a pain stick," Wade said as he dodged to the side.
"It is," the alien admitted as it turned and rolled towards him again. "I can't risk killing any scientists."
"Then why the 'Exterminate'?" Wade asked, dodging again.
"Blurg, I've wanted to say that since I got to your planet," the garbage can on wheels admitted.
Bego's strength had left five henchmen unconscious and made the others far more cautious in their approach. The fact the robot girl had less ability to experience pain made her careless, she thought herself immune and didn't dodge a blow from a painstick and suddenly felt agony rip through her being like she could not have imagined possible. Bego screamed and dropped to her knees, holding her left arm, which felt like it was on fire.
"How does a cactus get henchmen?" Drakken wondered as he skirted the wall moving towards where Norman and the two men carrying his pot surveyed the chaos. "I mean, sure he's the smartest cactus in the world - but how hard is it to claim that distinction?"
The cactus spoke first, "Drakken? Is that really you?"
"Surrender, and… Snap, I don't know what I'm supposed to say."
"Why'd you quit? You were a hero to so many of us… Okay, maybe hero isn't the word… How could you break our hearts and go straight?"
The blue man shrugged, "Actually, I'm finding that government contracts pay a lot better than crime. I can overcharge the public and get hailed as a pillar of the community. It's-- Hey, don't change the subject. Put up your… Sorry, you don't have hands, but--"
"Get 'im, boys," Norman told the henchmen carrying his pot.
That was the moment when Bego screamed. Instead of running for cover Drakken froze momentarily, long enough for the two henchmen to put down Norman, grab Drakken and start roughing him up.
Bego's scream drove Joss into a frenzy of action. She leapt high in the air, executing a perfect summersault from her two years as a cheerleader and landed in the middle of the circle of thugs facing her. As they whipped around in the tight quarters to face her two of them went down, struck by the glowing rods their neighbor's carried. They were too close to use their sticks, too much chance of hitting another of their number. Joss suffered from no such liability. Anything standing was a fair target and within seconds only two of the original group were still on their feet and they started back peddling towards their companions at the front of the hall.
The blue girl struggled to her feet, her left arm hanging limp and useless and the pain seeming to grow. She had gone down by the first row of chairs, and grabbed one. The chairs were a heavy, industrial weight designed for hard use. The metal frame weighed eighteen pounds and the shape was clumsy for an average person to use as a weapon - and impossible for an average person with one arm. Bego was not an average person. She picked up a chair with her right hand and threw it - hard. A henchman went down. A second went down, and those who had been at the front of the hall backed toward the stage where the scientists stood - figuring she wouldn't risk injuring the scientists by hurling more chairs.
The scientists were not longer passive captives. With the henchmen vastly diminished in number by two girls the younger cyberneticists grabbed the thugs from behind. The crooks couldn't watch Bego and their backs at the same time soon they had hauled on stage and had scientists and faculty sitting on them as well.
"Boss! We gotta get out of here!" one of the two thugs running towards Alien Brain yelled.
The canister turned to see what was happening, and Wade jumped him from behind - grabbing two of the metal handles used by henchmen when the alien needed to be carried up or down stairs.
"Gurg!" the alien swore, suddenly aware of Wade's plan he tried to withdraw the painstick protruding from the front of his shell, but it was too late. The henchmen were too close to stop and Wade swiveled the villain back and forth, hitting both thugs with the painstick and sending them both to the floor.
Drakken suddenly became aware that he no longer had two men beating on him. He heard "Stop it!" *thud* "Stop it!" *thud* and looked over to find the larger of the two henchmen down on the floor with Vivian Porter on his back. She was repeatedly banging the man's leather helmeted head against the floor and it wasn't clear if he was even conscious at the moment. The smaller thug decided it was a good time to leave, but Drakken grabbed him and was still struggling to gain the upper hand when students came over to round up the villains at the fight's end.
Spiny Norman, of course, remained rooted in his pot, screaming at the injustice of being returned to a sunny spot in the warden's office.
Drakken was about to thank Vivian Porter when the two heard Joss's frantic scream, "Help! Somethin's wrong with Bego!"