“I'd better go, Ron,” Kim said regretfully, eyeing her desk with dread. “I've still got four chapters to study for the Biochemistry test tomorrow, not to mention another few pages for my 300-page thesis on Children's Marketing and Advertising due in May, and I have to get up early for practice in the morning.”
“Kim, Kim, Kim,” Ron replied, shaking his head on the screen of her Kimmunicator. “When are you going to learn that you have attained that perfect convergence of factors which permits maximum relaxation effect?”
“Let me guess,” Kim retorted. “In college and over the age of twenty-one?”
“I am a college man, therefore I drink beer,” Ron said piously.
“And I am a woman who wants to graduate college, therefore I avoid mind-altering substances,” Kim answered. “Mighty big words you're using there, by the way. It looks like that English degree you're working toward might be useful for something after all.”
“I could teach, you know.”
“I thought you wanted to get away from school,” Kim reminded him.
“Yeah, but if I was a teacher, I could give the kids detention for sticking me in a locker,” Ron reasoned.
Kim Possible sighed. “I might consider going out for a drink…”
“There's the spirit, Kimmie.”
“If you were here to go out with me.”
Ron Stoppable's face fell. “Yeah, that is a problem,” he admitted. “I can't exactly drive to Stanford from here.”
Kim smiled. “At least we don't need to hitch rides from people we saved any more.”
“Twenty-one, living alone, and I got my own car,” Ron agreed. “That's freedom, Kim. Besides, it's not like there's been anyone to hitch rides from lately.”
This was true. Kim Possible was out of the hero business, after all.
“You could always go out with someone else,” he pointed out.
“Between boys at the moment,” Kim said.
“I hope you're not being literal, Kimmie.”
“Talk to you tomorrow, Ron,” she said fondly.
“You too, Kim.” The screen suddenly whizzed as Ron's face was replaced by the image of a small, pink rodent. “Rufus says hi,” Ron's voice could be heard.
The naked mole rat energetically waved.
“Hi, Rufus. Bye, Ron,” Kim told them. Then she turned off the Kimmunicator and promptly dropped her face into the textbook in front of her. They were a couple thousand miles apart, but Ron would continue to be her best friend no matter what.
Maybe if they were still Team Possible, she never would have gone to school in California while Ron remained behind at the state university. But there was no need for Team Possible when you had the Acceptable Family.
“Biochemistry,” she mumbled, banishing thoughts of home and friends and supervillains she hadn't beaten in four years or more.
Kim desperately tried to go to sleep, knowing there were only five more hours before she had to be up for early practice, but while her body was exhausted, her mind refused to give in. Earlier thoughts of her teenage years had summoned a host of old memories, especially the faces of people she hadn't seen in ages, and frankly she wasn't all that unhappy about it.
Like Duff Killigan, who had that unfortunate mishap with a miniature golf windmill and discovered he couldn't hit a ball very far with only one arm. Or Adrena Lynn, who'd found that hosting a show about other people doing extremely stupid stunts was just as lucrative as hosting a show about doing them herself. Or Doctor Drakken, safely ensconced in prison for years now. Without Shego to break him out, he'd been reduced to a paper tiger.
Or Shego herself, who'd vanished from the face of the earth years ago and was presumed dead. Kim liked to think that wasn't the case. At least she could respect Shego's fighting skills, and the sidekick didn't have a bizarre obsession like golf or chimp karate.
Then again, she'd always had the single-minded goal of killing Kim Possible, while her employer often came up with the most crackpot schemes for ruling the world. She was an enemy no one would miss.
Kim groaned and rolled over in bed again. She wasn't a superhero, and she wasn't a babysitter. She was a college student like many people her age, and she was going to live a long, normal life, instead of being dead at twenty-five in some exotic jungle.
When the window in her dorm room shattered, her first thought was that she'd just been falling asleep when the sound of breaking glass interrupted her.
Then Kim sat bolt upright. “What?!” she said, rearing back.
A shadowy figure loomed over her bed, before swaying and retreating backwards. The moonlight passed over her face and illuminated her features.
Say the devil's name, Kim thought abstractly as she gaped. “Shego?!”
The ex-sidekick focused on Kim's face and glared. A retort seemed to be on her lips, but then her green eyes rolled into the back of her head and she passed out.
Kim had seen way too many weird things as a crime fighter to remain surprised by anything for long. College had been no different. Just check out your average football game.
She slid towards the foot of her bed before getting out. There was broken glass all over the floor where Shego lay. She fetched her broom and carefully swept as much of the glass as she could. Then she knelt beside Shego and shook her gently, then more insistently. “Out cold,” she murmured.
Reaching up, Kim turned on her bendable lamp and twisted it so that the light shined on Shego's form. “At least I don't have a roommate,” she thought.
If Shego had been hoping to strike a formidable pose, passing out had not been a good start. Nor did her appearance impress Kim now. She was wearing a beat-up sweater with oil patches on the front, and cheap cotton drawstring pants. Her hair was limp, and her skin pale. Well, paler than usual, anyway. Shego's cheeks had thinned, and she looked like she'd lost weight. It was totally unlike the woman who'd taken such pride in her look. Now she looked like she'd just escaped from a Third World military prison.
For all Kim knew, Shego had escaped from a Third World military prison.
Shego was no longer her problem, however. If she'd come to take some sort of revenge on Kim, she'd come years too late. Her impulse was to call the police and have her taken back to whatever dark place she'd crawled out of.
Kim's instincts, however, told her that there was something very strange about Shego's arrival, and that if she allowed the authorities to take command, she'd never know what was going on.
Sighing, Kim leaned over and slid her arms under Shego's back. “Let's go, Shego,” she said. “I don't need your bony ass on my floor.”
As she picked Shego up, she revised her earlier opinion. Shego had lost a lot of weight - maybe twenty, thirty pounds. Concerned and bewildered, Kim laid Shego down on her bed and went to the sink to get a wet washcloth. As she turned away, she noticed something else different about Shego.
Her plasma gloves were gone.
That didn't change the fact that she was dangerous, with those claws and all, and Kim cautiously rubbed the dirt from Shego's face, hoping the water would revive her. “Come on, Shego, what's the sitch?”
There was a slight murmuring sound coming from Shego's lips as her eyelids fluttered weakly.
“Shego? Shego! What was that?”
“… haven't heard those words in years, and I'm still sick of them… “
Shego finally opened her eyes again and looked up at Kim. Her eyes were exhausted and belligerent at the same time. “Kimmie.”
“Hello, Shego. I haven't seen you in what, four years?” Kim frowned. “It hasn't been long enough.”
“Feels like twenty,” Shego murmured. “Surprised I made it.”
“What do you want, Shego?” Kim asked, feeling a bit tired herself.
Shego looked away and scowled angrily.
“If you came here just to be a pain like you always were, then I'm calling the police,” Kim said, exasperated, as she reached for the phone.
“Don't,” Shego replied quickly. “I need your… help.”
Kim stared at her. “What could you possibly expect me to help you with?”
Shego sat up a little. “How about saving me, and the world, from the Acceptable Family?” she asked quietly.
She'd surprised Kim for the second time that night.
To be continued…