The Beast Within


Chapter 9


In the dark

by
StarvingLunatic


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TITLE: In the dark

AUTHOR: StarvingLunatic

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own these characters.

SUMMARY: AU. Middleton is a town where everyone has special powers. Well, not everyone. Kim is the only normal one. How does she cope?

TYPE: Unknown

RATING: US: R / DE: 16

Words: 3559


Kim carried an unconscious Shego away from Go City as quickly as her legs would allow. Now that she had Shego in her custody, her anger and hatred was rapidly easing out of her system, like melting snow on a warm day. The black dragon-shaped aura that had shielded her in the WEE headquarters seemed to be evaporating as she moved on. The red lines in her eyes vanished swiftly while her eyes went back to being more green than gold and her pupils went back to be circles rather than slits. Her hands went back to normal too and she stopped breathing out black smoke.

Kim did not realize any of that; hey, she had not even noticed when all the changes had occurred back at WEE headquarters. Any and everything about her seemed trivial to her mind right now. All she knew was that she had to get Shego some medical attention immediately and she had to get Shego away from the crazy city, away from her crazy boss. It did not cross her mind that she was taking Shego into what was enemy territory for the pale woman. It did not cross her mind that she was going to have to explain just what was going on. She just had to get Shego some help and that was the only thing that she thought about for the whole trip.

By the time that she got to Middleton, the sun had gone down. She marched to her house, too worn out to sneak about the town to hide where she had been. She could not figure out why she was tired. All of the events of the day were starting to turn into a blur. She entered the house through the front door.

“Kimmie,” her parents called.

“Yeah,” she answered and her parents came to greet her. They were in for a bit of a surprise when they saw that their daughter was not alone.

“Kim, who’s that?” her mother inquired as they noticed Shego.

“Shego and she needs help, Mom. Real bad and real quick,” the teen answered.

“You should take her to the hospital,” her mother stated. From what she could see, her daughter’s friend needed more than one doctor working on her.

“I can’t. She works for WEE, but she’s not a bad guy. Just help her, please,” Kim begged.

“All right, all right,” the older redhead agreed while wondering what her daughter was doing with a WEE agent, but she could see that Kim was distraught, so she did not even bother with getting details at the moment.

Kim handed Shego over to her father since she knew that her mother would not be able to hold the dead weight of the pale woman. Her parents walked off into the back of the house where her mother had a small office for such emergencies. Kim sighed in relief and then passed out at the door.


Shego groaned as she regained consciousness to find herself being stitched up by a woman that she had never seen before. She was about panic until she realized that she was not bolted down to a table anymore. And then she looked at the woman working on her and noticed that she bore a striking resemblance to Kim.

“Excuse me,” Shego said to let the woman know that she was awake.

“Oh, you’re up,” Mrs. Possible commented. She did not take her eyes off of her work. She did not want to do a poor job, after all. Being a top-notch surgeon meant that she always took pride in her work and always did the best that she could.

“Yeah. So, where the hell am I?” the raven-haired female and then added as an afterthought, “And I hope to hell you’re a doctor.”

“I am and Kim brought you home,” the surgeon explained, still focusing more on her work than on the conversation. She also decided to ignore the harsh language because she was used to it considering the fact that she lived in a town were a good deal of the population were soldiers.

“Kim…” Shego’s brow furrowed as she said the name and Mrs. Possible noticed her expression.

“Something wrong?” the surgeon asked.

Shego was not sure just yet. It was all a blur and what was coming to mind seemed unreal. She recalled Kim bursting into the room that she had been bound in, but it did not look like Kim. The person did not act like Kim and, most of all, the person did things that Kim could not do. But, she was so sure that it was Kim. Kim had rescued her?

“Where’s Kimmie?” the pale woman asked in a dazed tone. If she could talk with the teen, maybe she could figure out what happened.

“I believe she’s in her bed. My husband found her passed out after we secured you—” Mrs. Possible attempted to explain, but she was cut off before she could finish her sentence.

“Is she all right?” Shego asked anxiously.

“She’s fine. She’s a bit shaken. She can’t really remember what happened, but she’s worn out. What did happen?” Mrs. Possible inquired curiously.

