The Clash
XX
Just past the hangar was a short stretch of flat, grassy field. Just past the field was a chain-linked fence topped with barbed wire, interrupted by the occasional watchtower. Just past the fences and towers, up a hilly incline, and concealed behind an outcropping of rocks and bushes, Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable surveyed the scene before them.
"You think that's them?" asked Ron.
The two of them watched a scattered handful of henchmen in their line of sight.
"I don't know. They are pretty big."
Ron was wondering whether they were the ninja thieves they had been pursuing by air. Although the henchmen were not wearing black suits or masks, Kim supposed those outfits could have been for infiltration alone, and they did have the same burly, top-heavy physiques as the thieves at Drakken's warehouse.
A couple of them stood in the watchtowers, looking very bored, while another henchman was pacing back and forth across the grassy field that lay between the fence and the hangar. The island had been almost empty of guards when Kim and Ron arrived, but soon after they began to scope out the facility, a few of them had popped into sight. It was almost as if they had woken up near noon and gotten to their guard posts late.
"See anything?" asked Ron
Kim zoomed in with a pair of high-tech spy binoculars she had fished out of her pack. Her eyes flinched as the binoculars caught the glare of the hanger's corrugated tin roof, shimmering in the sun's heat. The windows on the side of the hangar facing them were clear enough to see through, and she trained her binoculars at one of them. Sure enough, she could see the outline of a jet in the hangar's dim interior.
"Is that the one, Wade?" whispered Kim into her Kimmunicator, although the question was barely worth asking. It was obvious they had come to the right place.
"Yep, that's it."
"Where to now?"
"My scans picked up a sewer tunnel emptying into the ocean a few hundred yards from where you're hidden. It's over to your left, you should be able to see it from where you are. If you can get to it, it should go into the base."
"Got it."
Kim moved back as far as she could without leaving the cover of the rocky, bush-covered outcropping in which she and Ron were hidden. The island's coast was right behind her, rockier and more abrupt than the smooth beach where they had first landed. She trained the binoculars along the length of the coast and saw the sewer pipe that Wade was talking about after a few moments. It was big enough to fit through, but she anticipated getting her mission suit dirty. The things she did for justice...
"Let's go, Ron."
The two of them crept out of their hiding spot and kept an eye on the guards. The sewer pipe was not far, and Kim could see that there were only a couple of brief stretches where they would be in plain sight of one of the watchtowers. At that point, Kim would just have to make sure they moved when the guard was not looking. As long as Ron didn't trip over anything or yell something out, they'd be golden.
XX
It was a good thing that guard hadn't heard Ron trip and yell.
"Sorry about that," said Ron as they slogged their way through the sewer pipe on their way towards the interior of the island compound.
"Don't worry about it."
The smell wasn't awful, at least, and Kim had gone through far worse sewers, but she still preferred it when Wade found a nice air vent to infiltrate a lair like he did most of the time. Underwater entrances were okay too, or sneaking in on the back of a truck. Or when she could just barge right in through the front door, which was actually sometimes the best strategy.
"There's an opening just ahead of you," said Wade. "A small utility ladder, leading up into what looks like a maintenance room in the main compound building. Be careful when you get inside though, I'm seeing more of those henchmen milling around outside. It seems like maybe the activity level is picking up towards noon for some reason."
Sure enough, a slight curve in the sewer pipe led Kim and Ron straight to the utility ladder in question. Kim crawled up the ladder and opened the hatch at the top to find herself in a damp-looking maintenance room lit by a single fluorescent light in the ceiling, which cast a sickly yellow tint over the concrete walls. A low, almost soothing thrumming sound came from some maintenance equipment that crowded the already small room. Kim leaned down and helped Ron out of the ladder below.
A small, curved stairway led up from the maintenance room to a door that opened into a short hallway. Kim cracked the door open and looked down both ends of the hall in a quick check for guards, and then motioned for Ron to follow as the two of them made their way out. Wade's technical wizardry was not enough to let them know all the details of the building, so they would have to do things the old fashioned way.
