“Hey, chow’s here!” Slim called through out the house.
The announcement was actually code to alert everyone that Nana Possible was back and they should come and greet her. Trin stood in her room doorway as she watched Shego being tugged by Kim to go meet Nana. Trin thought that she was off the hook and she was even about to make fun of Shego, when the green-skinned witch suddenly grabbed her.
“You wicked bitch,” Trin grumbled as she tried to break the former thief’s grip.
“You know I don’t believe in suffering alone, especially when someone I hate is so close by,” Shego remarked while making sure to have a good grasp on the farsighted young lady.
“I will get you back for this,” the blonde promised as she was dragged to go greet Nana Possible.
Shego only scoffed. She actually had no idea what she might be pulling Trin into. She did not think anything of it because it was Trin’s family. How bad could it actually be for the blonde?
Everyone went out to the front of the house. Trin stood behind everyone with her mother, making sure to look as insulted as possible to have to be present. The matriarch of the Possible family entered the house with her daughter and son-in-law. Trin scowled at the sight; more thorns in her and her mother’s sides had arrived.
Shego remembered Nana Possible from when Drakken had the loopy plan of using senior citizens to take over the world after he mucked up his original plan; that should have given her a clue that it was getting close to the time where she needed to get away from him. The elderly woman luckily did not seem to recollect Shego and greeted her politely when Kim introduced them. Nana also made a comment that it was about time that little Kimberly Anne stopped gallivanting around the world with some boy since it was so unladylike. Shego checked her watch; she needed to know what century they were in. She also noted that Nana Possible did not so much as look at Trin.
Kim then introduced Shego to her cousin Larry’s parents; her aunt Liz and uncle Rocky. Her Aunt Liz, Eliza Possible-Rhodes, was a slightly tall woman with hazel brown eyes and short chocolate hair that was wavy and fell just to her shoulders. She had a slender figure and was wearing a powder blue sundress. Her husband was a muscular fellow of average height with ebony hair that was in a crew cut. He was dressed in a white tee-shirt and tan shorts to show off his muscles. He had pure onyx eyes, which were as hard as stones.
Eliza and Rocky were both astrophysicists. Although they lived in Middleton, they worked outside of town at a large university. Rocky was also an astronaut in his spare time, having been to the International Space station on a number of occasions. Their resume did not impress Trin and it would not have impressed Shego if they got into it.
“Hey, my favorite little troublemakers,” Rocky said to Jim and Tim and they all exchanged high-fives.
“Hey, Uncle Rocky. You’ve gotta meet Tatsu,” Jim declared.
“She builds rockets,” Tim added to let their uncle know why he needed to meet Tatsu.
“Tatsu?” Rocky echoed in a puzzled tone.
The twins’ swiftly grabbed Tatsu, who tried to resist the pair; she hated meeting people, especially through force like the boys were trying to use. She was going to grab for her lover, but she was not sure if it was an appropriate thing to do. She did look at the blonde as if pleading with her to intervene and Trin did what she could for her irked baby. She could not very well prevent Tatsu from meeting people since they were all going to be in the same house, but she would get her brothers to stop tugging on her baby like that.
“Guys, you shouldn’t pull someone like that,” Trin admonished her brothers, even though they always pulled on Tatsu when they wanted her to do something. It was just how they were because Tatsu was so cool in their opinions and they tended to get overexcited.
“Why not?” the pair asked in confusion as the blonde gently pried her brothers away from her girlfriend.
“Because it’s rude,” the eldest sister stated.
“Shrew,” the twins huffed while crossing their arms over their chests to show that they were equally annoyed.
“I do know where you sleep,” the blonde reminded her brothers and the boys gulped. That was one threat that always got to them because they would never forget the time that they pulled a prank on Trin and then they woke up glued to their ceiling. She had told them with a triumphant smirk on her face, never mess with a chemist. Boy, she had gotten to some trouble on that one, but it did stick to her brothers’ minds.
“Same old Trin,” Rocky muttered while shaking his head in a disapproving manner.
Trin rolled her eyes. “Mister Rhodes, this is my friend, Tatsu,” the blonde introduced her girlfriend to her uncle.
Tatsu decided that she was not impressed with the man because of the formal way that Trin had spoken to him. She did not think that anyone should address their uncle as “mister” unless something was seriously messed up. Actually, Trin had already told her that out of her extended family, only her uncle Slim accepted her and liked her. The others seemed to believe that she was evil incarnate, or at the very least partners in crime with evil incarnate considering what they had to think of Shin. She had never really done anything particularly bad around them, but she guessed that they got their perceptions of her from Nana Possible.
“So, you build rockets?” Rocky asked Tatsu. He acted like Trin was not even there anymore, which the blue-eyed young woman noticed and did not appreciate.
