The Beast Within


Chapter 15


The After-party

by
StarvingLunatic


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TITLE: The After-party

AUTHOR: StarvingLunatic

DISCLAIMER: I don’t own these characters. I don’t own the dragon eye either.

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: 3443


Shego and Ann were not sure if they were looking their death in the face…well, faces considering Kim and her dragon aura was staring at them. The pair was not sure what to expect from the teen and her aura. Kim began to squint, as if she was having trouble recognizing them, which they did not think was a good thing. Maybe the dragon was the one in control and not Kim.

“Kim, just wake up!” Ann pled.

“Yeah, come on, Princess! You’re stronger than this! You’re going to let some big lizard take control over your body?” Shego called.

“Take control? I am in control!” Kim declared. Who did they think was in control? She knew just what she was doing as far as she was concerned.

“No, you’re not! If you were in control, we’d be getting the hell out of here and not having this stupid ass conversation!” Shego pointed out.

“I am in control! If I wasn’t, then who would be?” Kim inquired.

“The big goddamn dragon around you, doy!”

“I am in control,” Kim insisted in a growl.

As if to prove her point, Kim turned her attention back to the plane in her claw. She crunched more of the metal, looking to capture the man that started everything. He was the cause of all the grief that they were going through. She was going to grab him out of his machine and kill him, teaching him a lesson about messing with her mother and friend.

“Kimmie, don’t be crazy!” Ann called.

“I’m not crazy! I’m going to avenge you both! I’ll teach this bastard to leave you alone,” Kim replied.

“By doing what? Killing him?” her mother inquired.

“Yes!” Kim practically roared as jet of furious black smoke came through her nose.

“Kim, you know you don’t want to do that,” Ann stated.

“I do!” the teen replied and she grabbed the plane tighter. She was going to tear Gemini’s head off.

“You don’t,” Ann said in a gentle tone.

“I do,” Kim insisted.

“Kimmie, you know you don’t. Don’t let that dragon dictate what you do. It’s your body and your mind,” the neurosurgeon said.

“And my decision,” Kim pointed out.

“Then make it count. Make it yours. This is the dragon’s decision. It wants blood. You don’t. You’re a kind, forgiving person, not a killer,” Ann countered.

“Yeah, Princess, you’re a little angel, not a demon. You know you’re better than this. Besides, what good would killing him do?” Shego inquired.

“He wouldn’t be able to hurt you again,” the teenager answered.

“If you just capture him, he still wouldn’t be able to hurt us,” Ann said.

“But…he could,” Kim argued.

“Kim, I know you think killing him is a good idea. I mean, hell, I want to kill him too, but we’re not like that. We’re not assholes like him. Let it go,” Shego said.

“But…”

“Let it go.”

Kim turned to look at Shego and then back at the plane. She then turned her attention to her mother and Shego. She noticed the look in their eyes. She let go of the plane without even realizing it. The dragon aura snorted in anger, but quickly faded away. Kim dropped to the floor.

“Princess, you okay?” Shego asked.

“Not yet,” Kim replied as she watched Gemini start the plan and actually fly through the roof since it had never been opened.

“Kim, just let him go,” Ann said.

“I can’t. He might hurt someone else,” Kim pointed out.

“Well, how are you going to stop him?” Shego inquired.

“Whatever was just going on with me, I’m going to do it again,” Kim replied.

“You’re going to call the dragon out again? You didn’t even know it existed until three seconds ago!” Shego stated.

“No, I knew it was there. You can sort of feel something like that inside of you,” Kim admitted. It was true. She did not know what it was, but she could just feel it. She had always sort of thought it was normal since she was normal.

“You knew?” Ann asked in a shocked tone.

“I wasn’t totally sure, but I could feel something was there. It is my body, after all. I just never bothered with it because I didn’t totally understand what it was. Sometimes, I thought it just might be normal since they always told me that I was normal. And then other times, I thought it might be dangerous and from the looks of things, I’m guessing it is,” Kim said while looking around.