"This is my least favorite part trying to find something in some supervillain's lair," whispered Ron as they crept down the hallway towards the next door. "They always have like a million rooms, and there's no way to know where whatever you're looking for might be-"
Kim opened the door to find the Cupcake Containment Chamber sitting in the center of what looked like a very opulent lounge area.
"Oh, there it is!"
Kim had almost been hoping for a room full of henchmen, as she was getting to get a little antsy for an actual fight. Spinning Tops of Doom were not nearly as fun as a good one on one, and she still needed to teach a lesson to that ninja leader she had fought back at the warehouse. For a mediocre fighter, he had gotten entirely too lucky with some of his hits.
Kim had been expecting to find the Containment Chamber in some kind of well-guarded laboratory, but this room was clearly some kind of recreational area. A gigantic flat-screen television stood beside one wall, surrounded by a leather couch and several matching leather recliners. Speakers were hooked up to the television on either side; speakers that looked like they were loud enough to require anyone watching television to strap themselves into the couch with a seatbelt.
The floor beneath the entertainment center was carpeted, and beyond a couple of steps the floor raised up onto a wooden level with a foosball table and a sleek mini bar complete with stools, a counter, and a shelf full of colorful alcoholic products. A stereo system was tucked into a corner in the far end of the room, again with speakers that almost touched the ceiling. Kim noticed that green was a prevalent color in the room's décor. It seemed a little messy, as well – several empty bottles of alcohol stood at the mini bar, including a couple on the floor near the television and couch, and a few magazines were scattered across the coffee table. Kim thought she spied an empty pizza box thrown in a corner of the room.
A wide glass sliding door was built into the wall across from the door they had entered, which looked like it led out onto a stone patio and courtyard. The outdoor courtyard was enclosed by the compound, and filled decorative trees and bushes, as well as what looked like a pond, although it was obscured by the edge of the door. Kim did not see any henchmen through the glass, but it the wide door did not give them a lot of privacy.
"Hey Kim, check it out!"
Kim had been so busy looking over the room that she had failed to notice Ron sidle over to the Cupcake Containment Chamber. Ron put his hands over the top of the Containment Chamber, and Kim anticipated what he was about to do.
"Ron, no, it has-"
A blue glow lit up around Ron as he channeled a burst of Mystical Monkey Power through his body. The crackling energy was enough to pry the Containment Chamber's lid off, which Ron hefted easily even though it was made of metal and tossed it onto the carpet with a loud thud. The lights on the Containment Chamber suddenly lit up in a festive pattern as a screeching whistle blared through the room.
"It has an alarm mechanism that's disabled with the keypad on the side," Kim finished half-heartedly. Drakken had told them in the bakery, but apparently Ron had not been listening.
"Why didn't you tell me that?" said Ron, but Kim could barely hear him over the blaring alarm coming from the container. She held her ears as she approached the container and looked down into it. It was high enough to almost reach her shoulders, and there were a few cardboard cupcake boxes lined up near the bottom, but it was otherwise empty. There must have been room for a hundred boxes. Had someone eaten the rest?
Kim noticed movement out of the corner of her eye, and looked up to see the glass patio doors opening. Several henchmen had entered the room, and leading the way was the same one that she had fought at the factory. She nudged Ron to get his attention and moved away from the box as the alarm died down.
"You again!" the man said. He flashed Kim a smile and cracked his knuckles as the other henchmen fanned out across the room. "Back to finish what we started?"
"Actually we were just looking for a snack," said Kim as she tilted her head towards the Cupcake Containment Chamber. "But It looks like you guys pigged out. If you're still feeling a little full, we can wait before I beat the stuffing out of you."
Kim smirked in satisfaction when the man's features crunched together into a heated glare. She had obviously gotten a rise out of him. Sometimes it was too easy. Still, the man was maddeningly familiar: tanned skin, sculpted features, blond hair. She knew she had seen him before, but where?
"Midas, what the heck is going on in here? Are you taking my cupcakes without permission ag-"
Kim and Ron jumped and whirled around at the sound of the voice coming from the door they had just used to enter the room. It was Kim's turn to glare at the new arrival.
"Shego!"
"Kim Possible?"
