Chapter 8
Kim and Shego squared off in the penthouses private gym for a sparing session, doing their best to keep the redheads mind of the stresses bothering her.
"Think you can still keep up with me Charlie?" Kim asked her partner playfully.
"Still? Now and always Princess." Shego replied before launching herself at the waiting redhead, jumping up kicking out at Kim's head.
Kim ducked under the kick, punching out as she did, connecting solidly with Shego's ribs before the woman managed to finish her kick and knocking her back. Just managing to land on her feet. "First point to me" Kim announced triumphantly.
"It was also your last Kimmy." Shego bantered with her girlfriend. "I'm taking you down!" Shego rushed towards Kim again.
"That would be a first." Kim responded, while waiting for her opponent to close the distance.
"Like you ever beat me?" She quipped before launching several midsection punches at the smaller martial artist.
"More often then I can count." Kim jibbed, while blocking most of the shots, only one or two getting through her defenses, as she tried to swat them all aside.
"Getting slow Pumpkin, do I need to put you on a diet already?" Shego asked playfully.
"Ill show you who's getting slow." Kim said before launching a furious set her own punches. By the third punch her hands were moving in a blur faster then Shego could hope to block, by the fifth they were backed by a powerful blast of red plasma that had knocked Shego clear across the gym.
"What the hell was that?" Shego asked from the dent her body had just formed in the wall, her chest still smoking slightly.
"I have no idea." Kim said while looking at her hands as if they would exploded.
Shego extracted herself and walked up to the redhead, also examining Kim's hands. "Give me your hands." Shego requested as she placed her own hands around the redheads.
"Shego, what are you doing?" Kim asked while letting the woman do what ever she was doing.
"Trying something that shouldn't work with you." Shego told her, as her hands ignited in a heat-less soft green glow. At first nothing happened, but as the green began to shift and shimmer a light red ignited around the redheads out stretched hands. "That shouldn't have worked." Shego said to them both, letting both of their hands wink out, before taking a step back to think.
"How did you do that?" Kim asked, looking at her hands yet again, then back to Shego.
"Its a resonance. Something my brothers and I figured out we could do when we were younger and still experimenting with our powers. If we resonate our glows at just the right frequencies," She said while taking Kim's hands in her own again, "we can cause the other persons glow to appear." Kim's hands lit up in gentle red flames again. "But you shouldn't be able to do that." Shego said while dropping her hands again.
"Why not." Kim asked, even though she was pretty sure what the answer was.
"You weren't in the tree house, you weren't exposed to the comet. Where you?" Shego asked not sure of the truth given the evidence in front of her.
"Not that I know of." Kim told Shego, not sure of the truth herself either at this point.
"Lets go sit down and call your nerd." Shego said gesturing out the door of the gym.
"I thought you were calling him Wade now?" Kim asked while the two made there way out to the living room.
"Does that change the fact the he's the nerd that runs your website?" She countered.
"No." Kim quickly decided Shego was going to be stubborn and gave up the question for now. Thinking that the call was more important then the name of who they called.
Shego flopped onto her couch before Kim sat on her lap and pulled out her kimmunicator.
"Hey Kim, whats up?" The face of Wade greeted, instantly popping up on her screen.
"Not much, though me and Shego have something to show you that we don't know how to explain." Kim said while holding up one hand which Shego surrounded in her own, repeating the earlier demonstration for Wade. "According to Shego, this should only work with someone exposed to the same comet as her and her brothers. As far as I know, I was never exposed to that comet, or any radiation like it."
"I thought as much." He said while typing on one of his computers.
"Say that again nerdlinger?" Shego asked, poking her head over Kim's shoulder.
"When the news first started showing videos from that night," he said as an image of Kim and Shego filled the TV on the wall, showing the few seconds the two were covered in similar flames of plasma, "it looked like you were both covered in Shego's plasma, just different colors. After reviewing as many images and all the footage I could find, it looks like Kim was somehow generating her own. Which is what Shego just confirmed."
"We are just hearing about this now, why?" Shego all but demanded, slightly less then happy with the genius just now.
"Until now it was just a theory, one that I had no way to prove. If you two will allow me to take a detailed scan, I can try and verify if the power signatures match." Wade offered.
"I'm not a fan of being poked or prodded." Shego told the both of them.
"Wade's scans are fully non-invasive, I promise." Kim re-assured her girlfriend.
"Fine, but I expect you to keep what ever you find between the three of us." Shego stated with no room for negotiation.