She had always been tempted to mess with the feeling inside of her, but the fact that it might be bad in some way always held her back. Her parents and mentor never brought it up was another hint that it might have been a very wrong thing. Looking around, yeah, it seemed bad, but feeling it did not seem as bad.

“Yeah, so leave it packed in,” Shego ordered.

“I can’t just let him get away and I’ve got to take control of this thing anyway. I can’t just let it use me like this. I can’t let it use my anger or my hatred,” Kim argued.

“Kim, this isn’t something that you should fool around with,” Ann objected.

“I have to try,” the teen replied.

Kim took a deep breath and attempted to tap into the creature that she now knew was sharing her body. She had been aware of its presence, even though it spent most of her life asleep. She really could sense that there was something there, but she had not known just what it was exactly. She just needed to figure out how to bring it out when she wanted to and she needed to figure that out now.

Okay, she reminded herself what Gemini had done and what he would do if she let him get away. It made her irate to think about those things and her black aura started to return. Her eyes went back to being golden and Ann and Shego took a step back.

“That’s not a good thing, is it?” Shego asked Ann.

“No, that’s just the dragon looking to come back out,” the neurosurgeon replied.

“Kimmie, stop it!” Shego said and she grabbed Kim.

“No,” the teen answered.

“Stop, you’re just letting the thing back out. That’s not going to help. It’s not,” the pale woman insisted.

“I know what I’m doing!” Kim replied and she pushed away from Shego. Smoke began to escape Kim’s mouth with each breath she took.

“No, you don’t! Just let him go if you’re going to act this way,” Shego said and she grabbed Kim again. She pulled the smaller redhead into an embrace.

“I can’t,” Kim objected.

“I don’t want you to be this way,” Shego whispered.

“Shego…”

“Just let him go.”

“I can’t. I just can’t do it.” Kim pulled away from Shego. “But, I won’t add to this nightmare anymore than I have,” the redhead promised.

Kim made a fist and looked at it. All right, the dragon thought that it had free reign over her body just because she was pissed at that jackass getting away? She would show it. She was trained by the best there was. She was not about to let some giant salamander take her own and shame her in front of her mother and friend.

She would reign over her own body, Kim promised herself. It was hers and she was going to do the right thing. Not because she was angry or because she hated Gemini, but because she did not want anyone else to get hurt.

“Is that supposed to happen?” Shego asked as Kim’s aura started turning red.

“I’ve never seen that before,” Ann answered.

“Does it mean something?”

“I have no idea,” the doctor admitted.

Kim’s eyes went back to being yellow, but with slit-like pupils instead of completely golden. The aura around her did grow red and the wings reemerged from her back, also a shade of scarlet instead of onyx. And she took off with those wings after Gemini.

“Was that a good thing?” Shego inquired in a confused tone. She was referring to the new coloring of the dragon and the fact that Kim’s eyes had pupils that time.

“I have no idea,” Ann repeated.

“I hope it was. I mean, we can’t get her if she’s airborne,” Shego pointed out.

“Then all we can do is hope,” the doctor replied.


Kim flapped her wings as she chased after Gemini and his escape plane. She was not sure if she was going to catch him, but she was having no trouble following him thanks to her dragon eyes. She would follow him until he had to land if necessary. The dragon aura that was surrounding her was now a solid shade of crimson.

Kim did catch up to the plane and threw her hand out, unleashing her tornado fire-like attack. It was now colored orange instead of black, but it still had the same affect. When it hit the wing, it ate through the metal and seemed to age it millenniums before it fell right off. The plane spin out of control and Gemini ejected, as expected.

“Predictable,” Kim muttered.

Then Gemini pulled out a trick, he was wearing a jetpack. He continued to flee and Kim continued to go after him. She growled and threw another column of orange fire. Gemini managed to dodge it and any shot that came after it.

“How can he dodge it?” she wondered, not knowing that he had the same eyes as she did and that was why he could dodge it.