Shego's immediate reaction was bizarre, almost as if she was stricken by the appearance of her two old teen foes, but before Kim could make any sense of it, she had pulled herself into the familiar flippant posture and sarcastic stare. Shego took a step into the room, and Kim became increasingly aware that she and Ron were surrounded.
"Well, well, well. Long time no see, Princess! I'm kinda surprised you and Ron are here together – I thought you two broke up a while ago."
"Does everyone know that?" said Ron.
"Pretty much. That's what happens when you go out with the golden girl."
Kim kept her attention on Shego even though a circle of henchmen were drawing closer. The lounge room's size was considerable, but Shego's goons were already beginning to make her feel hemmed in. "Refresh my memory," she said. "Wasn't Midas the guy giving you a hot rock treatment at that spa?"
"You got it," said Shego. "We've had a very pleasant working relationship."
Midas drew closer as the circle tightened. "She taught me everything I know."
"Don't get too cocky, pal," said Kim. "You've still got a lot to learn." She turned back to her old nemesis. "So you've gone from sidekick to supervillain, huh? With your own army of buff bodybuilders and a hunky massage therapist to lead them? Kind of predictable for you, Shego."
"Midas is my number two, and yes – I am number one now."
"You wish," laughed Kim. "But enough chit chat."
Shego had to agree with Kim's sentiment. A glowing burst of plasma enveloped her hands as she leaped at her teen foe – maybe not a teen anymore, Shego reminded herself. Her clawed hand slashed viciously through the air, inches away from Kim's stomach.
Ron seemed to sense that Kim and Shego needed to duke it out between each other and began to corral the henchmen toward himself, away from the whirl of green fire and red hair. Midas took the lead, and Ron ducked under a swinging fist as he shot his foot out and tripped another henchman.
"Come here, punk!"
Ron waggled his fingers impudently at Midas. "I'm right here! You should think about doing more aerobic exercise to compliment all that upper body training."
Kim did a back flip and felt a rush of heated air pass underneath her as she leaped over Shego's slash. She blocked a slash from the other hand as she landed on the raised wooden floor with a thud. She tried to push her opponent back, but Shego's attacks were aggressive enough to push Kim steadily back instead. She felt a hard wooden edge bump against her back and leaped to the side just in time to avoid a downward slash. Shego's hand tore through the foosball table Kim had bumped into with a sickening crack, and she looked down at a half-melted foosball player as it clattered onto the wooden floor.
"Rrrgh! Do you know how much I payed for that, Princess? That was mahogany!"
Shego made a dash towards Kim, face twisted in anger and arms outstretched. Just as she made a running leap, Kim let herself drop onto her back and caught Shego firmly in the stomach with her feet, sending her opponent sailing through the air on her own momentum. Shego smashed through the patio door in a shower of glass, skidding across the stone patio outside her lounge.
Stepping gingerly over glass shards, Kim walked out into the courtyard to join her enemy.
"That had to hurt," she taunted.
Shego got back up and shook glass fragments from her flowing black hair. She made a note of where Kim was standing and gave her foe a malicious grin as she pulled a small rectangular silver device out of her harlequin-patterned suit.
"Not as much as this will!"
Shego pressed a button on the device before moving a small joystick jutting out of it. Kim was about to run at her foe when she heard a strange whirring sound to her right. She turned to the side just in time to have the breath knocked out of her by Shego's hovercraft, which had been parked in the courtyard. The vehicle had not been going fast enough to seriously injure her, but taking any hit from something the size of Shego's hovercraft was painful; Kim was knocked sprawling onto the ground, where she lay gasping for air.
"Always check both sides before you cross the patio," laughed Shego. She used her remote control to redirect the hovercraft over Kim's prone form.
Kim looked up at the floating metal disc and tried to roll away, but she was still winded. This was it. She knew she was out of practice now, but what an embarrassing way to die. She flinched and closed her eyes momentarily, bracing herself to be crushed as the hovercraft dropped on her, but when she opened her eyes again a split second later, the craft had moved aside and parked itself in the grassy courtyard. Several of Shego's brawny henchmen stormed out from the shattered patio door and gathered around her.