"Not a problem. If you'll hold your hands up again, this wont take more then a few seconds." He told them. As they put there hands up, the kimmunicater emitted a soft blue glow, sweeping up and down there hands a few times while Shego applied the necessary resonance, before winking back out.
"Well?" The impatient green thief asked, dropping her hands as soon as the scan was finished.
"It'll take me some time to completely analyze the data, but basic analysis looks like its a match."
"Hows that possible Wade?" Kim asked, before Shego got any less impatient.
"I have do idea, and I'm hesitant to speculate until I review all the data."
"Alright, thanks Wade." Kim sighed.
"Of course Kim, Ill let you and Shego know once I have something more concrete." The young man told the two before the screen went blank.
"Crap." Shego commented after the call ended.
"Whats wrong now?" Kim asked, turning to face her girlfriend who had flopped back over to her previous position.
"I have to call my brothers now, you know how much I like dealing with them." She told the red head.
"OK, I'm lost. Why do you have to call your brothers?" Kim wondered confusedly.
"If what ever is happening to you is anything like my powers, I need to train you so you can control them. To do that, I need to get my old equipment from Go tower."
"I guess that makes sense." Kim conceded, now that she knew what Shego was talking about. "When should we start then?"
"Hate to say it cupcake, but the sooner the better. Your also still grounded from missions until we figure this out."
"What, why?" Kim huffed, already feeling the tell tail signs of cabin fever setting in from in activity.
"You have no control over this power. If they are like mine, they're fueled by emotions. Look at what just happened in the gym, imagine throwing a punch and catching someone square in the jaw. Only instead of knocking him out, you blow his head off because you don't have enough control." Kim could see the knowing look in Shego's eyes as she told the redhead this, though the former hero was trying to hide it from her. Kim said nothing, knowing that this wasn't the time to ask, but noticed it just the same.
"Do you want me to call Wade back to make arrangements?" Kim asked with just a hint of sadness in her voice.
"No, I'll take care of it. Besides gives me a chance to annoy Hego."
A few hours later, Shego and Kim stood out side of Go tower, a large moving van waiting behind them.
"How much you wanna bet Hego still hasn't changed the security codes, or disabled my glow?" Shego asked the redhead, even though it was a suckers bet.
"No way, I've met your hard headed brother remember? I bet mine would work if I could control it." Kim laughed as they approached the door, Shego's glow letting them through the otherwise heavy security door as expected.
"This way." Shego explained, as they made there way up the towers stairs.
"Where are we going anyway?" Kim asked, trailing Shego up.
"My old room." She said, walking off the third story landing and down the dimly lit corridor.
"This place is a lot smaller then it looks outside." Kim commented as they moved through the building.
"Hego designed it. He wanted it to look imposing but would have been insane to build on the scale he wanted. So I took his precious plans and altered enough of the details so it would look a lot bigger then it was. Parlor tricks, but it got him to stop whining."
Kim laughed understanding how brothers can be when they don't get there way, the two women now standing in front of Shego's green and black bedroom door. Shego punched in a complicated code to get the door to open.
"Just the way I left it." Shego commented as the two made there way into the spare room. A large bed covered in green and black sitting in the center of the room, a large black dresser on its left, all covered in a light film of dust. To the right, a door leading to a joined room.
"It seems so, empty." Kim observed.
"I took everything important with me when I left the team." Shego told her as she made her way to the rooms other door.
"Then why did we need the truck?" Kim asked as Shego reached for the doors nob.
"This." Shego explained as she swung the door open, revealing a large gym full of custom workout equipment. The walls, ceiling, and floor lined in some type of composite material panels that where brown with a purple hue to it.
"Wo, the is epic. What is all this?" Kim asked while looking around at various pieces of equipment that she recognized, but looked different then what you would normally see, various punching bags and training dummies covered in an odd looking cloth.
"It's what we designed when I was still learning to control my powers. Everything in this room can take me at full burn. Something the one eyed harpy would have loved to get a hold of."
"Hows that possible, Dr. Director spent millions and couldn't hold you for more then a week." Kim wondered.
"Actually it was more like an hour. I usually spent the week relaxing and taunting her. Her problem she was relying to much on tech, not on the basics. Everything here is capable of absorbing and dissipating heat, like the tiles on the space shuttle. Her tech was trying to suppress my powers, something I'm sure you learned is hopeless. Lets get to work, it's going to take most of the day to pack up the equipment and pull down all the panels."