Kim did not let up. While she let loose orange fire-like projectile, her dragon aura breathed blue fire balls at Gemini. He still managed to avoid everything coming at him. He also began to return fire with a weapon that he was holding.

The chase went on for a few minutes and then Gemini hollered in pain. He dropped his weapon and clutched his accursed eye. Kim nailed him in the back, destroying his jetpack. He began to fall from the sky. Kim watched for a moment, unsure of what she wanted to do. Watch him plummet to his death or dive after him to save him? So many choices, so little time. She supposed that even if she did dive after him, it was not highly likely that she would catch him and he would die anyway. Very tempting indeed.


“How are you two doing?” Doctor Director inquired, speaking to Shego and Ann as the GJ agents began to retreat back to their base. They took what prisoners they could, but they were more interested in getting out of there than anything else. They were pretty sure that the sudden strike had crippled the WEE organization badly, though.

“We’re fine,” Shego answered. She and Ann were now wearing jackets to cover up their torn pajamas.

“Don’t worry. You know we’ll find Kim,” Doctor Director assured them.

“And then what?” Ann wondered out loud. They would find Kim and everything would start again. They would begin tests and hope to find a way to lock that beast inside of Kim, but that did not do any good. They needed to find a way to release the thing from Kim, but they could not even do that. That dragon was like a piece of Kim’s consciousness and it was always going to be there. She felt like they would never be able to help Kim.

“We’ll help her, Ann. You know we will,” Doctor Director promised.

Ann was not sure if she believed that anymore. That dragon was in there and just waiting for an excuse to use Kim’s body and mind. It was always going to be there and Kim was always going to be at risk. All that work they thought they had done so many years ago, the dragon probably just got bored and went to sleep on its own. They probably had not done anything at all.

Once back in Middleton, everyone was debriefed and then released to their own devices. Prisoners were put away for the moment while Ann and Shego returned to the Possible residences. The family was, of course, happy that Ann was back, but the one person that would have been overjoyed with Shego’s return was absent.

The pale woman ignored the pain that coursed through her system when she realized she would not be getting an embrace for the one person that cared about her. She went upstairs and took a shower. She changed her clothes and wondered if she should just leave the house. There was no need or reason for her to be there without Kim. There was no reason for her to even stay in town without Kim.


“Why is the door to my office open?” Doctor Director wondered as she spied her office door slightly ajar. She always closed it and locked it when she was not in. She was cautious, all right; though some might call it paranoid.

She was still at the main building hours after everything happened because she was left with cleaning up after the big mission. She had to see to it that the prisoners that they had taken were sent to places that they could be prosecuted for whatever crimes they had committed, which meant that she had to go through the file of every prisoner they had. And that meant that she needed a lot of coffee, which she had gone to get as an excuse to take a break and that was why she was not in her office right now.

Doctor Director was on guard as she entered her office. And yet, she was still taken by surprise. Standing by her desk was Kim, looking like everything was fine. The kid was smiling and everything.

“Hey, boss, look what I caught,” Kim commented and then she spun Doctor Director’s chair around to reveal a bound and gagged Gemini.

“Kim, how did you…?” Doctor Director was not too sure what she wanted to ask. There were so many questions, after all.

“Catch him?” Kim guessed.

“That would be a good start.”

“Well, that was no big. Whatever this thing is inside of me…” Kim paused to tap her heart. “It’s fast and it’s strong.”

“The dragon?” the one-eyed woman guessed was what her pupil meant. It could have easily been a reference to Kim’s will, which had to be twice as strong as the dragon if the teen was able to control it.

“Yeah, the dragon,” the redhead confirmed.

“You mean, you used the dragon and didn’t kill Gemini when you caught him?” The leader was confused and it showed on her face.

“I have my own will, you know. I was taught by the best and I’m not going to let some brute use me for mindless destruction. My will is stronger than that.”

“Yes, Kim, you have a very strong will and I’m glad for that. You’re a powerful kid.”

“You don’t have to worry about me so much. I mean, I don’t remember everything I did when the dragon came out before I got control, but it takes a lot for it to come out. I’m not going to freak out one day and kill everyone. I mean, I get upset every now and then like everyone, but it doesn’t come out then.”