“Can I see her?” Shego requested, as if she did not hear the neurosurgeon’s question.

“When I’m done with your sutures and when you tell me what happened. I get the feeling that it’s something interesting if nothing else. After all, Kimmie’s already informed us that you’re a WEE agent and unless you’d like me to call the police, I’d suggest you start talking,” Mrs. Possible answered.

Shego took a deep breath and stared around the room, as if she was confused, which she was. Her mind was all over the place thanks to days of unending torment and the fact that Kim had actually come to rescue her. She had not thought that the redhead would come, especially after the way that she left things, but it would seem that she had underestimated the little angel. It was all so much to take in and her mind tried to focus on everything in a logical manner, but it did not seem plausible to do.

“Shego,” Mrs. Possible said, trying to get the green-skinned woman to focus. She could see that the WEE agent was bewildered, maybe even traumatized.

“Huh?” Shego said, turning back to the doctor.

“Okay, let’s take this slow. What’s your connection to my daughter?”

“Um…we used to fight each other in the woods,” the pale woman answered honestly. Her brain was too rattled for her to do anything else. Part of her worried that she was having a dream or a hallucination brought on by too much torture, which she thought might still be going on if she was having a dream. Maybe she had passed out, she considered since it would not have been the first time that she had done such a thing since her torture had began.

“You fight in the woods?” Mrs. Possible asked.

“Once a week or so, we meet up and fight for the day. Kim brings lunch,” Shego replied. She still looked rather bemused, which explained why she added in that Kim brought lunch when they met up, even though that information was irrelevant.

“All right, so you’re friends?” Mrs. Possible guessed.

Shego squinted and looked away, as if she was trying to remember if they were friends. Mrs. Possible encouraged Shego to look back at her to keep the pale woman focused. The doctor wondered why Shego looked so bewildered. What had the green-skinned woman been through and did it have something to do with Kim?

“I told her we’re not anything. Why did she come save me? I mean, I told her we didn’t mean anything to each other. She’s just a kid I want to beat up, but can’t. So, why do I feel so weird about her all the time? Are we friends? Do I like her? I don’t like anybody. I don’t like anyone,” Shego said, obviously veering off topic and unaware that she was doing so.

“Okay, Shego. It’s okay. What did Kim save you from?” the doctor inquired in a soothing tone, trying to help the pale female focus and understand that everything was all right now.

“Why did she save me? Doesn’t she know I’m the one that put her in danger? They followed me to her. They followed me.”

“Who followed you?” the surgeon asked. She figured that they were getting somewhere, even though Shego did not seem to realize it.

“I…he knew. I don’t know how, but he knew. He knew what we did and he wanted her. I don’t know why, but I wouldn’t tell him about her. I just couldn’t tell him about her, even though I knew what he was going to do. I didn’t want him to hurt her or anything. She’s such a goody-goody. A little angel. A princess. And I didn’t want him to even try to corrupt her. I didn’t want him to hurt her,” the emerald-eyed mercenary rambled and her eyes went back to wandering.

“It’s okay, Shego. Kim’s all right. She didn’t get hurt. But, what about you? What happened to you?” the doctor asked. She could guess what happened to the pale woman, though. She had examined GJ agents that had undergone torture.

“I wouldn’t…I wouldn’t tell…and I got taken by surprise. My plasma wouldn’t work, but I still…I still wouldn’t say anything. Why wouldn’t I say anything? I don’t even like the kid. I don’t care about her. I don’t care about her. I knew what was going to happen, but I didn’t say anything. Even when I did say something, I was sorry I did it. I even hoped the stupid kid would stay away. Why didn’t that dumb kid just stay away?” Shego begged to know.

“Obviously, she cares about you. How did Kim save you?” Mrs. Possible asked. She did not even acknowledge that Shego had just called her child “stupid” and “dumb.” The raven-haired woman was much too disorientated for the doctor to take any offense to what she said.

Shego rubbed her forehead, as if that would help her recollect. “It was her, but it didn’t look like her. Her eyes were weird and she did weird things.”

“Her eyes were weird? Were they golden?” Mrs. Possible inquired, even though she wanted to demand the information. She wished that Shego was more coherent now because it seemed like she had a lot to tell.

