Shego clenched her fists. “I don't know how you found out about that night, but you can tell whoever created you that I'm not falling for it. They couldn't even get my hair right!”
“Why does everyone tonight think I'm a CLONE?!” the Supreme One snarled. “Look, if I'm a fake, then how do you explain these?” She threw her hands out, forcibly reminding Shego that they were still glowing with green fire. “Have you ever met anyone capable of replicating these?”
Shego froze. “No,” she said, well aware of this fact after Senior Senior had failed to duplicate her stolen gloves.
“So?”
“Let's just say,” Shego said indifferently, recovering her cool, “that you're not a clone. What the hell are you?”
“Doy. Have you been listening? I said I'm you. Or at least, I used to be.”
“Huh?”
“I'm from the future.”
Shego looked surprised. “Time travel?”
“Well, let's face it, we've already established that modern technology isn't capable of creating these,” the Supreme One said.
“But how could you give me my gloves?” Shego asked suspiciously. “You didn't even exist yet!”
“The fabric of time isn't really a fabric. It's more a stretchy roll of spandex with no beginning or ending.”
“You're losing me.”
“Yeah, I know, I felt the same way when I first met myself.”
Shego looked utterly bewildered.
The Supreme One sighed. “Hey, how about this? How about you let me talk for a couple minutes, and whenever I'm done, then it'll be question time. Okay?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Shego said noncommittally. “I realize you have all the time in the world, but I kinda had plans tonight.”
“I took over the world,” the Supreme One said impatiently.
Shego's eyes became huge.
“I took over the world,” the Supreme One repeated, “and you can too. Now will you shut up and listen?”
Kim was waiting anxiously outside the Planetarium when Ron finally pulled up behind Sadie's wheel. “Thanks, Ron,” she said gratefully as she climbed in.
“No prob, KP,” Ron said. “Where's - you know, her?”
Kim let it slide. “Missing. Everything was going great, and then she got a phone call and went rushing out.”
“Any ideas where she went?”
“She mentioned Monique before she left,” Kim said. “She should be closing Club Banana at this hour. Let's go there first.”
“Of course, Kim,” Sadie said. The car started moving without Ron needing to touch the pedals or the wheel. “Searching for Shego,” the car continued. “This brings back memory files.”
“Huh?” Ron asked.
But Kim nodded. “The night Shego flew Sappho to Drakken's hideout, I didn't know where she'd gone. Sadie drove me all over Middleton so I could look for her.”
“Why did she go anyway?” Ron slapped his face. “Sorry, no pun intended.”
“Well, um, because… that was the night she first kissed me,” she said awkwardly. “I didn't respond too well, and she took off.”
Ron's silence spoke volumes, and Kim shook her head.
“Did you try calling Monique?” Ron finally asked.
“Phone's off.”
“I didn't realize she ever turned her phone off.”
“Neither did I,” Kim said, “which makes me more worried than ever.
Monique groaned as she crawled onto her hands and knees. She spat blood onto the floor and rubbed her chin. “Bitch,” she growled. “Could have ruined this girl's perfect smile.”
She rubbed her eyes in an attempt to clear her vision, which was hazy. She failed, however, and realized it had nothing to do with her eyes.
The room was on fire.
“Oh, crap,” she whispered.
Scrambling to her feet, she swayed and almost pitched over into some flames. Evidently she was still dazed from the shot she'd taken to the head. Collecting herself, Monique stumbled toward where the fire extinguisher was kept.
And it was missing.
“Correction - oh, shit,” she said.
There were only two doors out of the room - the back door, and the one leading to the sales area. She headed for the back door first, but her impending sense of doom grew when she saw that the opening mechanism had been damaged somehow, preventing her from opening it. And it was too heavy to force open.
Coughing, Monique reeled as she spun around and headed back toward the door leading further into the store. She could only hope the entire building wasn't on fire.
She managed to find her way through the smoke to the other door, but the knob was busted. “That clone's paying for this,” she muttered as she took two steps back, then kicked forward as powerfully as she could. The door shook on its hinges but held.
There was a dent in the door that was noticeable even through the smoke three kicks later, but she hadn't opened it yet, and the smoke she was inhaling was starting to interfere with her ability to breathe, much less bash the door in. Monique held one hand over her mouth as she rubbed at her eyes, which were stinging with tears. She'd never needed help on the pitch-black streets of Middleton as Oryx, but she needed it now. She tried to draw breath to scream, but the smoke made her choke, and she fell heavily to her knees.
“Kim,” she whispered. “Ron. Help - me…”
“Store looks dead,” Ron said as they screeched to a halt in front of Club Banana.
“I hope not,” Kim replied. “Sadie, could you run a scan of the building interior, see if anyone's inside?”