“No,” the mechanic responded plainly. It was blunt, but it was also the truth. She did not build rockets; she merely took apart and pieced together whatever the twins put together when she was bored and waiting for Trin. She really had no interest in rockets unless they were on cars.
“Well then, what are the spuds talking about?” Rocky inquired.
“She does build rockets!” the twins insisted. They had seen her do it, so they did not know what she was trying to act like she did not.
“Oh, so, she’s playing modest,” Rocky commented as if he knew her to know how she was and why she would do something.
Rocky and the twins started up a conversation on rockets, which began a conversation on aero-science. It was there that Shego found out that the whole Possible family, excluding two people, were into the mechanics, math, or physical makeup of outer space. Trin and Anne were the exception and they were also the only pair not into physics enough to have a casual conversation about the subject; although it did not look like half of the family was making the effort to include them. There was more to the Possible family than met the eye, the ex-thief considered.
“And you voluntarily joined this clan, huh?” Shego remarked, speaking to Trin. Yes, the green-skinned female knew the story behind Trin; it was almost impossible to be miss the story in Middleton, especially if Trin was in town. People actually talked about it like it was real news or really interesting. She did not think that it was either considering how old it was.
Shego also noted that around Middleton, they told Trin’s story as if it was amusing. Now, Shego was not a soft person or emotional, but even she failed to see what was so funny about a child being abandoned in a mall by her birth parents. She could not see how people would find such a thing funny.
“Like you haven’t,” Trin replied about voluntarily joining the Possible clan.
Shego rolled her emerald eyes. She had not joined the family. She was only dating a member of the family. It was not the same thing, in her opinion anyway. And she would rather not join a family that thought physics was so great that they should sit down and converse about it at length.
“How long will this crap go on?” the moss-hued woman inquired, referring to the scientific discussion that was starting to give her a headache. If she wanted to hear meaningless, scientific ranting, she would have stayed working with Drakken.
“I’ll spar with you to take up some time. Come on,” Trin offered as she walked off. Shego followed behind the blonde; sparring sounded like a lot of fun right now. Tatsu followed because the conversation held no value to her and most of it was giving her a headache too.
Anne did not stick around either. She had things to do for the week that she was going to be trapped in the ranch. Yes, she looked at it as being trapped there. Her predicament was something similar to how a ghost was trapped in a house; on occasion, a person seemed to notice that she was there and even if no one paid her any mind, she still could not leave.
The Possible family tended to ignore Anne, which was fine by her. There was a time when they would not even do her that favor. If no one bothered her, then she would not bother anyone. Actually, now, even if someone bothered her, she pretended that the person was not there. It was easier to act like the person was not there than to get into a shouting match with four people.
The neurosurgeon went to retrieve her notebook computer and worked on an essay that she was writing for a medical journal. She stood out in the Possible family because of her MD. They were a treasure trove of PhD scientists and she was the one medical doctor among them.
Trin believed that the difference between her mother and the Possible family made most of the family treat her mother as if she was lower than the rest of them. She believed that the Possible family thought that their science credentials topped her mother’s medical expertise. The blonde liked to point out that there was more likely to be a medical emergency at a family gathering than a need to launch a homemade satellite in the air; therefore her mother was infinitely more valuable than everyone else, which she included herself there. She apparently thought the world of her mother and she truly hated that anyone would try to downplay what the redhead did.
Anne had learned long ago to not think too much of how the Possibles felt about her because nothing would change their minds as far as she could tell. After all, they had thought poorly of her since before she even met them; they had only knew of her and looked down on her. She only needed the affection of a few Possibles; her husband, daughters, and sons were it. Everyone else was just there to her, except for Slim since he could tolerate her. It was pointless to acknowledge most of them anymore since she had put up with them for so many years.
“So, Trin, what’s the big deal with this family? It’s easy as hell to hate you, so I can see why they would, but why your mom?” Shego inquired while going at the blonde with a series of kicks that Trin was finessing her way around.
They were at the side of the house; Tatsu was sitting off to the side. She had called winner if they had the time. She doubted that they would have time with the way the pair always fought each other.
“Why are you so nosy?” Trin countered, if only to be annoying.
Shego frowned and hit Trin with a plasma-charged fist. Trin laughed as the blow landed and a trail of blood trickled down out of her mouth. She liked how the former villainess worked, annoyance was met with violence. It was charming to her; she did not understand why her little sister was attracted to the quality, though. Could it be that Kim was more like her than she liked to think? It was possible, she supposed.
“Going to spill now, Possible?” Shego inquired with an arrogant smirk.
“You keep hitting me like that and you’re going to make my baby jealous,” Trin remarked.
“It’s not my fault Tatsu can’t fight,” Shego countered and she had to duck a rock, a big rock. “Damn it, Tatsu! What’s with you and throwing crap? It’s like you’re eight years old,” the super-powered female huffed. It did not help matters that Tatsu had good aim and if she had not had such keen senses, that rock would have crashed her right in the forehead.