“They were cold. Really cold. Like a cat. She called me…I wanted to reply, but I didn’t know if it was her. It didn’t look like her, but it did. I mean, I knew it was Kimmie, but I wasn’t sure,” Shego said in a frantic tone to Mrs. Possible.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. I know sometimes Kimmie can be scary and she doesn’t look like herself sometimes. It’s all right. You’re all right and Kimmie’s all right.”

“Why did she look like that?” Shego pled to know.

“I’ll explain it later,” Mrs. Possible said. She was actually hoping that Shego would forget about it once her mind pieced itself back together. “How about you get some rest?” the doctor suggested.

“Can I see Kim?” Shego requested again.

“All right, just let me finish these stitches.”

Shego did not argue that and quietly sat as the suture was finished. She then followed Mrs. Possible upstairs to where Kim. The teenage redhead was sleeping in her bed. Seeing her seemed to be enough for Shego, especially since the girl appeared normal. The pale woman breathed a sigh of relief.

“See, Kim’s totally fine,” Mrs. Possible said.

“She took on the whole WEE main building more than likely to come get me. She actually rescued me. Why?” Shego wondered out loud.

“You can ask her when she wakes up.”

“You mean…you’re not going to call the cops?”

“Kim asked us not to when she first woke up. Besides, you wouldn’t make it far if you left the house to run away. You’re in just about the worse shape I’ve seen a person in,” Mrs. Possible commented.

“You’d be surprised at what I can do,” Shego remarked.

“I’ll show you to the guestroom.”

“Guestroom?”

“It’s either that or a hospital bed.”

Shego was set to argue, but Mrs. Possible was not set to hear any of that. She showed Shego to the guestroom, where a change of clothes were waiting for the pale woman and everything. Mrs. Possible left Shego in the room, which the green-skinned woman thought was foolish of the doctor. Shego figured that she would make her escape now that she was alone.

As she went to the window though, she began to realize how badly she was injured. And then she wondered where she was going to go even if she could get away. GJ would be hunting for her if she ran off now that she was in their territory and then WEE would be looking for her because of the escape. She seemed to wait too long to make a decision and had to sit down, her body demanded it.

She was not sure how long she sat there, but Mrs. Possible came back. She had a tray with food on it and she sat that down for Shego. She then turned her attention to the pale woman.

“How are you doing?” the redhead asked while noting that Shego had not touched the clothes left for her.

“I’m tired. Did Kimmie walk up yet?” Shego inquired.

“She’s in bed, just like you should be. She’s exhausted too.”

“I guess breaking up a huge office building can do that to a girl. Speaking of breaking stuff, when she broke into the room, she looked weird,” Shego said. She had forgotten that she had gone through that already, but she knew that she wanted an explanation for why Kim seemed so strange to her.

“Really?” Mrs. Possible tried to play it off. She hoped that Shego was not talking about what she had been talking about earlier. She was hoping that the pale woman had forgotten all about that.

“Her eyes had changed. They weren’t the same. She also had some serious strength and even threw some weird black flames. Now, I remember Kim telling me that she didn’t have powers and she never used any when we fought, even when I turned up the plasma on her. So, what’s going on?” Shego inquired.

“What do you mean?”

“No, no, no. Don’t play with me. Kim went seriously freaky in there and something is up,” the pale woman said.

“Look, I won’t talk about it with you and don’t mention it to Kim.”

“Don’t mention it to Kim? Why not?” Shego inquired.

“If you care about Kim at all, you won’t bring it up. She doesn’t remember what happened at all from the time that she went into the building and then all she knows is that she woke up in her bed. She doesn’t need that kind of stress,” Mrs. Possible replied.

“What makes you think I give a damn about Kim?” Shego commented and the redheaded woman laughed a little bit.

“I guess you’re fine mentally. I just wouldn’t recommend you pulling this ‘you don’t give a damn about Kim’ line to me. You just went through all kinds of physical harm because you didn’t want anything to happen to Kim. Don’t bring up what happened, even if she asks you.”

Shego was confused and it showed on her face. “Why not?”