“I can run a thermal scan,” Sadie replied. There was a pause. “No thermal signatures detected. However, there is an unusual concentration of heat in the rear of the store.”
“Not to mention the smoke coming out of the roof,” Ron realized, stunned.
“Fire!” Kim shouted. “Call 911!” She flew out of the car and ran for the doors. They opened easily, and she ran toward the back of the store. “Monique!!! SHEGO!!!”
The thick smoke coming through the crack underneath the employees’ only door showed her where to go. She ran at the door at full-speed and hit it with a flying double kick, smashing it open. She reared back, greeted with intense heat and flames - and the sight of a young, dark-skinned woman on the floor.
“Monique!” Kim gasped, horrified. She beat back the flames with a nearby dress and ran inside. Grabbing Monique by the wrists, she pulled the unconscious woman out. Once they were clear of the fire, Kim managed to pick Monique up and carry her outside.
“Oh man, oh man,” Ron whispered as he saw Monique's unresponsive face when Kim emerged. “Is she-”
“Haven't had time to check for a pulse,” Kim grunted. “Sadie, open the back.”
The all-terrain vehicle opened its rear, and Kim lay Monique down on her back. She put her fingers to Monique's neck. “She's still alive,” she said, slightly relieved. “But we need to get her to the hospital right now.”
“Firemen on their way,” Ron told her.
“Good. There's nothing left for us here. Ron, go with Sadie. I'll be there as soon as I can.”
“What?!”
“Shego could still be inside,” Kim said quietly. She didn't bother to say anything more. Instead she raced back inside.
Ron looked amazed.
“Ron?”
“You heard what she said, Sadie. Monique needs treatment. Let's hurry.”
“Let me get this straight,” Shego said dubiously. “You - uh, what do I call you? I can't exactly call you Shego. That's a little too high on the confusion scale.”
“In my world, I was known as the Supreme One,” she replied.
Shego frowned. “Works well on me, but you're nuts if you think I'll call you that. Anyway, you're saying that six years ago, Drakken, Duff Killagan, and Monkey Fist united in order to steal the ‘Tempus Simia', which could send someone to any time and place ever. But they got sidetracked by one of Dr. Dr's stupid plans, and Kim Possible ended up beating them - again. Only you kept the Time Monkey for yourself, because your future self told you to.”
“Exactly,” the Supreme One said.
“Still not sure how you could tell yourself to get the Time Monkey when you didn't have it in the past yet,” Shego noted.
“Because,” the Supreme One sighed, “I got the Monkey in the past. Years and years later, after I'd used the powers of the Monkey to make myself ruler of Earth, I then used the Monkey to travel back and tell my younger self the same thing that I was told by my older self.”
“Headache,” Shego grumbled, grabbing her forehead. “And so you could travel through time. How did that lead to world domination?”
“Come on, Shego, think about it! Knowledge of the future? Do you realize how much money there was to be made in it? I knew exactly when to buy all the hot tech stocks when they were cheap, and when to sell at their peak before the dot-com bubble burst! I knew which politicians’ palms to grease, where the next big mineral strikes were, even who was going to win the Super Bowl! By the time ol’ Monty got the idea of stealing the Time Monkey - I don't like to brag, by the way-”
“Since when?” Shego asked.
The Supreme One grinned naughtily. “All right, so I like to brag and lie. Anyway, the bright idea to work together and steal the Monkey? Mine,” she said smugly.
“You set the whole thing in motion,” Shego realized. “Started the ball rolling. It's like writing your own life story, except you wrote it backwards.”
“And that's the closest you've come to it,” the Supreme One agreed. “Anyway, by the time the Three Stooges were making their historically stupid alliance, I was already the richest woman on Earth. I funneled a lot of it into research and development, evil focus groups, that sort of thing. These are just one of the things my money made possible,” she said, showing the gloves off. “Mind-control collars - that was a big step.”
Shego shuddered. “After what Drakken did to me - you - us with his mind control chip twice, I'm surprised you could even look at them.”
The Supreme One raised an eyebrow. “Twice?”
“Well, yeah, you remember. The first time when he made me wear that frilly apron, and the second time in Mexico, after he broke out of prison.” Shego stared at the Supreme One. “You don't know what I'm talking about, do you?”
“I remember the apron,” the Supreme One muttered. “And believe me, I enjoyed putting the collar around HIS neck. But he chipped you again? When did this happen?”
“A couple months ago.”
“Ah,” the Supreme One said, as if this made it obvious.
“Ah what? If you're my future, how come you didn't know that?!”
The Supreme One scowled. “Because the world I created for you doesn't exist any more. And it's all the fault of-”
“Don't tell me, let me guess,” Shego said sarcastically. “Kim Possible.”
