I do not own the Disney characters named herein, and am only using them for a nonprofit tale meant to entertain only.
Kim Possible: Rogue
By LJ58
18
Anne did her best to stifle a cry when Kim deactivated her battle-suit on command after Ellen handed her a medical gown.
"It's not as bad as it looks," Kim told her with a knowing grimace even as Ellen began assessing her scars and injuries.
"Not as bad," Anne choked out, and then shook her head. "Honey, I'm just glad you're alive. And home. Well…. Back," her mother said with suspiciously bright eyes as she turned to clear her throat while reaching for antiseptic, and a needle and surgical thread, which made Kim grimace.
"But that's not what you want to talk about," Kim replied perceptively. "Right?"
"Shego told us about your…..relationship. And why you rushed…. You really married her?"
She held up her left hand. "Matching bands, and everything. And, no, they aren't stolen."
"I wasn't going to….. Kim, I want you to be happy. Wherever you find that happiness. I mean that, but….didn't you two rush things a bit? You were fighting her not that long ago, and then there is the fact she is a wanted felon. Not to mention…."
"Mom. Mom," she cut her off when Anne would have gone on. "I'll admit that Shego came along when I was at a low ebb, but I doubt she told you everything."
"How can you be so certain," Anne demanded, handing the supplies over to Ellen who went to work on Kim, who cringed, and grimaced, but didn't otherwise react as the trained nurse set to work cleaning, and when necessary, stitching her wounds.
"Because I do know Shego. At heart, she is a very private woman. You must have learned that much when she….visited us those few times."
"That's another thing…."
"Mom, can I finish?"
Anne stared hard at her, then slowly nodded. "Go on, dear. Just remember, your father is going to want his own accounting, so you'd better make it good."
"You haven't already grilled Shego," Kim asked with a faint smirk.
"As your father pointed out, you do not press a woman that rips steel apart like paper."
Kim chuckled.
"Shego's a pussycat at heart, mom. She'd never hurt you."
Anne's expression was less than convinced.
"Well, she wouldn't."
"She's been on a rampage for over two years, Kimberly. You wouldn't believe the things they say she's been doing!"
"And who was doing the telling, mom," Kim growled, pausing to eye Ellen with a glare when she tugged a bit at one of her fresher wounds.
"Don't mind me," Ellen Greer smiled serenely. "I'll admit I'm far more used to being around comatose patients, but I am a very good nurse. And can be very discreet."
"We appreciate that," Anne Possible told her.
"Mom," Kim sighed, "What I'm trying to say, is that Shego saved my life. Again. Back when I first went to China, I had some….trouble."
"I knew it. I knew we shouldn't have let you….."
"Mom, I was an adult. I am an adult. To be honest, most of the issues were mine. I was having some….confidence concerns, and I let a lot of things slide. That got me into trouble when I had to fight again. Shego saved me, and got me back in shape. I know it seems rushed to you…."
"It was rushed."
"Mom, I've known Shego a long time."
"You….!"
"Mom. I know her. You don't fight someone as much as I have without getting to know them. I could tell that, at heart, Shego isn't truly as bad as she likes to claim. Ron could probably explain it better just now, but….. When you fight someone, the way we do….did, you…..feel them. You learn their heart. I realized Shego had a good heart. She hid it for her own reasons, but she was, and is good. And like I said, maybe it seemed rushed from your perspective, but we spent almost two years getting to know one another even better before Master Li hosted our wedding for…..his own reasons."
"So Shego said," Anne sighed, looking wistful now.
"We were coming home, to see you guys, and explain things. Maybe even remarry so we could share our happiness with all of you," Kim assured her. "We just got...sidetracked."
"Whatever else, she is still a felon."
"And she was pardoned after that Lorwardian sitch, and keeping her nose clean, too."
"Not the last few years."
"Yeah, and why was that, mom?"
Anne said nothing to that.
