For centuries, alchemists had tried to turn lead into gold. They never got anywhere. Lead is perfectly happy with the way it is and it's not about to change for anyone. Gold, however, is far more transmutable and Señor Senior Senior knew all about that.
Currently, he was looking at the results of a little experiment in converting gold into information.
His contacts hadn't managed to find much about the girl's pre-meteorite life. Presumably, this ‘Shego’ had been just another girl going to just another school. She had probably had a last name. After the strike, her skin had turned green and her hands had started to spit plasma. She'd worked together with her equally struck siblings in the heroic ‘Team Go', where she had been a loose cannon prone to hitting miscreants long after hitting still had any effect.
The girl probably had some unresolved issues.
Team Go had gone to Middleton after one of their foes, Aviarius. There, Shego had met Kim Possible and now she was attending Middleton High and apparently working as a member of Team Possible. It appeared that Dr. Drakken had tried to win Shego over to his side, but the effort had proven futile. Señor Senior Senior was not surprised by that. If yesterday's images of the gym were anything to go by (not to mention the images in the locker room, the hallway images, the close-up images of Shego's notebook, last week's images in the gym and so on), it would take quite a lot to convince Miss Shego to leave Miss Possible's side.
There was no good information on the nature of Shego's powers, nor had any trace of the meteorite been found.
Still, however little, it was something to go on.
“This is a very strange device.”
“Hmm?” said Señor Senior Senior. “Sorry Junior, what was that?”
He turned around in his chair to see his son standing next to an opened cardboard box holding something that looked like a machinegun, with a glass bottle instead of a barrel and several wires and excitingly flashing lights on its side.
“I said, this looks very strange,” said Junior.
“Be careful with it,” said Senior. “You don't know what it does.”
He stood up, snatched the strange weapon from his son's hands and was about to put it back in the box when he saw name ‘Aviarius’ written on the lid. Carefully, Senior put the weapon on the floor and started digging through the contents of the box. Much of it were more weapons in various stages of assembly. And also a small, black notebook.
He took it and flicked through the pages until he found a sketch that looked very much like the thing lying next to the box on the floor.
The caption beneath it ran ‘Ultimate Anti-Go Weapon’.
Señor Senior Senior smiled.
Footsteps echoed loudly all across the deserted streets. Above, stars shone weakly because of all the light pollution.
“That was a nice movie,” said Kim, her breath turning into a little cloud. Her left arm was linked with Shego's right and their fingers were entwined.
“Really?” said Shego. “I didn't really notice. I'm surprised you were able to follow anything.”
Kim blushed. “Well… we had to… you know… breathe.”
“And you used that time to watch the movie?” said Shego. “You gotta get your priorities straight, Princess.”
“Well what should I have watched then?” Kim said teasingly.
“Don't tell me I have to spell it out for you, Princess?” said Shego.
“You do seem to be a lot more knowledgeable when it comes to dating girls,” said Kim.
“I do, don't I?” said Shego.
Suddenly, Kim found herself dragged into an alleyway, her back pressed against the wall and Shego deliciously close in front of her.
“But I prefer showing,” she whispered. “Not telling.”
Before Kim had any time to respond -not that she had wanted to respond, but even she had, she wouldn't have the time- Shego's lips were on her own. Kim moaned softly, allowing Shego's green tongue into her mouth, putting her arms around the girl and pulling her so close it almost seemed as if their bodies were about to merge.
Shego started placing little kisses on Kim's cheek, jaw, neck. Her thigh moved and pressed lightly into the space between Kim's legs, her hand roaming across Kim's shirt, finding its way underneath the hem.
“S-Shego…” Kim managed.
“Mmm?” said Shego, nuzzling Kim's neck.
“N-not here,” she managed, in spite of her body screaming at her that it should be here and, more importantly, now.
Shego backed off slightly. “Right, of course, that was… Sorry, I just got…”
Kim put a hand on the back of Shego's head and pulled her into a kiss.
Someone coughed.
Acting on the kind of reflexes every hero gets if she wants to live for longer than a few hours, both Kim and Shego turned quickly. Señor Senior Senior stood at the mouth of the alley, leaning on his cane.
“I apologise for the intrusion,” he said. “But I fear my son has some matters he needs to take care of.”
Junior jumped into view, aiming something weird. Kim and Shego tried to leap away, but they were still in an alley and there wasn't much to leap to. A beam was fired and it hit.
“Shego!” Kim cried. She rounded on the Seniors. “If you've hurt her!” she growled.
Disregarding her safety, Kim lunged at Junior, but ended up in a smokescreen. She heard some much-practised villainous laughter and, not long after that, the sound of a black helicopter lifting off. Kim glared at it for a moment, before turning back into the alley.
Shego was slouched against a wall, half sitting, muttering profanity under her breath.
“Shego, are you all right?” Kim asked, sitting down next to her.
“Yeah, I'm fine,” said Shego. “Feel like a truck just hit me, but I'm fine.”
A cloud chose this moment move away from the moon. Kim's face went pale.
“Shego… you…”
“What?” said Shego. “What is it?”
“You… your skin…”
There was a full-size mirror standing in Shego's bedroom. Shego didn't use it much, except when she knew she was going to see Kim. She didn't like watching into that mirror and see a freak looking back at her.
She was staring into it now.
And almost didn't recognise the person looking back.
Her skin wasn't green for one thing. It was a nice, normal, healthy pink colour. The kind of skin she'd had when she was still normal. When people didn't stare at her and didn't whisper behind her back.
Shego reached out for the stranger in the mirror with one ungloved, pink hand. Her vision started blurring, but she wasn't crying. Shego was not a crying a kind of person. Nothing could make her cry, not even this.
Shego sank to her knees and the wetness on her cheeks must have been leaks in the roof letting the rain through.
She had no explanation for the sobs.