Chapter 8
Kim just kept staring at the door with one thought repeating through her head.
Shego had kissed her.
Shego had kissed her straight on the lips.
Shego had kissed her straight on the lips and smiled.
Kim just kept staring at the door.
Shego strode confidently into Drakken's new command center and was instantly impressed by what she saw; Drakken had developed a real time holographic globe.
It showed every piece of information that the global villain community could get it's hands on; military strength and numbers, the locations of useful facilities and people and most surprising to the thief, the location and situation of every villain on the planet.
"Keeping track of the competition Dr. D?" asked Shego curiously.
"In war it pays to know where your enemies are... and where your potential friends are." replied the now stern villain.
"So this is it isn't it? The start of the great villain war?"
"It is Shego, Global Justice thought they could remove us from their world like we were nothing more then an annoyance that they finally had time to deal with." said Drakken as he pulled up the information he had on the nearest GJ outpost. "They thought it would be easy and now I'm going to show them what happens when you wake the sleeping bear."
Shego smirked just a bit at what was happening before her, her previously childish and sometimes stupid employer was finally acting the way she had wanted him to for years.
And all it had taken was a Global Justice hired ninja slicing off his leg.
Dr. Drakken's new limb was clearly of his own design and was meant to help him avoid any other such dangerous situations as when he had faced a highly trained ninja assassin unarmed in his bedroom.
How Drakken had survived the encounter at all was a mystery to Shego but she did have a much greater amount of respect for her boss now.
"We're going to hit the local GJ outpost Shego, we aren't going to wipe it out like I'm sure you'd like, we're going to hit it and we'll see who comes to help." said the doctor as he zoomed the hologram. "And we'll listen to what the world says, GJ may be based in America but I want to know how many nations will get up in arms once we start to take them down."
"I'm surprised Dr. D, this is a good plan, a great plan even, sure you thought it up by yourself?" teased Shego, waiting for his response.
"My villainy was fun Shego, I did it because I enjoyed it but now the gloves come off." replied Drakken in a cold voice.
So that was the answer to the long asked question; if Drakken was so smart, smart enough to build doomsday devices, complex robots and mutant creatures, why hadn't he taken off the world? It was because he wasn't really trying.
The world should have been quaking at the thought.
"But don't think I'll let this war get in the way of our evil family!" said Dr. D as he turned around and smiled at his sidekick. Several of the henchmen in the room chuckled at that, Shego sighed and remembered that it was Drakken that she was talking to. With another sigh she left the room, telling Dr. D to fill her in one the plan when he was ready, Shego had decided to see how things were going with the only other person in the base that she actually cared about.
While Drakken was planning his war and while Shego was happily strolling through the base back to her quarters Kim was distraught. The teen hero was pacing around Shego's room trying to make sense of everything that had happened throughout the last few days.
She had aided and abetted the most wanted woman on earth, attacked an officially hired Global Justice mercenary, attacked her boyfriend, fled to the home of a super villain and somehow earned herself a dead or alive bounty from a woman that she thought she could trust. And she couldn't she how she could have done anything differently without ending up hating herself for violating what she thought was right. That thought scared her, she'd done everything right as far as she could understand and she'd still ended up marked for death.
Kim's morals had always been her guiding compass and now that compass had thrown her into a situation that could only end badly. The question wasn't if she could make it through what was about to happen, the question was were the ways she could get through this what she wanted?
Turning herself into GJ would either end with her imprisoned for the rest of her life because she wouldn't give up Shego and Drakken or it would end up with her free and Shego, Drakken and possibly every other person in this base dead.
The only option she had was to stick with Shego.
Stick with Shego and Drakken, that's what she meant.
Wasn't it?
A knock at the door interrupted Kim's thoughts and she knew that only one person would come knocking on this door...
The door slowly slide open, as if the very mechanics behind it wanted to savor the tension of the upcoming confrontation. Shego step through the door slowly, half expecting the teen to throw a punch or to come flying at her feet first.
But Kim didn't.
Kim was sitting on Shego's large bed with her hands in her lap and staring at the floor.
"Shego... We need to talk..." said Kim softly as the thief moved closer towards her and rest her hand on her shoulder and knelt down to her level.
"I know we do Kim." responded Shego as she brought herself closer to Kim. Closer and closer until their lips were barely apart. Their lips were barely apart and Kim wasn't moving away. When not even an inch was between them an alarm suddenly blasted through the room, pulling the two girls from their moment.
"All combatants report to your stations!" came Drakken's voice over the base wide intercom. "We have incoming Global Justice units!"
Shego bolted towards the door, swearing all the while as she ran towards the control room. Not knowing what else to do Kim followed her, her head spinning over what had just nearly happened.
"This better be good Dr. D! I was right in the middle of something!" yelled Shego as she stormed into the control room.
"Do three heavily armed GJ stealth helicopters count?" said Drakken as he began to arm various base defenses. "It would seem that we've been found before we could make the first strike."
Shego just grumbled as she turned her attention to the hologram of the base that showed the location of the choppers, less then a minute out. The arrival of a red headed teen cost her precious seconds.
The teen was more then ready to pick up the slack.
"Can't you deploy your synthodrones to slow them down? You won't even be able to evacuate all your henchmen before they get here, not to mention your gear." said Kim a serious tone creeping into her voice.
"Who said anything about evacuation?" asked Drakken as the helicopters landed just outside of the base's weapons range. "The GJ scum want a fight and I'm more then happy to give them one."