"If things had been different," Kim finally asked as Ellen finished stitching up the few open wounds she had requiring them, and then wrapping bandages around her lower abdomen. "If she had vanished, and I had been left behind, I can't say what I would have done. I do know I would have looked for her. I would have done anything to find her, and help her. That's what she did, mom, from what little I've heard so far. Which, admittedly, hasn't been much just yet, but I know her. And I heard enough to figure out what was going on in my absence."
Anne sighed.
"You really care that much for her?"
"Thinking about her was part of what kept me going while I was….there," she said, taking the sweats Bonnie had apparently sent down from the nurse to pull on. Her boots, while well worn, were still serviceable enough to still wear.
"Try not to pull those stitches," Ellen said as she finished tying off her laces. "You really need time to….."
Kim and Anne both eyed her, and the woman sighed.
"Just try to be careful."
"Yes, mom," Kim told her as she headed for the door. "I'm going to go shower, and eat, and then we need to move. If those guys are communicating with their friends, they'll know the Tweebs opened another door with the Matrix to let us out, and they'll be moving up whatever timetable they do have. God only knows what my twin must be doing."
"Kim…. We haven't seen you since you vanished that day in Hong Kong. No one has."
She frowned.
"Weird. That's what I heard from Ron. But I saw one of them copy me before I….."
The door opened, and Shego stood there with a tray.
"Come on, Princess. Let's get something hot in you before you shower, and then we need to get to work."
"Sounds good. You can brief me on what's been going on while I was gone, too." Kim paused, then looked back at her mother before she asked, "Anything else, mom?"
"No, sweetheart," the neurosurgeon sighed. "Go on. Get cleaned up, and eat. Shego's right. You need to take care of yourself."
"Thank's mom," she said, and started to kiss her.
"Maybe you'd better shower first," the woman said, giving her a faint grimace as she stood back.
Shego chortled as Kim blushed.
"Told you," she grinned.
"Be careful of those stitches," Ellen called out, and tossed Kim a roll of gauze. "And wrap them firmly after you get out."
"I'll see she does," Shego assured the nurse, and told Kim, "This way, stinky. Senior already has a room ready for you."
"Ah," a familiar voice cooed just then as Kim approached the stairs. "It is true, my Blue Fox has finally returned!"
She tuned to see Junior standing nearby holding a bottle of suntan lotion, and a pitcher of iced beverage of some kind.
"Junior," she groaned.
"She's mine, boy toy," Shego growled. "So, go play with your wife, and leave Kimmie to me," she warned.
"Don't threaten my Junior," Bonnie snipped, coming in just then wearing a grey jumpsuit with a rather large weapon of some kind holstered at her side. "That's what I do best," she went on, glaring at her husband. "And what have I said about that Animalogy crap?"
"But, beloved, you must know you are still first in my heart! But I cannot help but feel….."
"Go," she pointed to a door.
"Yes, my love," Junior sighed, but still looked back at Kim, and declared, "I am very happy you are back, Kim Possible. But you really must take better care of yourself. You look dreadful. Perhaps a day at one of father's spas…..?"
"Go," Bonnie thundered, and Junior all but ran the last few steps to the door to disappear outside.
"I see he hasn't changed," Kim now smiled.
"I doubt even a sea monster storming the beach would penetrate that head," Bonnie sighed now. Then her eyes narrowed, and she studied Kim again. "That said, he's mine, and you can forget about him, or…."
"And she's mine," Shego growled, still holding the covered tray as she glared at Bonnie, letting her know her stance. "So keep your clueless clown away from my wife."
"Wife? Oh…right. I did hear you two…. Well, so long as we understand each other. And, K?"
"Yeah, B?"
"I am glad you're all right. Now go get cleaned up, and let's put an end to all this craziness. That's what you still do, isn't it? Stop these kinds of things?"
Kim eyed Shego, and looked back at Bonnie.
"I thought I was retired," she said, and started to climb the steps with Shego. "Obviously, I was wrong. Give me a few, Bonnie. This one is way past personal now, so you can bet I'm going to be involved."
Bonnie nodded, then walked out the door after Junior.
Someone had to keep an eye on him, she knew that as much as she knew anything.