Shego walked up to her fallen opponent. Before Kim could get up, she felt a pair of hands roll her over as one of the henchmen flipped her, aimed a strange gun at her wrists, and shot a glob of some kind of adhesive around them, gluing them together and tying her arms behind her back.
"Nice, huh?" said Shego as she grabbed the glob-firing gun from her henchman and showed it to Kim. "Something I stole from Drakken back in the day. He has neat little toys just laying around in his lairs that he invents and then forgets to use."
Shego pulled Kim up from the ground and pushed her towards the henchmen. As Kim was led into the lounge room, she saw that Ron had already been restrained inside. Shego tore the watch Kimmunicator from Kim's wrist just above the adhesive, held it up to her face, and melted it in a flare of roiling green.
"That's not going to buy you much time," said Ron. "Global Justice is going to drop in as soon as Wade figures out we're not responding anymore."
"That's nice," said Shego. "More guests for the party. Can the two of you tell me why exactly you're breaking into my place and snooping around that cupcake crate I've got in there?"
"Why don't you tell us what you're doing with Drakken's cupcakes?" said Kim.
Shego threw herself down on one of the white leather chairs situated near the flat screen television. She gave the television a quick look to make sure it was all right, grateful that it hadn't been busted in the fight. Midas grabbed Ron and threw him down onto the couch beside Kim.
"I don't think you guys are in a position to ask questions," said Shego. "Now, here's my question - what am I going to do with the two of you?"
XX
Shego's answer, Kim discovered, was to stuff the two of them into a small jail cell in her central control room. A row of thick metal bars kept them locked inside the cell where Shego had dumped them before disappearing. They had been in the cell for about an hour now. Outside of the bars, Shego's control room was spread out like many other supervillain control rooms that Kim had seen in the past. Computer banks, beeping and buzzing servers, a massive overhanging viewing screen, catwalks and viewing platforms that seemed to have no purpose other than to look good.
Looking closer, however, Kim could see that the control room was a little different than the ones she usually saw. A few henchmen sat here and there, and one or two looked like they were actually working on things, but most of them looked bored. Kim saw two henchmen on the far side of the control room playing with what looked like an antique arcade machine.
The control room did not seem as clean as the nerve center of a supervillain's lair usually looked, either. Pieces of trash were scattered across the floor here and there. Kim noticed an open cardboard box sitting on a desk not far from her vantage point behind bars. It was a cupcake box from Drakken's Cupcake Containment Chamber; some of the henchmen must have taken it into to the control room and eaten its contents. Kim was a little surprised that Shego would be so slovenly.
As she looked over the control room's contents, she even noticed that some of the machines did not seem to be turned on at all. Most of the computer monitors were blank, and many years of infiltrating lairs had given her a sort of intuitive knowledge of how many buttons should be blinking on any given generic big metal box.
"What are you looking at?" asked Ron.
"Just wondering what Shego's planning for us."
"My guess is some kind of shark pit."
"Ron, try the bars again."
Ron sighed, but dutifully crept forward from where he had been dozing against the wall in back of the cell. He wrapped his fingers around the cell's bars and squinted in concentration as a bright blue glow began to emanate from his body. The glow lasted for a moment, and then dissipated as Ron gave up.
"They're too strong. I don't know what they're made out of, but they won't budge."
Kim sat back against the wall and felt her bad mood rising. Ever since Midas had caught her off guard at the warehouse, she had felt like the mission was not going well. Walking right into that booby-trapped room with the Spinning Tops of Doom, for instance. And then being defeated by Shego. The very thought was infuriating enough to raise the hairs on the back of Kim's neck.
They would most likely be rescued by Global Justice before too long, but the whole thing was humiliating – her first mission in months and she had to be rescued, most likely by Will Du, who would certainly have a few choice condescending words about how she had turned him down when he offered to come along. And all of that for what amounted to a big metal box of cupcakes. It was wrongsick, that's what it was.
Kim couldn't say she had been happy with Ron's performance, either. As far as she could tell, he had been sleeping and sunbathing with Junior the whole time they were at the Seniors' island, while she was skipping a night of sleep to search for Drakken's Containment Chamber and whatever else Senior might have had up his sleeve. And here they were, years after Ron had defeated the Lorwardians and he had gotten a taste of his potential power, and he was still using it to act like a child.