“No, although she was involved. No, it's all because of Ron Stoppable,” the Supreme One snarled.
This had been a night for surprises, but the last remark just blew Shego away. “I'm sorry, what? Stoppable? You had the world in the palm of your hand, and you lost it because of Ron Stoppable?! What kind of loser am I supposed to BECOME in my old age?”
“Shove it, all right?” the Supreme One retorted. “They both followed me to the future, and just when I was about to win, Stoppable found out what I did to him.”
“Which was what?”
“The reason those clowns were able to steal the Time Monkey was because I broke up Team Possible,” the Supreme One explained. “I used my ownership of a bank to have Stoppable's mother transferred to Scandinavia. He had to follow, and Kim couldn't beat them on her own. Can't explain it, but they do seem to work together better. Anyway, when he found out, he suddenly went all kung fu on us, and next thing I knew… “
Shego was flabbergasted. It appeared Ron wasn't completely useless after all, and she'd heard it from her own lips. “Next thing you knew what?” she asked, her mouth dry.
The Supreme One shrugged. “Kim pushed me out a window. I fell. I should have died, I guess, but the Time Monkey was shattered, and - I'm no expert on temporal mechanics, but I guess when the Monkey was destroyed, it changed the past, and the ripple effect must have affected me just as I was about to hit the ground. So instead of not existing like the rest of it, I was ripped out of time and left here.”
“Kim killed you?”
“Well, she tried.” The Supreme One chuckled. “Guess she's not so sweet and innocent, after all.”
“And what, now you want to return the favor?” Shego asked. “Kill them both?”
“Something like that. Actually I added a third person to my hit list, but she's dead by now.”
Shego stared at her. “Who?”
“A girl named Monique. In the future she became one of the rebels who were a constant thorn in my side. It was payback time when we met tonight,” the Supreme One told her. “She's dead now, either by burning or smoke inhalation.”
“You did what?!” Shego shrieked. “Your future doesn't even exist any more! She won't even become the person you fought with!”
“Maybe, but she fought well tonight. Probably idolizes her friend Kimmie, wants to be like her some day. I just removed that possibility.” The Supreme One folded her arms. “How the hell did she get your phone number, anyway? Just what the hell have YOU been doing the past few years?”
Shego didn't even hear her. Damn her for being weak, but she'd respected Monique. She would have been a great warrior some day, with Shego's training. And Kim - she'd be devastated when her friend turned up dead. Making Kim sad was NOT the way to get into Shego's good graces.
She felt herself grabbed roughly by the shoulders. “I said what have you been doing with yourself?!” the Supreme One demanded. “Have you gone soft?!”
“No!” Shego snapped, pulling away. “While you were off playing the big shot, I was a captive for four years of a group of sickos called the Acceptable Family.”
“The Acceptables, huh?”
“You know them?”
“Not any more, but yeah, I did. They tried to take me on when I kicked my plans into full gear. But they were easy pickings,” the Supreme One sneered.
“Sorry. I didn't have a billion dollars’ worth of technology at my disposal,” Shego muttered.
“Are you kidding? The gloves alone cost over a hundred million to develop!”
“A hundred million? Dollars?”
“No, pesos. Of course, dollars! Still,” she acknowledged, “five on one isn't good odds, and they WERE tough. How'd you get away?”
“I escaped,” Shego said, “after they thought I was no longer a threat.”
“Why would anyone ever think you're not a threat?”
“They took my gloves, that's why.”
The Supreme One exploded. “They WHAT?! Those were one-of-a-kind! How the hell did they get them?! You and I both know they're equipped with a locking mechanism, and only you and I know how to unlock them. Without that knowledge, they can't be removed. Which is why you could never be held prisoner for long - the guards couldn't figure out how to deactivate the gloves. What were you thinking?!”
“I was thinking,” Shego shot back, “that when they said they'd chop my hands OFF and figure the mechanism out themselves, they were pretty fucking serious!”
“… All right, I see your point. So how does Monique fit in?”
Considering her lunatic older self wanted Kim dead, Shego figured telling the Supreme One that she was dating Kim would not be wise.
“I've been lying low,” Shego lied smoothly. “Without my gloves, I'm not as powerful as I used to be. I tried going back to Drakken, but he just tried to take control of my mind again, and I kicked his ass. So now I'm pretending to go straight so I can spy on Kim Possible and figure out how to destroy her. Befriending Monique was part of that. It's really messing with Kimmie's head.”
“Behind the scenes chaos. I like it. Hell, I practiced it for years,” the Supreme One said approvingly. “Well, now there's two of us, not one. AND I have the gloves, even if you don't. So how about we forget the psychological warfare, and move on to something more direct?”
“Like what?”
“Search. And destroy.”
Shego was afraid of that.
To be continued…