She was still glad to see Kim still had that competitive spirit, though. They were going to need it before they finished this one. She could see that well enough. Hopefully, Kim knew what to do. So far, they had barely held these freaks at bay from what she could see. Now, their island was surrounded by the Navy, and if they started getting serious, even her father-in-law's defenses couldn't hold off the entire American military.
"This is why I hate company," she muttered as she headed out to the deck where Junior was already settling himself fin his favored deck chair, his shirt gone, his bronzed chest already glistening with tanning lotion.
Which, in spite of all else, still made her smile.
KP
"You about done," Shego asked. "Your food is getting cold."
"Trust me," came from the shower in the attached bath to the room Shego was using while at Senior's. "Anything, at any temperature, will be a delicacy to me after what I've been living on," she called back.
Shego shook her head.
Of all the things she could have imagined befalling Kim, that dimensional cage was not one of them. Just the idea that Kim had been so close to dying before she could get to her still rattled her. The idea she had been reduced to living on bugs wasn't much better. Okay, oversized bugs, but still, bugs.
She tried very hard not to imagine how bad that must have been.
Considering how thin every survivor was, Kim included, she doubted it had been all that great.
Finally, after a very long shower that had steam billowing from under the closed door, Kim finally stepped out wearing a white towel, her red hair trailing down her back, and looking as if she had just experience nirvana.
"You have no idea how much I've missed hot water," the redhead sighed as she walked over to the bed, dropped down, and then eyed the tray. "So, what have we got? I'm starving."
"I can tell," she said, noting it was far too easy to count the usually slender redhead's ribs as it was when she removed the towel, and started to rewrap her wounds while Kim ate. "Soup, fresh bread, fruit salad, and a large potato on the side. Mama Possible thinks you should go for bulk just now."
"She's probably right. Spider guts not only tasted as bad as they sound, they weren't really nourishing," she sighed, and lifted the spoon over the still steaming soup.
Kim's mouth watered, and Shego said nothing as the woman all but gorged herself, trying to eat everything at once.
"It's not going anywhere," Shego tried to tease, watching her, and again feeling bad she wasn't there when Kim really needed her.
Kim eyed her, smiled ruefully, but kept eating without slowing down.
She didn't slow down until the tray was empty, and Shego only stared as Kim now daintily wiped her mouth, and then looked grim.
"God, I missed food. Almost as much as I missed you," she said, reaching out to touch Shego's cheek.
Shego's hand covered hers, and the green-skinned woman smiled at that touch, but then Kim stood up, and sounded just like she had expected from the start.
"But just now, we need to stop these guys. I need to get dressed, and then we need to round up our allies, and make plans. I need to know everything that's been going on, and what's happening been here while I was gone."
"I can fill you in while you get dressed," Shego assured her. "As to dressing," she said, and turned to a small duffle she had pulled from under the bed. "I just happen to have a few things you left behind."
"Just happen to have," Kim echoed, seeing her own familiar mission clothes she had not worn in years.
Shego shrugged.
"I guessed you'd be needing them sooner or later," she remarked as Kim eyed the clothes she had pulled out of the duffle.
Shego watched her hold the ghastly purple top up to her towel-clad chest, and sighed.
"Thanks," Kim told her, and then quickly dressed as Shego began to summarize what had been going on while she had conducted a one-woman hunt for her after she had vanished. Then she added what had been going on behind the scenes with Senior's problems that ironically dovetailed into the very mystery she had been unknowing tripping around.
"So, Wade's okay?"
"He's probably buried deeper than a dick on a hibernating grizzly just now," Shego grimaced. "But that little perv is probably the only one of us that likely is okay just now."
"Wade's no perv," she huffed.
"Trust me. Anyone hiding behind a computer while they ogle the world, is a closet perv."
"And you know this how?"
"Don't argue, Princess. Just finish getting dressed, and then we'll go call our…..brain trust, and hopefully we can come up with something that won't get us all killed."
"Hey, it couldn't be any worse than living in an alien desert, eating….."
"Don't say it," Shego paled. "I've been trying not to even think of it, and you don't have to keep repeating it."
"You mean…..?"