She looked at Ron, who sat propped against the wall on the other side of the cell and twiddled his thumbs while whistling a faint tune. "You know," she said, "it's sort of ironic that you can use your Mystical Monkey Power to break the lid off that Containment Chamber and get us caught, but you can't use it to break those bars and get us out of here. Don't you think?"
"It doesn't work like that. I can flare it up a little if I concentrate, and it flares up sometimes if something stressful or emotional happens, but I don't have that much control over it."
"Have you ever made an effort to control it? It seems like you play around with it a lot."
Ron gaped at Kim.
"Are you kidding me? Have you forgotten what happened after you went to college?"
"What are you talking about?"
"I wanted to get control of my powers! I wanted to go to Yamanouchi ever since I saw what I was capable of doing when we were fighting the Lorwardians. Okay, yeah, partly because I thought it was really cool, but partly because I didn't want to hurt anyone or go out of control."
"So why didn't you? Why are you getting mad at me all of a sudden?"
Ron held his hands up to his head, unable to believe what he was hearing.
"Because of you, KP! You didn't want me to go!"
Kim was floored by the accusation. After a moment of awkward silence, she stood up and paced the cell indignantly, wondering why Ron was getting so upset with her. She didn't want him to go? It was ridiculous. She couldn't remember telling him anything of the sort since graduation.
"When did I say that?" she asked.
"You never said it, but it was obvious from the way you acted around me. Every mission we went on after we graduated, every time I tried to use the monkey power – you always had some kind of comment about it, some little dig, and when I stepped up and helped you, you barely ever said thank you."
"Oh, please! Stop being so childish, Ron. If I ever made any comments about your Mystical Monkey Power it was because you didn't take it seriously. That's why we're here in this cell – we got caught because you play around with it like it's a toy."
"You mean except for when I do something like use it to save your life from one of those Spinning Tops of Doom?"
Kim's response faltered as Ron's words hit her. He was right; he had knocked her out of the way yesterday on the Seniors' island when the top was spinning towards her, and she had forgotten about it.
"The reason you have a problem with my Mystical Monkey Power," said Ron, "is because you're scared of the idea that I might end up being as good as you at fighting. That I might end up stealing your spotlight."
"Not everything is about you, Ron."
"Not everything is about you either!"
By this time Ron had gotten up as well, and although the cell was a little small for the two of them to work themselves up into a proper fury, he pointed a finger at her accusingly. "It's the same as it was with Bonnie. You have to be number one at everything, whether it's academics or popularity contests or missions. It's basically your whole stupid motto!"
"Why did I want you to go to college then?" yelled Kim. "Why did I keep trying to get you to keep trying when you didn't get accepted anywhere, instead of just sitting at home playing games all day and working at Smarty Mart when you told me you don't even really like it there anymore? Is that really what I'd do if I was so insecure about you doing something with your life?"
"I did get accepted to colleges, Kim. Just not Upperton."
Kim fell silent. Ron had never told her he had gotten accepted anywhere.
"Where?" she asked.
"Other colleges. But I would have had to move to other states, Kim. I wouldn't be anywhere near Upperton, so I stayed at my job in Middleton because I didn't want to hurt our relationship. I wanted to stay close. I didn't tell you because I didn't want you to feel guilty or think it was your fault I didn't go."
The way Ron explained it made it sound as if he had done the right thing, as if he had made a sacrifice for their relationship, but Kim was flabbergasted.
"Why?" she said. "Why would you do that? Ron, look, we both wanted to make our relationship work, but I never asked you to turn down school just to stay with me – that's a horrible choice to make. And I don't know where you get off saying you didn't want to make it feel like it was my fault. Ever since I went to Upperton you acted like I was leaving you behind, like I was supposed to put off my studies to accommodate you!"
"You have to make sacrifices, Kim – you have to put effort into a relationship to make it work."
"I did! But I couldn't just go back to Middleton and sit around playing Zombie Mayhem with you when I was doing enough work for two degrees, Ron. You knew that when you started going out with me. You knew that like a week after we met in Pre-K. I have to work hard, I can't hold back and only give it ninety percent. It's just who I am!"
