Kim had never really formed a solid opinion of Team Go. Sure, they were heroes who risked their lives to save innocent people, so she pretty much respected them on general principle. Okay, so they did have it a lot easier than her thanks to their superpowers -and because the most dangerous villain they ever faced was an old man in a bird get-up- but that wasn’t really their fault, was it? They fought the good fight and Go City actually was one of the safest places in all of America, its crime rate the lowest in all the country.
Having met the four members of the team, though, Kim had to admit that they hadn’t been that impressive in person. Hego, the oldest of the sibling and team leader, was as strong as the Incredible Hulk (to coin a comic reference), but also about as smart. Additionally, he tended to talk in comic book clichés and seemed to have an unhealthy fixation of being in the spotlight.
Mego, the third-oldest of the family, seemed an okay guy at the most, but was always very busy telling everyone how his power to shrink was the coolest of them all. Kim figured the person he was trying to convince the most was himself. She actually considered shrinking a pretty cool power, it had tons of potential for sneaking around and being stealthy, but in a combat situation, well, it did leave something to be desired.
Finally there were the Wego twins. Kim didn’t know their individual names (if they had any) and it was impossible to tell them apart. It wasn’t made any easier by the fact that they had the power to create duplicates of themselves in seemingly endless numbers. They were the youngest of the team, both of them but slightly older than Kim herself, and seemed to be goofing around most of the time.
The one member of Team Go Kim regarded as the most competent of the bunch (if grudgingly) was actually no longer a member and now worked the other side of the fence, but she pushed that thought aside.
“I tell you, KP,” Ron interrupted her thoughts, “we should build ourselves a tower, too. The Possible Tower. Wouldn’t that be cool?” Rufus, perched on Ron’s shoulder, nodded his tiny head in agreement.
Team Go’s headquarters was the Go Tower, a huge building that towered above the rest of the city. Kim had to admit it was impressive, but she herself didn’t much care for it. Granted, living in a near impenetrable fortress sounded good, especially if villains happened to have your address, but Kim rather preferred the comforts of a real home. The high-tech lair reminded her too much of one of Dr. Drakken’s hideouts, truth be told.
“Now where was the front door on that thing”? Kim said, looking at the mostly featureless outer wall of the tower. The last time she’d been here, the villain Aviarius had accidentally transferred Hego’s powers to her. The tower’s security system was configured so that only those emitting the siblings’ unique energy signature, the so-called “Go-Glow”, were allowed inside. Which meant that Hego had been locked out, while the doors had readily opened for her. This time, though…
Both Ron and Kim started as the doors suddenly opened for them, the loud screech of metal hinges almost deafening. At first Kim thought that someone had seen them coming and let them in, but there was no one standing in the vast lobby of the tower. It seemed as if…
Kim looked down on her hands. Yup, they were glowing slightly.
“KP?” Ron asked. “With the glowing hands and the doors opening by themselves, you figure…?”
“Yeah, I figure,” she answered his unvoiced question. She had suspected as much, but this pretty much confirmed it.
Somehow, somewhere, she had apparently picked up a Go-Glow.
The four members of Team Go stared open-mouthed at Kim, who was holding her still-glowing hands up for inspection. Hego was the first of them to find words.
“This is most amazing, Kim Possible,” he said. “By some means you seem to have been granted the powers of justice just like the rest of us have.”
Kim and Ron both managed to suppress a sigh at Hego’s flowery wording.
“A white glow,” Mego mumbled. “That’s a new one.”
“What’s it do?” asked one of the Wegos. “What power did you get?”
“I… I really don’t know precisely,” Kim admitted. “It, well, it seems to make me stronger. Oh, and I deflected an exploding golf ball with it.”
“Super strength and imperviousness,” Hego mused. “Could it be that you have somehow retained a portion of my power when vile Aviarius took them from me?”
“Dude, you glow blue,” Ron pointed out.
“A valid point,” Hego shrugged.
Mego had walked away from Team Go’s conference table, only to return with a futuristic-looking gadget.
“Seeing as our doors opened for you this is probably redundant, but this is the gizmo we use to measure our own glows. Let me take a reading, okay?”
Kim nodded, holding out one of her hands. Mego passed the scanner over it, then studied the readout.
“Well, it’s a Go Glow all right, but we already knew that.”
“Anything else you can tell from that?” Ron asked. “Like, is she gonna get white skin or what?”
Kim gave him a glare.
“What?” he asked. “I mean, Shego glows green and she got green-tinted skin and everything.”
Kim noticed everyone present flinching as Ron mentioned the one name they had so far managed not to voice. She glared at him some more.
“I can’t really tell you much more,” Mego admitted. “From what I can see your energy output is pretty low. About maybe ten percent of what we are putting out there when we activate our powers.”
“Maybe Hego is actually on to something?” one of the Wegos suggested. “I mean, Kim here briefly had his power, she was there when Aviarius power-sucked the rest of us, and she keeps butting head with sis. Maybe she’s got, you know, powers-by-frequent-exposure or something?”
Kim took out her Kimmunicator and tuned in Wade. “Any ideas?” she asked.
“Wego might be right,” Wade said, having listened in the whole time. “After all, white is what you get when you mix all colours together. Maybe your multiple exposures to Go powers simply left you with a residue.”
“But why is it coming out now? The whole Aviarius thing was months ago and I haven’t battled Shego in weeks. So why now?”
Mego stroked his chin.
“I might be nothing, but…”
“Yeah?”
“Well, in the past few days we have noticed some things about ourselves,” he said.
Hego rose, flexing his mucles. “I broke my weight lifting record yesterday. Nearly a full ton more than my previous best.”
“Yeah, and we managed to make more dupes than before,” the Wegos chorused.
“And usually I can’t shrink any further than two inches, but I managed one inch earlier today.”
“This is interesting,” Wade said. “Maybe if some thing is causing the powers of those possessing a Go Glow to increase it might have also activated whatever residual energy you might have absorbed during your battles with Shego and Aviarius.”
“I wonder if sis is also getting a power-up,” one of the Wegos muttered.
“SHEGO,” Dr. Drakken whined, clearly upset. “You are supposed to help me assemble doomsday devise to take over the world, not smash them.”
Shego looked at the rubble that had been Dr. D’s latest attempt at a death ray (or something like that, she hadn’t really listened to his rant) and shrugged.
“Sorry, Dr. D. I thought what with it being an ultimate weapon it would be a bit sturdier.”
The device had been destroyed when she’d accidentally hit it with one of her plasma bolts. The bolt had actually been aimed at Drakken himself, his butt more precisely, because he wouldn’t stop nagging her about the how she had no appreciation for the classic evil genius / henchwoman relationship. It had actually been meant to do no more than sting him a little bit.
The fact that it had blown up Dr. D’s device instead, however brittle it might have been, actually disturbed her a bit. Not that she would ever show it.
“Look at it as a favour,” she told her boss. “If that thing can’t even take one little plasma bolt, however will it be of any use once little Kimmie gets here?”
“Kim Possible will never find this lair,” Drakken thundered. “I have used every available means to…”
Shego raised an eyebrow at him, which caused his shoulders to sag. “Yeah, you are probably right. She’ll be here before too long. I’d better review the construction and make it sturdier.”
“That’s my evil doctor,” she assured him. Inside, though, her thoughts were preoccupied with her apparent power increase. For some reason she could not quite put her finger on the thought of getting more powerful was not as pleasant as it should have been.
TO BE CONTINUED