"He's right princess, this was gonna happen sooner or later so at least we'll have the home turf." added Shego as she moved towards the door.
"Then you can count me in." replied Kim in her best serious voice. "I don't know what's going on with GJ right now but it doesn't sit right with me..."
"Then get to the perimeter and be ready for a fight, whoever they are they're moving fast." said Drakken as he pointed out fifteen enemy blips moving towards the base. "You won't be far behind the drones."
The thief did her best to hide a grin as she sped off towards the open air with a catsuit clad teen not far behind.
If the two martial artists had been quicker getting outside they would have seen the dozen plus ninjas leaping from their transports, they would have seen them start running towards the base, dodging antipersonnel fire from the base's defenses, they would have seen the masked man in the lead.
As the first wave of drones attacked the intruders it was clear to the few henchmen watching that they didn't stand a chance. The leader cut down a half dozen drones with every attack with his soldiers eviscerating any that escaped his deadly attentions.
Fortunately for the defenders there were hundreds of drones being sent towards the attackers and slowly the ninjas were overwhelmed by sheer numbers. Though for every ninja felled by the drones shock sticks dozens of them would be destroyed.
When Kim and Shego arrived at the defensive line they were witness to a vast slaughter of drones and a few captured ninjas.
"This is NOT what I thought I'd be doing today." said Kim as she followed Shego into the melee.
Seeing the vastly superior fighters enter the area the drones began to back off, a core part of their programming telling them to stay the hell out of Shego's way.
Their caution was well founded because no soon had Shego joined the fight that two ninjas fell away, blasted into unconsciousness by the thief's plasma. A quick head count from Kim showed that the hundreds of defeated drones had only managed to stop eight of the ninjas and even with the two Shego had knocked out the pair were in for a rough fight.
Their orders had said to take these two girls alive but all of the present warriors felt that dead was much safer and so three of them launched towards Kim; their razor sharp swords aimed for various parts of her body. Kim rolled under the first slash and even managed to kick the first ninja's legs out from under him but before she could capitalize on her foe's weakness a second attack was launched at her and she was forced to leap over the running attack from the second ninja. As Kim came back down towards the ground she saw what looked like her end; the third ninja was in perfect position to cut her down before she landed.
A strong plasma blast from Kim's new partner saved her life, knocking the ninja straight into a nearby wall.
"What would you do without me?" asked Shego as she quickly dispatched the second ninja with a plasma assisted punch to the stomach.
"Probably something much safer." replied Kim as she kicked the first ninja straight in the head to make sure he stayed down.
"She'd live you heartless bitch." said the masked man as he moved towards the pair with his young female second right behind him.
"Oh look Kim, the big bad ninja wants to play." said the thief as she moved closer to the hero.
The leader was of a wiry build but it was clear with the way he moved that he was dangerous and Kim couldn't help but find familiarity in his movements.
As he assumed a Monkey Kung Fu stance it hit her.
"The thief is yours Yori, the traitor is mine." said Ron from behind his black mask.
"As you wish commander." replied Yori as she drew her deadly steal fans. "It will be over quickly."
"Yeah it will you damn ninja bitch." said Shego as she advanced on her opponent, plasma flaring up angrily.
Kim was shocked beyond belief; Ron was here, Ron was here and he was leading a GJ unit, Ron was here and he had just called her a traitor. Kim's shock had her stand there for a brief second and in that brief second Ron was there and he had kicked Kim hard in the chest. Kim was knocked back against a wall, the breath knocked from her lungs from Ron's powerful kick. And she just stood there.
"Ron..." whimpered Kim as she took a step away from the wall. "I'm so happy you're okay."
"Yes I am!" screamed Ron as he launched a punch into Kim's stomach, knocking her back into the wall. "No thanks to you traitor!"
Kim was shocked at the savagery of Ron's attacks and she still just stood there against the wall.
Shego however was having no problems with her ninja, Yori fought with lightning attacks that were meant to overwhelm her opponent as they tired. Shego never tired. The plasma that coursed through her body gave her nearly limitless energy and to Yori's horror Shego would meet each attack with more energy then the last as she called on more and more plasma.
Yori struck at Shego's head with a rapid one-two punch combo; Shego blocked the move and launched plasma powered attacks of her own at the young ninja and Yori's dodges were starting to slow by tiny fractions of a second each time.
Until eventually Shego landed a blow on the younger girl's shoulder. Shego landed a blow and poured plasma into it, so much that the grazing strike shattered the girl's arm and hurled her back from the thief in a blast of green.
With Yori beaten and broken and lying in a heap Shego was free to check on Kim and what she saw terrified her.
Kim was on the ground. Kim was on the ground and Ron was beating her.
The teen hero was in tears as the boy she loved kicked and punched and struck her, he was screaming at her about betraying him and the whole world, he was yelling about how her actions had scarred him.
When Shego's plasma took his mask off it became clear that he wasn't just being metaphorical. Ron's face was covered in bandages and where they had torn away half healed burnt flesh was visible. Shego's plasma had done its job those few days ago.
His rage broken Ron saw the injured Yori and ran to her and at the same time Shego was running towards Kim. Shego swept Kim up into her arms just as Ron did the same for the ninja and for a brief instant their eyes met, each promising the other horrible vengance for what they had done.
Ron fled into the surrounding forest with henchmen and drones chasing close behind.
Shego carried the beaten Kim back into the base.