Kim tittered as she bent down to tie her bootlaces after pulling on her cargos.
"That was low," Shego grumbled. "I forgot you can be mean, too."
"I am so not mean," Kim gasped.
"Tell that to the Hench you laid out with the broken jaw."
"He tried to shoot me!"
"Doc tried worse. Lots of time. You never broke his jaw."
"Well, he was…. He…. He never sold out his own planet to….."
Shego eyed her.
"Oh. Well, that was more of an accident, than not."
"Let's face it. With blue-boy, everything was an accident. Still, he likely knows more than he's said, too. So we'd better bring him along, too."
"He was really in a coma all this time?"
"Let's just get everyone who needs to be involved rounded up. After that last attack, I doubt the Navy will be waiting long before someone suggests trying to nuke us."
"It hasn't got that bad already! Has it," Kim asked.
"Kim, we shot down over a dozen jets, and sent two of their support ships limping for home. It's bad. Don't forget. We have another comatose general, Jack, and who knows how many dead at these freaks' hands. And that's just them warming up from what we can tell."
"Well, we're going to cool them down. You say the Tweebs have ironed out the problems with the Matrix?"
"I think it's mostly that weird little computer brain they built. It's running the show for them."
"Smart. It's why I let them put an AI in my car. My car," she murmured. "Do you know….?"
"Last I saw, it was back in your folk's garage. I saw it when we went to the subbasement to get the rocket."
"Mom let's dad keep a rocket under the house now?"
"Let's just say it was…..a family secret. One he kept from the family."
"Gotcha. So, how bad did she chew him out?"
"I was pretty sure I'd be deaf before we reached the island. Your mom can unload when she's got a reason. I sure didn't know she had it in her."
"Dad can be…. Well, the Tweebs get it from somewhere," she shrugged as they headed downstairs.
"And what about you?"
"What? I don't have any bad….. Well, not really bad….."
Shego just kept smirking.
"What?"
"Not a thing. I'm just really glad to have you back, too, Princess. And you can bet your skinny butt I'm sticking next to you like glue this time. No more separating. Bad things always happen when we do."
Kim sighed.
"My butt's not… Okay, not usually. So, mom give you the riot act about our….secret wedding?"
"Let's just say I'm glad she didn't have any weapons handy. She might have played understanding, and patient, but I could see something in those eyes that made me want to run away."
"Mom's not that bad," she gasped.
Shego chose not to say anything just then.
Mostly because the first person they ran into was Dr. Anne Possible, who stood at the foot of the stairs, eyeing her daughter intently as she finally nodded, and gave her a faint smile.
"Welcome home, bubble-butt," she smiled, and hugged her. "It's good to see you looking more like yourself again."
"It's good to be home. Where's dad?"
"Trying to keep Drew busy, and out of everyone's hair."
"Find him, General Flagg, and Senor Senior. Oh, and Dr. Director," she said, spotting the woman standing across the room, just eyeing her. "I think you'd better come down, too."
"Down," she asked somberly.
"We need to make a viable plan to start our move, and we need the Tweebs to help. So we need to go down, and put the pieces together if we're going to start hitting back, and now."
"I take it you already have a plan," Dr. Director asked her, not sounding too surprised.
"The basis of one, inspired by part of Shego just told me. First, though, we need to finish question those Henches, and Shego mentioned you had a few aliens in custody, too."
"I am afraid we won't get anything out of the Henches," Senor Senior told her, coming out of a room from a short hall Kim had never been down despite her many visits. "Evn trying to assess what means had killed the other caused them all to…..shut down," the old man remarked grimly as Ron walked up behind him, nodding.
"And the aliens?"
"We have them in another area. Locked up very, very tightly," Ron told her. "Recall, they are shape-shifters. They could likely escape any ordinary cell."
"How many do we have?"
"Five," Senor Senior told her, sounding a bit indignant. She didn't know it truly distressed him to think any infiltrators had gotten past his security to even reach his island. "Well, we have five left alive," he added with a bland smile.
"I want to see them. And bring one out for a chat. We'll likely only need one. Shego, Ron. I'll need you both."