"That's the last panel." Shego told the redhead, shutting the door to the cargo truck.
"I'm surprised you didn't hire us some help." Kim mentioned before taking a large drink of water as she leaned up against the truck, sweating from all the work.
"You think I want anyone knowing about this stuff?" Shego said while gesturing to the contents of the now loaded truck.
"Point taken."
"Besides, Shego knows better then to bring in uninvited guests. Or at least she used to." Hego told the pair as he walked up from around the truck.
"Shut it Hego. Your lucky I've never wanted to kick your ass. You never change the security codes, or locked out my glow like you should have when I went rouge. Like any sane person with half a brain would have."
"That's because I knew you wouldn't violate your family's trust." Hego insisted.
"More likely because you didn't know how." Shego snorted.
"So Shego, since your gathering up your training equipment, I trust your going to return to the world saving game as part of team Go? Its about time." Hego continued, ignoring what his sister just said.
"First off Hego, it's not a game, never was. Second, when I walked out I told you in no uncertain terms I would never willingly work with you again. Ever. Lastly, my reclaiming what was mine has nothing to do with you. Nothing I do has anything to do with you, something you never seem to learn. I swear you can be more self centered then Mego." Shego was fuming at having to explain this to his dim witted brother again.
Kim walked up beside Shego, putting a hand on the woman's arm to try and calm her girlfriend.
"Ah, Miss Possible, I had heard you and my sister were, together." A disproving tone carrying though Hego's strong baritone voice.
Kim said nothing, refusing to respond to Hego's old world attitude.
"Don't you dare." Shego warned her pig headed brother, as her hands began to crackle with plasma.
"I always knew you were depraved, but to drag Miss Possibles name and reputation through the mud. That's despicable." Hego berated his sister, causing her anger to rise, Kim still standing there doing her best to placate the woman and ignore her brother.
"Not another word Hego..." Shego warned her brother as she squared off against him. Kim stepping in front of her, putting herself between the pair.
"To think, she had such a bright future" What ever he was going to say was cut off as a red plasma powered fist caught him square in the jaw, lifting him off his feet, and sending him flying against the side of the tower. Leaving a Hego sized dent were he struck.
"Wow Princess." Shego said, looking surprised at what Kim had done to her mountain of a brother.
"I was getting tired of his magnanimous attitude." Kim replied, her hand winking out as she turned back to Shego. "But now I see what you mean about needing control."
"Yeah, lets get out of here. Dumb and dumber over there will be fine, I've hit him harder then that and he's always gotten back up"
"Tomorrow I'll call Manie to retrofit the gym to handle what we just brought up." Shego told the redhead as they finished clearing the gym of its old equipment.
"I thought you didn't want anyone know about that stuff?" Kim asked, handing her tired partner a bottle of water.
"He won't, all he'll be doing is prepping the space. We'll install it when he's done." Shego replied before taking a long drink from the bottle.
"That makes sense. How long should it take?"
"Day or two, tops. Then we can start putting everything up." Shego told the eager ginger as they headed out to the living room to relax.
It ended up taking about a day and a half for Shego's contractor to retrofit the gym, then another day for the two martial artist to hang the plasma resistant panels. Scattered about the room was the specially designed workout equipment. In the left far corner of the room across from the door, a speed bag hung on it's adjustable wall mount, on the right a heavy bag hung from the ceiling. Mounted in the center of the the wall between the two bags was Wing Chung training dummy made out of the same material as the plasma panels. Scattered about the room were various practice weapons, striking bags, and focus equipment, some standard issue, some covered in a heavy odd looking material. Hanging on the wall around the door were various swords and other traditional oriental weapons.
"OK, now we can start." Shego said, sitting down in the center of the finished gym a few days later, Kim doing the same in front of her.
"The most important thing to keep in mind is that the power you control is fueled by raw emotion. You have to control them, or they'll control you. Right now your subconscious is controlling your powers. I need to try and teach you to control it consciously. We're going to start with a meditative exercise. I want you to cup your hands together in front of you and close your eyes." Shego demonstrated, showing Kim exactly what she expected. "I want you to clear your mind, like you would for kattas."
Kim sat there with her eyes closed as Shego instructed, with her hands cupped in front of her. Her breathing coming in slow steady breaths, centering herself as she was taught to do by her first Sifu.