“I know, Kim. It’s not that we’re afraid you’ll kill everyone. It’s more like we’re afraid we’ll lose you and we’ll fail you. If the dragon takes you over, it would be our faults for not figuring out how to stop it,” Doctor Director explained.

“I don’t think you should worry so much. I mean, it was pretty easy to control once I cooled down. I don’t think the dragon really wants to take over my body or mind. Maybe, its happy being asleep. Or, its happy just being in there and observing the outside world without blowing everything up. Maybe it even though it was helping before. It didn’t cause any problems until something major happened, right?” Kim asked.

“You might be on to something. It has been quiet since you were two and it only did come out because your mother and girlfriend were taken.”

“Shego’s not my girlfriend,” Kim corrected the boss.

“If that’s what you want to tell yourself. I’ll take care of Gemini. You need to get home. I’m sure you’re family’s worried.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Oh, and you can have tomorrow off,” Doctor Director added.

“Really?”

“You’ve earned it. Go shopping or see a movie with your not-girlfriend.”

Kim only smiled and exited the office to go home. She bet her mother would be happy to know that she had controlled the dragon and not the other way around. Her mother and Shego would more than likely also be very happy to know that she had not killed Gemini nor had she let him fall to his death as she had considered doing.

It really was not all that hard to control the dragon. It seemed like it would rage out of control if she let it, but it would easy hand over the reins to her if she wanted them. The dragon was not as big a deal as everyone thought it was, when it came to taking her own anyway. It really did seem content to sleep or share with her if it did wake up. The power that it granted her, that was a different story, but she had no plans to abuse that in the slightest.

On the walk home, in the dark, Kim noticed a figure in the distance. The figure was walking toward her and before the figure was close enough for most people to make out, Kim knew who it was. She wondered where she was going so late.

“Shego!” Kim called.

“Princess?” Shego said in a puzzled tone as she looked up and she could make out a dot far ahead of her. The dot was getting bigger because it was approaching quickly.

“Shego!” Kim flung herself into Shego’s arms, which surprised the pale woman.

“Princess, you’re back?” Shego could not believe her eyes, or the weight in her arms for that matter. She did have to be careful because her arms were sore and she did not want to drop the petite redhead.

“Yeah. Where are you going this late?”

“Oh…I was just…” Shego was not sure what to say. She could not tell Kim that she had been planning to leave Middleton and never come back, especially since that was not in the cards anymore. She had only been leaving because she was not sure if Kim was going to return, but with that question solved, now she did not know what to do.

“You should be at home resting. Did you have more nightmares?” Kim asked curiously. She considered that Shego might have had her usual nightmares and just gone for a walk to clear her mind.

“Yeah, actually I did,” Shego answered. She had a horrible nightmare that Kim might not come back.

“Well, I’ll walk around with you until you’re ready to go home,” Kim offered.

“You know, I think I am ready to go back,” Shego replied with a small smile.

“Okay, let’s go,” Kim said.

Shego put Kim down and they headed back to the Possible house. They did not say anything to each other. They were just happy to be together again and for everything to seem normal. Kim took a shower while Shego curled up in Kim’s bed. She was later joined by the redhead and they went to sleep.

In the morning, Kim was greeted with enthusiasm by her family. She explained to everyone what happened and everything went on as normal for the next few days. Everyone got settled in and relaxed back into their normal lives. A couple of weeks after the whole affair, Kim and Shego woke up in Kim’s bed and were greeted by Kim’s parents, who were standing in the doorway. Kim and Shego looked rather surprised to find out they had been busted.

“I think we’re going to have to discuss the sleeping arrangements around here,” Ann commented and James nodded in agreement.

The end.


A/N: I did an epilogue for this, but it’s short and I don’t like it much. So, here’s the thing, if you guys have any loose ends, questions, or just things you want to see in an epilogue let me know, so I can improve the epilogue I have.


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