Tatsu waved Shego off, dismissing her totally. The former thief turned her attention back to the fight. Out of the blue, Trin explained her understanding in regards to what was up with the Possible family and the resentment toward her mother. It was more than Jen, but all of the women and Mister Rhodes. They were just PhD snobs according to Trin and took their careers in space much too seriously, looking down on anyone who did not work in or have an interest in their field. To Shego, it did help explain why the family disliked both Trin and Anne, although Slim and “Squirt” did not seem to be of like minds with the rest of their family.
Trin could not really explain why her father and uncle were different from the rest. Maybe her father just liked the fact that a gorgeous woman had been interested in him and he could care less what career she was headed toward. She bet that many men would think the same thing if her mother showed some interest in them.
There was also the fact that her uncle and father seemed a bit more open to new things, Slim especially. Sure, her father had thing with circus and show folks, but what were the odds of him coming into contact with them often? They were an affable pair of brothers.
Really, the whole family seemed affable. Seeing the Possible family interact with other people, it was hard to get the idea that they were snobbish in any way, but when it came to Anne and Trin, civility was always thrown right out of the window. Well for them, and when the family decided that someone was not worthy of their great intellect. She had seen them often snub people that they believed to be stupid.
The blonde supposed that she could understand ignoring fools because who wanted to deal with stupid people? Shego was of similar thinking, but Anne was not stupid, so she did not see why the Possible family would look down on her. It was just clear that the Possible family did not like the neurosurgeon because of the looks that they were giving her, the fact that they seemed to be outright ignoring her, and purposely excluding her from things.
Slim and James were different from the rest of their family, though. Trin was not sure why her father and his brother were different. She had never heard the story of how her parents met, so she did not know what made her father fall for her mother and overlook the fact that she was going to be a medical doctor; aside for the notion that she was drop dead gorgeous of course. As far as her uncle went, she just chalked it up to the fact that the man was cool. He was just very understanding and it seemed that he believed that there was no reason for him to look down on anyone. He was just cool.
“So, the perfect family isn’t so perfect,” Shego laughed.
“Could you not be so smug about it? This is Kim’s family, after all,” Trin pointed out.
“One day you’ll join it too,” Tatsu pointed out, speaking to Shego.
The emerald-eyed female scoffed. “To hell with that. There’s no place in this family for me, especially when they let this one in,” she remarked while nodding toward her opponent.
Trin was going to say that they barely let her in, but she decided against that. She was a member of the Possible family whether they liked it or not. She would always be a Possible, no matter how much the extended family tried to push her out.
“You wouldn’t like to marry Kim someday?” Tatsu asked Shego in a slightly confused tone since the pale woman claimed that there was no place for her in the Possible family.
“Tatsu, could you stop being annoying? Don’t put me on the spot like that. What the hell is with you talking suddenly?” Shego countered and the mechanic only smiled a little; evidently, she was just having some fun and purposely being irksome. The moss-hued woman decided to turn the tables on Tatsu because she could also be bothersome and she got a kick out of it too. “What about you? You’re going to marry Trin?” she asked the blue-eyed female.
The mechanic looked away and pretended not to hear the question. She tried her best to maintain her composure to avoid blushing; she was such a girl when it came to her sweetheart, Shego thought about Tatsu. It was a bit amusing to pick on the mechanic about her relationship with Trin because Tatsu was much like a schoolgirl in love.
At the moment, Tatsu was stuck in that weird mood where she was like a schoolgirl because she was trying to imagine herself marrying Trin and also trying her best to not blush while thinking it. Her marry Trin? Wow, that would be quite a thing, she thought while smiling to herself. She was not sure if they had been going out long enough for her to consider such a thing, which she supposed might be true of Shego too.
After all, Shego had been only dating Kim a fraction of the time that Tatsu had been dating Trin. But, there was also the fact that Shego had known Kim twice as long as she had known Trin. Maybe she was just thinking too hard on the matter, the mechanic conceded. She decided to stop thinking about it and just wait for her chance to fight.
Shego began to wonder about Kim now that the other couple had brought her up. She thought about how Kim had remained with the family to talk science. She wondered if she would have to put up with snobbery, even from Kim. So far, she had not seen any hints of such a thing, but the fact that Kim remained with that crew instead of following them struck her as odd. Did Kim like science more than martial arts? Did they have less in common than she had first thought?
“I’ve got winner,” Kim declared as she wandered out to the battle grounds.
“I’ve got winner,” Tatsu informed the redhead.
“Then I’ve got you,” Kim replied with a playful smile as she nearly kicked Tatsu, but the mechanic flipped out of the way just in time. Shego guessed that she had been worrying too much from the way that Kim was smiling while going after Tatsu. The ex-sidekick did breathe a sigh of relief, though.
Next time: Dinner time and also a bit of the Spanish Inquisition.