"Now imagine a single flame in your mind. Focus on it and feed it the feeling that best represents you. Let it grow. Don't try and and force it to your will, flow with it like water. You will become part of it, just as it is a part of you. Open your eyes."
There in Kim's hand was a ruby sphere of fire the size of a soft ball. "Wow," Kim said in awe at what she was doing, hardly believing that it was possible.
"Not bad Princess, it took me a few weeks to get this far." Shego compliment her.
"I really did it." Kim giggle excitedly. "I really did it." Kim said again, the ball in her hands growing larger.
"Princess focu..." Shego never got the chance to finish her sentence. The ball of plasma exploding in a concussive blast, blowing the two to opposite sides of the room.
"Ow." Kim complained rubbing her head where it had struck the wall.
"Oy, I tried to warn you Pumpkin. You have to stay focused." Shego admonished the redhead, while picking herself up and dusting herself off. "But I have to admit, that was pretty impressive."
"Sorry, I wasn't expecting that." Kim replied sheepishly, as she returned to the center of the room. Shego having already retaken her place.
"Lets try again." She told Kim, gesturing for her to sit back down. "This time I want you to try it with your eyes open." She continued once the Kim was situated again. "Focus on the flame as it forms in your hands, try and maintain it at a constant level."
Kim went through the exercise again, the ball of plasma quickly forming in her hands as she concentrated, the focus etched on her face.
"Good Kimmy, try and maintain it there for a few minutes without letting it waiver or blow up in our face again." Shego instructed, watching patiently as the minutes passed to see if Kim could maintain her focus.
"Your doing good Pumpkin. Now to put it out you need to do the exact opposite. Focus on reducing the size of the flame, but again don't try and force it or it'll blow up in your face." Shego guided Kim, while watching the red flames slowly vanish before puffing out. "Good job sweetie"
"Wow, that's a lot harder then you ever made it look." Kim replied, whipping the perspiration that formed from her brow with the back of her hand.
"I've had years of practice Cupcake." Shego admitted before forming several small balls of plasma in her hands and juggling them.
"Show off." Kim commented at the more experienced woman's show boating. "How do you do that, keep them from popping I mean? Normally your throwing those things at me and they explode." She inquired.
"Believe it or not Princess, controlling it, like a lot of other things in life, is mostly mental. As long as you concentrate on what your doing the plasma will hold its shape and allow you to manipulate them to some degree. The only thing it wont do is move on it's own and there will be a limit to how far they can get from you while still being able to effect them." She explained, throwing the balls into the air and letting them pop in showers of sparks like fireworks.
"That is so cool." Kim admitted as the sparks fell around them.
"Yeah, well don't try anything to hard or complicated just yet. Your own plasma won't burn you, nor will it burn anyone else unless you want it to, but as you've already noticed the concussive blast it can give off will still knock you for a loop." She advised the new plasma wielder.
"Won't burn unless I want it to hunh?" Kim asked suggestively, while smirking at Shego.
"Crap." Shego sighed, flopping on the mat covering the Shego proof floor.
"Busted." Kim giggled, "I knew you never seriously tried to kill me. I'd seen you carve through steel like it was butter, you could have just as easily grabbed me and lit up to do some major damage."
"Don't read to much into it Possible, I didn't want to take out my only real challenge." Shego replied offhandedly, while looking up at her fingernails. Kim looked at her skeptical but didn't care to comment further.
"So what's next?" Kim asked excitedly, bouncing up and down where she was sitting.
"Lets go try the speed bag and see how fast you can hit." Shego replied while slowly getting to her feet. Kim did the same before following Shego to a corner of the gym where the bag was mounted to the wall.
"OK Kimmy, light up and start swinging. Lets see what you can do, but remember to focus on what your doing." Shego told the redhead, standing next to her to watch.
Kim quickly ignited her plasma, finding it to be getting easier and easier to do so the more she practiced. She quickly fell into a steady rhythm, knocking the hanging bag up against its mount. Striking twice with each hand while alternating between the two and gradually picking up speed. It wasn't to long before Shego couldn't quite follow Kim's strikes, seeing mostly a blur of red trails as she worked the bag.
"Wholly shit, have you been holding out on my Cupcake?" Shego asked, finally getting dizzy trying to follow Kim's punches.
Kim gave the bag one last hard thump before turning to face her girlfriend, "No, why?" Kim asked while scratching her head sheepishly.
"Your kidding right? Did you not notice how fast you were moving that bag?" Shego asked astonishingly.
