"Wow, that's a real piece of shit!" laughed Shego, as she walked haughtily into the room. "Honestly, the wall looked much better with nothing on it! Unless you were just trying to cover the stains..."
Drakken looked like he was going to cry.
"You...y-you don't MEAN that, do you, Shego?" he asked, his lip quivering, his eyes watering.
"I POURED the very ESSENCE of my SOUL into this exquisite work of art, Shego! My blood! My sweat! My tears! My MUCUS! My...my-"
"Yeah, gonna have to stop you RIGHT there, doc!" interrupted Shego, her face contorted in a grimace of revulsion. "I REALLY don't need to know what other fluids went into the making of this disaster..."
In the main room of their new lair, Drakken, who had just taken up oil painting in order to "find himself" (whatever the hell THAT meant), had just hung up his latest masterpiece (titled "Enigma XV"), a strange, abstract canvas that looked like the work of a tortured mental patient who had been forced to paint with his toes. The painting measured four feet by six feet, and every inch of it called for its own destruction, as Shego was right on the money - the painting sucked most righteously.
But in spite of it's inherent suckiness, it was still Drakken's baby.
Drakken spun around, flustered and exasperated as Shego settled comfortably into a cushioned deck chair and then leisurely flipped through a high-end fashion magazine.
"Ughhh, I can't BELIEVE the crap that Club Banana is churning out these days" she muttered to herself, as she scanned the photos from the latest fashion show in Paris. "Heh...I'll bet Kimmie would wear this junk, though..."
"Shego, why must you always be so...so...UNPLEASANT?!" Drakken wailed, desperately. "Every time I attempt a new thing, you act like such a...a...a MEANIE!"
Shego looked up from her magazine.
"Drakken, Drakken, Drakken, it's a gift!" she said, in a syrupy sweet voice while wearing an exaggerated, mocking smile. "Some people are born with a talent for music, some with an aptitude for math...but me? I'm just a TOTAL, subzero-cold bitch. And...it's...FANTASTIC!"
Drakken looked shocked and hurt. He was oversensitive and prone to wild histrionics, and she just LOVED playing on that.
"Shego..." began Drakken, in a strained tone of distress, "when that comet gave you your powers...did it take away your...HEART? Your FEELINGS? Your EMPATHY? You...are...so...incredibly...CRUEL!" He clutched his chest tightly and swayed around aimlessly, acting like some scenery-chewing soap opera actress reveling in her big scene.
"Ooooohhhh, you are a cold-hearted woman, you!" he blubbered.
"Yeah, yeah, Dr. D" mumbled Shego, rolling her eyes for the umpteenth time that day as she put down her magazine and began to carefully trim back her nails. "Yeah, I guess that comet sure did a number on the six of us..."
"That's right!" said Drakken, self-righteously. "That comet sure DID do a number on the six of you-wha...SIX?"
"Uh-huh. Six"
"Ummmmm..."
Drakken began to clumsily count his fingers. "Okay, now, there's...Shego...that's YOU, a-and then ah, um...Hego...Mego and ummmm...the Wego twins...right?"
"Uh huh" said Shego, obviously not interested in the slightest.
Drakken's face looked stunned and senseless as he scratched his head in wonder, unknowingly smearing white paint into his black hair (once again, he had forgotten to wash his hands after a painting session.) "But...Shego, I thought it was just you and your four brothers! You mean there's a SIXTH sibling that's running around out there with crazy superpowers?"
Shego began filing the nails on her opposite hand. "Nuh uh, not a sibling, a cousin."
"A cousin?" asked Drakken."
"Yeah, that's what I said" snapped Shego, her face souring. "Not too sure what the weirdo's been up to these days, though from what I gathered a couple years back, he was doing odd mercenary jobs in...'troubled' parts of the world - the sort of jobs that no one wants to do...things not even I would do...ugh!" She shuddered violently.
A slight smile was beginning to form on Drakken's pale blue face. "What KIND of jobs, Shego?"
"He does things I'm NOT gonna talk about, kay'?" she retorted sharply. "I might be evil" she said, as she gently brushed off her fingertips, "but there's lines even I won't cross...although..."
"Yesssss?" prodded Drakken, eagerly.