“I’m not at liberty to tell you, but the powers that you saw, Kim isn’t aware she has them. They’re not even really hers from what we can tell. She’s not in control of herself when those powers manifest themselves,” Mrs. Possible explained.

“She looked pretty in control. She knew just what she wanted to do it seemed.”

“Did she talk to you?” the redhead inquired, trying to get Shego to understand that Kim might have seemed coherent, but was truly not in her right frame of mind.

“She called my name.”

“That was it?” Mrs. Possible asked.

“Yeah.”

“Shego, she might’ve been focused on a specific task that involved rescuing you, but that wasn’t her.”

“What are you saying? She’s got like a split personality or something?” the pale woman inquired.

“Let’s just say that she shares her body and on occasion she shares her mind with someone she doesn’t know about and she doesn’t need to know about. Please, don’t talk to her about it.”

“I don’t get what’s the big deal. She kicked ass,” Shego pointed out, thinking that it was something Kim’s mother should be proud of.

“That’s the problem. Shego, please, this won’t help Kim at all. So, don’t mention it,” the doctor requested again. She thought that as long as she made it clear that the information would hurt Kim more than it would help Kim then Shego would not mention what happened.

“Then what am I supposed to tell her if she wants to know what happened?”

“You can tell her just want happened without mentioning her eyes, the amazing strength, or the black fire. Do not tell her. Promise me that you won’t tell her.”

Shego squirmed a little bit. She was uncomfortable with the redheaded woman pleading with her and requesting that she promise not to tell Kim what happened. She did not want to harm Kim in any way and from the way that her mother was acting, she was fairly certain that the information would do Kim more harm than good.

“If you tell me what it is, I won’t tell her at all,” Shego promised.

“I’m not authorized to share that information.”

“You’re kidding right? She’s your daughter.”

“It’s top secret information,” Mrs. Possible said.

“Well, you might want to let me in on it or I’ll tell Kim just what happened,” Shego bluffed. She had no intention to do Kim any damage and Mrs. Possible was making her believe that it would harm Kim to talk about what happened in the WEE headquarters.

“Okay, fine. Kim has a dragon inside of her, all right. You saw the dragon manifesting itself. So, while Kim might have come for you, the dragon showed up more than likely for the mayhem and destruction.”

“But…she was calling me,” Shego said. “And she did rescue me. Surely, she was in some kind of control.”

“We’ll talk about it later. You don’t need this kind of stress. Eat, take a shower, it’s right across the hall, and get some sleep,” Mrs. Possible urged the younger woman.

Shego did not argue that. She was ravenous, having not eaten for days while being tortured. She turned her attention to the food that was brought to her and began eating. Mrs. Possible left her alone while hoping that Shego kept her promise. It had long ago been decided that Kim did not need to know that she was not the only one who could use her body.

Shego ate her dinner while thinking about what she had just learned. She was stunned to know that Kim had a dragon inside of her, but it made sense to her, even though she did not know what it meant for Kim to have a whole dragon inside of her. Dragon powers were the stuff of legends, but having a whole dragon was like a myth.

When she finished her food, she went to have a long, hot shower because she finally realized that she smelled horrible. She pretty much had to peel off the reminder of the clothing that she was wearing; her outfit had been all but shredded while she was locked in that room being tormented. She took a bath after the shower because she hoped that it would make her body feel less sore. She took a good long look at her body while she was in the bath and even when she got out of the tub. Her body was bruised and battered. It looked like the body of a weakling.

She was a victim, Shego realized, and that made her frown. She had been saved. It was like she could not handle herself. She had needed someone and Kim was that someone. Kim had rescued her, even after she had been rather callous toward the girl.

She tried not to think about those things and put on the loaned clothing. She went back to the guestroom and decided to get some rest, like the doctor suggested. She fell asleep, only to have a horrible nightmare. She woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat and looked around the room frantically. She sighed in relief when she saw that she was not in that basement cell in WEE headquarters. But, she could not go back to sleep.

Shego climbed out of bed after a while and exited the room. She went right to Kim’s room without thinking and then stopped when she got to the door. What was she doing? She was not sure, but she continued on. She crawled into Kim’s bed and felt at ease. She sighed and fell asleep.


Next time: Kim and Shego under the same roof…and in the same bed from the look of things.


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