"And that is KP's serious face," Ron murmured as Senor Senior led them back down the short hall.
"As you said, Ron. It's time to get serious. Mom," she turned to Anne who had followed them. "You'd better sit this one out. We may have to get….messy."
"Kim," the older redhead frowned.
"Mom, I know you're worried. I know you have a lot of concerns. You haven't seen what these things can do. Will do. I have. If I have to break a few bones, or whatever, I won't hesitate if it gets us what we need to shut them down."
Anne Possible stared at her daughter, and looked past her physical condition.
Her green eyes still burned with the same indignant gleam she had always evidenced when facing injustice of any kind. She had yet to be truly bowed, or broken in spite of what she must have suffered. Anne wasn't altogether sure she even wanted to know what that might have been after just that brief glimpse into that alien world. That her daughter had survived was enough. That she had survived spoke of just how strong she was at heart.
She nodded, and turned to go back up the hall.
"If it's important," Dr. Director told her. "We'll let you know. Meanwhile, get the others down to the lab so we can meet with them there."
"And tell the Tweebs to warm up the Matrix. We're going to need her."
"Her," Betty Director frowned as Senor Senior put his palm to the panel beside a heavy, steel door. The only way in, or out of the makeshift cell they were using for the Inversers they had caught.
"Didn't you know," Kim asked. "The Matrix is alive. It's a techno-organic brain capable of sentient, and autonomous thought."
"Whoa," everyone but Kim and Senor Senior exclaimed.
Then they stopped in front of the glowing cell created by a localized force field holding the five, sullen captives still in Hencho Red and Black.
"Ron," Kim nodded.
"All but one of you step back to the far wall," he said, and pulled a long-bladed knife. "And no funny moves, or you won't be around for the evening meal. We just want to talk to one of you."
"We have nothing to say to you vertebrates," one of them spat.
"We'll take him," Kim decided impulsively, eyeing the apparent Hench without his mask just then.
"You heard her," Shego growled, and flexed her gloved hands just so as she stood with Ron in front of the cell as their host lowered the laser grid. "Step over here, Mr. Volunteer. The rest of you…. Don't even blink."
She had already learned they feared her more than most. It's why they threw human pawns against her rather than face her directly. Apparently, something in her plasma energies could fry their neural networks, making them literally incapable of shifting into other forms. It was, obviously, also very painful.
Ron and Shego didn't relax until the field was back up, and even then, they made sure to stay between the single alien, and the door. A door where Senor Senior already stood by with his ever-present cane at the ready.
Anyone that knew him knew that cane could be bad news at the best of times.
Too, Dr. Director stood next to him, silent and grim, and ready for anything.
"I will still tell you nothing," Kim was told as she stepped forward.
"Oh, I think you will. You see," she stated curtly, and then punched him hard enough in the chest to crack ribs even without her battle suit on. "I know all about your morphing ability. You're not the first shape-shifters I've encountered," she added as she hit him again, making him groan.
He shimmered a second, and then sucked air as he stood back upright, looking smug.
"See? I knew you could take it. I knew you could repair yourself if I gave you time," she told him as she stepped back to watch the dour Hench. "However, Shego also told me something interesting. A little plasma bath, and you suddenly cannot change a thing. Can't morph. Can't heal," she said almost maliciously.
The Hench's eyes suddenly rounded.
"Now, here's how this is going to go. I'm going to ask questions. You're going to answer them. If you stall, lie, or otherwise defy me in any way, Shego is going set your shape for life. Then, I'm going to break you for life. I'll give whatever is left to Stoppable. I think you know your chances with him by now," she smiled very chillingly.
"Oooooo," Shego cooed. "Kimmie does have a dark side. Me like."
Kim shot her a curt glance, but said nothing. Now was not the time to argue.
"Ready to talk," she demanded, eyeing the Hench.
"What do you want," he growled indignantly.
"What happened to my twin? Where did she go? What's she doing?"
"We…..don't know."
"Don't…..know," Kim frowned. "Explain."