"I DO remember that he once held a job as a bodyguard for some royal guy, but he got fired within an hour for attacking the very person he was supposed to protect."
"Some 'royal guy'?" asked Drakken. "That's not very specific, Shego.
"I think it was Prince 'Wally' or 'Weenie' or something" answered Shego. "Heir to some backwards little country that no one's even heard of. Apparently, my cousin got fed up with his constant whining and scared the little prince half to death with his powers. Oh well..."
Drakken suddenly looked strangely excited, his little dramatic episode having vanished completely. "So, Shego, just out of scientific curiosity, what sort of, ah...what sort of POWERS does he have, hmmmmm?"
Shego jerked her head around to face Drakken eye to eye, her countenance contorted with irritation and spite. "Good God, why do you CARE?" she snapped. " MAN, like my BROTHERS weren't BAD enough..."
Ignoring her completely, he continued to press her for information. "Are his powers like YOURS? All green and burn-ey?"
"...burn-ey?"
Drakken narrowed his eyes and smiled crazily. "Does he...have a name?"
Shego sighed, slapped her forehead and looked as though she was going to be sick.
"Hugo. As in the bad hurricane from 1989."
"REALLY, now?" said Drakken with great interest. "Soooooooo, little Shego, Mego, Hego, the Wegos and Hugo were all spending a DELIGHTFUL afternoon in their little treehouse...when all of a sudden, CALAMITY STRUCK, and-"
"No, the little dork wasn't allowed in our treehouse" said Shego, now sounding very bored. "He was on the ground playing in the mud when the comet hit. Still wound up mutating like the rest of us did, though. Imagine that!"
Drakken's face went into shock mode, his eyebrows raised so high they practically disappeared into his hair.
"Why...why wasn't he allowed in your treehouse, Shego?"
"Because he sucks" said Shego.
"Thaaaaaaat's...not much of an answer, Shego!" replied Drakken.
"Okay, OKAY, Dr. D! Because when he was a little kid, he wore glasses. THAT'S why!"
"You...you're serious?"
"Yep. No four-eyes were EVER permitted on the premises. House rules. MAN, I gotta start taking more zinc, my nails are getting SO brittle...""
"And...you and your brothers...have no dealings with him at ALL these days?" asked Drakken in astonishment.
"Dealings?" she asked, looking as though she was too good to even provide him with an answer.
Drakken stood by with bated breath and waited.
Shego hesitated for several moments, but then smiled maliciously while leaning back and stretching in her chair, looking like some kind of vain housecat sunbathing in a warm patch of light.
"I deal with mad scientists" she said, still grinning. "And mad scientists who think that they're somehow artistic geniuses just because the chorus of voices in their heads tell them so."
She gave Drakken a condescending smile as he fidgeted nervously.
"I deal with obnoxious teenage 'heroines' and their buffoon sidekicks" she continued. "I deal with morons, idiots, dullards, dunces, blockheads, buttheads, palookas, fools, twits, dimwits and nitwits. EVERYDAY. EVERYWHERE."
She narrowed her emerald gaze and looked Dr. Drakken directly in the eyes.
"But I don't deal with psychos-"
"SOMEONE sounds peanut butter and JEALOUS!" teased Drakken, from out of nowhere.
"...WHAT?" spat Shego. "The hell does THAT mean?"
"Your cousin, Hugo! He's stronger than you, isn't he?" asked Drakken, with a huge, wicked, toothy smile. "Yes, my dear sidekick, I can SEE it on your face, and I can HEAR it in your voice-"
Shego got up out of her chair.
"Oh, n-no, don't get up on MY account!" cried Drakken, suddenly realizing what a TERRIBLE mistake he had just made. "I-I-I was just pointing out the, umm, well, you KNOW-"
"Say goodbye to your latest 'masterpiece', Vincent Van Go-Away..." snarled Shego, her face contorted in rage as she flared up her hands with luminous green energy and then fired a blast over Drakken's head, directly striking the canvas and reducing it to a smoldering pile of ash.
"I just made the world a better place..." she hissed, as Drakken stared in shocked wonder at his second-in-command, truly realizing for the first time just how DANGEROUS she really was.
"If SHE'S this bad..." he thought to himself, "...what's Hugo like?"