"Um, I guess not." Kim replied while scratching the back of her head and looking back at the bag that was still gently swinging.
"You had to have been throwing eight or ten punches a second, all I could see were red blurs. The best I've ever managed was about six." Shego commented, not quite sure what to make of it. "Lets see what else your packin."
"What are you thinking now?"
"Lets move to the heavy bag." Shego decided, starting towards the large bag hanging from the ceiling in the other corner. "Lets see what ya got." Shego said while taking up a position behind the bag, holding it to keep it from swinging, and to see just how hard Kim could hit with her new found powers. "Start off light, before really working the bag."
"OK Charlie." Kim replied while, squaring up against the bag and raising her fists, lighting them in the process.
Her first half dozen hits where light, as she was getting a feel for the bag. Feeling well warmed up Kim began to really hit the bag, the first shot only slightly moving the bag as Shego watched from her potion behind it. Each of her following punches doubling in power on impact. By the twelfth shot Shego was starting to struggle to keep her footing and her hold on the bag, but Kim still felt like she was just getting started. After twenty punches Shego was having a fairly difficult time holding the bag in place Deciding she really wanted to see what she could do, Kim put all she had into her next shot, blasting the bag and Shego across the room with a bright red flash.
Kim ran over to where Shego was laid out at the base of the wall almost forty feet away under the speed bag, "Oh my good Charlene, I'm so sorry."
"Wholly shit, where'd that come from?" Shego asked from her stunned place under the bag.
"I hit the bag as hard as I could, I wanted to see what would happen. I didn't hurt you did I?" Kim asked while straining to roll the bag off her flabbergasted and flattened girlfriend, who just sat there in shock.
"Not really, just wasn't expecting that to happen. That bag is almost 600 lbs."
"Really?" Kim asked kneeling next to Shego and looking back across the room to where the bags chain was still swinging. Then inspected the bag lying next to them with a rather large permanent dent in it. "How'd I mange to dent it? It should have exploded, shouldn't?" Kim asked while looking back at the rather frazzled Shego.
"No. After I tore through a dozen of the heaviest bags I could find, I built this one. Instead of sand and heavy canvas, it has a hollow core filled with sand of a special glass steal similar to what they use for the frames for flex-on glasses only thicker and stiffer. Then wrapped it with composite fabric that's kinda like what they use for Vulcan suits, and a super dense padding so you can't feel the metal core." Shego explained, finally starting to pick herself up, quickly aided by her remorseful girlfriend.
"How about we call it a day?" Kim suggested, guiding Shego out to the living room.
"Sounds like a good idea Pumpkin." The green woman agreed, not wanting to admit just how sore she really was from being blown across the room and pummeled by the heavy bag.
"So what are the walls made of?" Kim asked inquisitively, ever the book worm, she was a Possible after all.
Shego sat in her favorite spot on the couch and kicking her feet up on the coffee table. Kim taking the spot right next to her and pulling her feet up under her while Shego wrapped an arm around her.
"A micro-alloy of steel and Niobium carbide." Shego told the curious girl, while twirling a red lock around her green finger.
"Isn't that stuff used to line nuclear reactors?" Kim asked astonishingly.
"Yup." Shego affirmed with a smirk.
"Why had Dr. Director never thought to use it to build a cell to hold you?"
"Oversight, overconfidence in her tech, just plain stupidity. Hell if I know, but I wasn't about to tip her off to it." Shego replied. "But speaking of the one eyed witch, I'm surprised she hasn't tried to recruit you."
Kim leaned her head on the green shoulder next to her sighing, and laying her hand across her girlfriends chest. "She has, repeatedly, and likely will again."
"But?" Shego prompted.
"But, I don't know if that's for me. I think she want's to prepare me to take her place one day."
"You'd be able to do a lot of good." Shego suggested.
"Maybe if there weren't miles of red tape. It would also trap me behind a desk."
"You have been able to get a lot more done freelance then you would ever be able to get away with at GJ." Shego agreed.
Kim took her head of Shego's to look her in the eye. "You sound like a therapist." Kim commented.
"No sweetie, I'm your girlfriend. Girlfriends listen."
"Your about the only one." Kim sighed, before lying her head back down.
"Wanna talk about it?" Shego offered while squeezing the girl tightly.
"Not today." Kim replied.
The two spent the remainder of the afternoon siting on the couch watching movies and enjoying each others company, hardly speaking a word. Utterly content to just sit there in each others arms.