"She tried to access the Matrix after the portal closed, cutting off our allies. Something….happened. She just vanished the moment she touched that alien device. She has yet to reappear."
"Interesting," Kim murmured. "All right. Two more questions, and you get to go back in the box, and wait on dinner with your friends."
The alien continued to glare.
"One, where is your leader, and second, where is the cold-fusion reactor intended to power your new gate you have to have set up?"
The man's eyes narrowed, and his jaw tightened.
Kim didn't hesitate.
"Shego," she nodded.
Shego's hands flared, and she stepped forward.
"I'm going to enjoy this," she smiled, and the man shook his head, backing right into the laser field, and howling as it seared his back.
"I'll bet that hurt," Ron chortled darkly.
"I'll bet this hurts worse," Shego said, and reached for him with both hands.
"No," the man screamed, and screamed even louder as green fire surged around his entire body, scorching his uniform, and even his hair. His body seemed to be trying to shimmer and flow for a moment, then set once more as Shego stepped back, leaving a very badly scorched apparent human Hench.
"I'll bet that stings," Shego grinned as she eyed him. "Ready for the next lesson in ignoring my Princess?"
"Answer my questions," Kim demanded with a hard punch to his gut again. "Or this is just the start."
Her eyes rose, and regarded the other four.
"Just the start for all of you," she added, pointedly fixing her gaze on each of them.
"He's in China," one of them blurted.
"Fool traitor," one of his companions backhanded him, driving him to the floor.
"Do you think I want to look like a monkey for however long I have left," the shape-shifter spat, and his form wavered, looking more like the generic humanoids Kim had last seen on the other side of the vortex. "I knew that one should have been slain from the start," he said, eyeing Shego. "Some humans are just too dangerous to live!"
"Got that right," Shego smiled. "But I'm not so easily put down."
"Obviously," Dr. Director spoke for the first time. "Why is the leader in China," she asked, glancing at Kim.
"Good question. What's he up to there," she demanded of her current punching bag.
Again, that singular alien blurted out, "He's impersonating their premier. He hopes to conscript the entire nation to our cause before anyone learns the truth of our origins."
"We can't let that happen," Ron grumbled. "I'll call….home. They can handle that end."
"Good," Dr. Director nodded. "We've got more than enough on our plate for now."
"Speaking of which," Kim nodded. "Where is the reactor?"
"We don't know," the battered alien groaned when Kim eyed him. "I swear. Only Viper's men knew where the leader wanted it taken."
"And they're all staying silent," Shego said cryptically.
"It's been my experience," Betty said, stepping forward as she eyed the still shuddering man in obvious pain. "That most followers often know more than their leaders realize. They overhear things. Guess things. Spy on their own. For whatever their reasons, most know far more than realized at times. I wonder if that is the case now."
"Would you tell us if you knew," Kim asked blandly as she eyed the man cringing before her.
His only reply was a sour expression as his jaw clenched again.
"Ron. Find out," she told her longtime friend as she turned her back on the alien. "While I pick out our next playmate in case he doesn't….make it."
Ron didn't even smirk as he stepped forward, the knife in his hand moving slightly forward as he stood over the alien.
"I think I might just enjoy this more than I did body slamming the Lorwardians into space dust," he said as he eyed the man.
"You? You were truly the one that defeated the green warriors," another blurted out.
"Yes," Kim spoke sharply. "He faced them. Fought them. Killed them. Just that easily," she said, snapping her fingers. "And now you want to challenge him. Guess how well you're going to last?"
Ron didn't even blink as the four aliens in the cell exchanged looks, and then one stepped forward, and said, "We'll tell you anything. Just keep the green bitch. and the monk away from us."
"Fear, and respect. Now, that's more like it," Shego grinned as Ron echoed, "Monk?"
"Say nothing," the battered infiltrator hissed at his allies.
Ron drove his knife right through his throat.
"Any other doubters," he demanded fiercely as he turned from the now dead man to eye the four survivors with dark blood dripping from his blade.
"We'll talk," the same alien assured him.
"We're listening," Kim told him. "Tell us everything. Especially about the reactor, and the gate."
To Be Continued…..