The two of them were circling around the cell like tigers in a fight for territory, and they did no even notice when Midas, who had been standing awkwardly nearby outside the cell, pressed a door locking mechanism and sent the bars swishing down into the ground, opening the cell for them.
"I tried to get you to apply yourself," said Kim, "but it's like you just got jealous of me. You think I was making comments about your monkey powers? Well, you were making comments about my being in college, Ron. You always had something to say when I was busy and had to pass on Bueno Nacho, like I was doing it just to spite you or something. Like I somehow thought I was better than you just because I was at a university. Like I didn't want things to work out!"
"You didn't take that long to get with Monique, for someone who wanted it to work out."
Kim's eyes narrowed at the sound of her girlfriend's name.
"Monique, huh? Yeah, let's talk about her."
Both of them began to walk outside of their open cell without even realizing it, caught up in the heat of the argument. Midas stood by the cell door, a bemused expression on his face, as the two exes began to pace more widely over the control room.
"I did not get together with Monique immediately like you're trying so hard to suggest, Ron. I'm with her now because I like her, and because she was there for me when I was miserable. And do you know why I was miserable? Because I wanted to be friends with you! We could both see that we were growing apart, that a relationship was too hard to maintain, but I still wanted to be friends, and I tried. I really tried. But you cut me off. You ignored me!"
"That's not-"
"Oh yes it is. It's totally true. Okay, so I couldn't call you every single day, I still had college, but when we broke up, Ron – that's when you got really childish. That's when you got jealous. You made it clear you didn't want to talk to me anymore. And now here we are, more than a year later, and you still haven't tried to move on. I'm with Monique because I moved on, Ron. You have to move on sometimes. If you don't, life moves right past you!"
Ron seemed to be running out of steam, and Kim felt herself becoming exhausted by the argument as well. She looked around and noticed that they were no longer in their cell, but had walked out into Shego's control room. A couple of henchmen were still playing their arcade game in the far corner, and Midas stood near the cell door where Kim and Ron had been locked up.
Someone else in the room gave a short laugh, and Kim turned to see Shego standing in front of the control room's entrance, leaning casually against the wall with a smirk plastered across her face.
"You two lovebirds finished?"
Shego nodded to Midas, who activated the cell bars again and nodded to his boss before leaving the control room. Kim was ready to attack, but Shego did not seem to have any intention of fighting, and Kim had to remind herself that Midas had apparently just let them out of the cell with Shego's permission. Something had to be up.
"Why did you let us out?" asked Ron. "You're not going to throw us in a shark pit, are you?"
"No. I just don't want to deal with the two of you. I'm not in the mood to hear a bunch of whiny drama or deal with Global Justice messing up my place. Now get out of here," said Shego.
"I'd be happy to," said Kim, "but you destroyed my watch Kimmunicator and I need to call my ride."
"Well I'm not gonna let you borrow the hovercraft if that's what you're getting at."
"Oh, hold on," said Ron as he fished out the old Kimmunicator Wade had given him after they met at the bakery the other day. "I had this in my pocket all along!"
Kim groaned loudly and snatched the Kimmunicator from Ron. If Shego wanted them out, Kim was glad to oblige. She and Ron walked out of the control room in stony silence, making their way up a stairway that led to the outside of the compound. Shego followed behind them to make sure Kim didn't try to pull anything else.
Before reaching the top of the stairs, however, Kim's brisk pace began to slow down. Something was not adding up. Shego wasn't as psychopathic as Monkey Fist, to be sure, but she wasn't the type to just let her enemies go after capturing them. Especially not her arch nemesis. Kim had not fought Shego in a long time – as a matter of fact, she hadn't seen her old foe since she and Drakken helped them defeat the Lorwardians – but this was not her typical M.O.
An entire team of henchmen who looked like metrosexual gym rats, sent to steal a shipment of cupcakes from Drakken. A dingy looking control room that looked like it was barely even being used. A private island in the Mediterranean that seemed to be half supervillain compound, half bachelor pad. A favorite massage therapist as a second in command. Gears churned and light bulbs flashed as a wonderful realization began to take form in Kim's mind.
"Oh. My. God."
By this time the trio had passed through the rest of the building, reaching the front entrance of the compound. Kim turned around and stared incredulously.
"What is it?" snapped Shego, trying to hide an increasingly worried look.
"I was so confused as to why in the world you would steal a bunch of cupcakes," said Kim. "I was sure Drakken was up to something, but I couldn't figure it out. Maybe you wanted the Containment Chamber itself, maybe you wanted to disrupt his operations, maybe you wanted something hidden in the cupcakes themselves."
"Get to the point already."
Kim smirked and took a step forward, and to both Ron's surprise and her own, Shego took a step back.
"You don't want any of that," said Kim. "You want attention."
Shego laughed. "What are you on about, Princess?"
"You want attention from Drakken! You stole all those cupcakes because this is your feeble way of getting back at him or something, of lashing out at him for what happened between the two of you. Drakken is with Hank now, and everybody saw what happened between the two of you at that United Nations conference on television. The tendrils snaking around you, that blush – you were totally into him, weren't you!"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," said Shego, waving a hand dismissively.
"Drakken broke up with you, or maybe he said he wasn't even into you in the first place. And I bet he gave up the supervillain lifestyle a lot quicker than you did, once he realized he could do other things and still get attention and recognition. Whatever happened, you ended up coming here, building this lair, vowing to make him pay. That was why you were with him for all those years! Because you liked him – why else would you play second fiddle to someone like him?
"And now it's years later and you're still not over it. Instead of being a supervillain, you're a washed up has-been, sitting around on your private island and eating stolen cupcakes just to be vindictive."
Kim was half expecting Shego to light her hands into flame and attack, but while Shego looked enraged, she made no attempt to move. While Kim had no way to tell if she had been right on the mark, her foe's reaction was enough to let her know that she had been close. Too close for Shego's comfort.
"How do you know it wasn't Drakken's fault?" said Ron. "I mean, come on, that guy was pretty absorbed in his work. Maybe he didn't pay any attention to Shego, or maybe he cheated on her with Hank."
"What, like I supposedly 'cheated' on you with Monique? Is that what you're implying?"
"What? No, I mean, I – I just-"
"I can't believe you're defending her after all the things she's done. And I can't believe I'm even on this mission, either! Running after a bunch of stupid cupcakes for the guy I was fighting for four years when I could be studying, or spending time with Monique, or anything useful. What a waste of time," said Kim. She opened a channel to Will Du on the Kimmunicator.
"I'm ready go to now," she said.
"Roger that."
Shego stood awkwardly for a moment, looking like she was considering whether or not to attack Kim, when she finally stormed back down the stairs into the depths of her lair. Ron and Kim were left alone in the entry room that led out onto the island itself. Kim turned back and opened the front door to leave.
"The two of you are such children," she said. "You both need to grow up."
Ron folded his arms petulantly. "If that's what you think," he said, "you can fly home alone. I'll just get a ride from Wade later - I don't feel like sitting next to you for the rest of the afternoon. Oh, and hey, maybe you can go on missions with Will Du from now on. You could even date him if you get bored of Monique!"
"Whatever."
Kim left the front door into the bright afternoon sunlight, but took one look back and threw Ron the Kimmunicator before she closed it again. "There," she said, "so you can call a ride. Oh, and Ron? Drakken's cupcakes are better than yours."
Kim knew it was one of the stupider things she had ever said before the words came out of her mouth – and one of the more childish, to boot. But she had not chosen the sentence for its words. She had chosen it for its impact. And it worked. Ron glowered and turned away, walking down the stairs in a huff. Kim vaguely wondered if Shego would tear him apart when she saw that he hadn't left, or what Ron was even thinking by staying, but her thoughts were a clouded haze.
There was a grassy field outside, and a narrow wall of palm trees separated it from the beaches at the edge of the island. The beach where Kim and Ron had first parachuted onto the island was not far away. As Kim walked out into the field, she saw a faint, flashing shape in the distance as a haze of tears began to blur her eyes. At least Will Du was not taking long to arrive. She just wanted to get off the island as soon as possible. It was clear to her now that taking the mission had been a mistake.