“It’s getting worse,” Professor Kruger told James Possible. “I wish I could say otherwise.”
Kim’s father wiped his brow, trying to overcome his own tiredness. During the last six hours Kim’s radiation output had grown exponentially and there seemed to be nothing anyone could do about it. To make matters worse, Kim was obviously in pain by now. Here he was, one of the smartest men on the face of the Earth, and unable to help his own daughter. What kind of father was he?
He looked over at his wife, seeing the pain etched into her beautiful features. She wanted nothing more than to run to her daughter and somehow make it better, but she and her medical colleagues had no more found a way to help Kim than he. They had tried to sedate her even, hoping that it might lower her anxiety and, by proxy, her power output, but it hadn’t worked. The needle had broken against the white glow that Kim’s entire body now emitted. The energy just kept building and he feared that it would soon tear Kim to pieces.
The Kimmunicator in his pocket chirped and he pulled it out so fast he almost dropped it. Wade’s worried face appeared on the small screen.
“Please tell me there’s good news, Wade,” he implored.
“Well… I’m not really sure whether it’s good. Just wanted to tell you that Ron is bringing a visitor into the Space Centre in a few minutes. You might want to tell the security guards to stand down, Dr. Possible, or there might be an incident.”
James breathed a sigh of relief, even though he didn’t know whether they had found a solution or were just piling on another problem. Right now any action was better than just waiting around for his daughter to suffer.
“This is Dr. Possible,” he called the head of security. “Ron Stoppable is about to bring Shego into the building. Tell all guards to stand down. And if I see a single cop or Global Justice agent anywhere near this compound you’ll all be fired!”
Shego looked around the Space Centre, wondering what devil had been riding her when she agreed to this. It had to be a trap. Any moment now this place would be swarming with cops or Global Justice agents. Any moment now.
“Thank you for coming, Ms. Shego,” Dr. James Possible greeted her. Shego had met Kimmie’s father before -she had even helped kidnap him once- but he hardly resembled the scatterbrained, jovial scientist she remembered. Deep lines of worry were etched into his face.
“The money’s good,” she simply shrugged. “So where’s the princess?”
Dr. Possible motioned for her to follow him. Shego kept her eyes open all the time, not certain what to make of the situation. She stopped a moment when she saw the group of scientists gathered outside a low concrete building. One of them was Professor Kruger, whom she remembered from her time as a member of Team Go. Looked liked Kim’s dad had pulled out all the stops.
“Kim’s energy output has increased drastically ever since the incident yesterday,” Dr. Possible told Shego. “We have no clue where all that power is coming from, but I’m afraid it’s… well, it’s killing her.”
His words chilled Shego, though she didn’t show any of it. Unwillingly her mind wandered back to the days directly after the meteorite impact. When her powers first manifested, she’d almost been killed by them as well. There had been no scientists to help, certainly no loving fathers or trusty sidekicks. Her brothers had been busy with their own powers manifesting and there had been no one else interested in dealing with a green-skinned freak child.
The thought that little Kimmie, already so disgustingly perfect, now had both superpowers and a loving family to help her deal with it… it angered her.
Shego was about to turn around and leave. What did she care if the little princess got herself charbroiled? There’d been no one to help her when she was in the same trouble. If Kim didn’t have what it took to deal with it on her own, then…
Dr. Possible opened the door of the bunker and Shego got her first look at the girl she found herself hating so much.
„Help me,“ Kim whispered from where she was lying on the floor.
Shego gasped at the sight of her favourite enemy. The space around her was aglow with white radiance, shimmering as if super-heated. Her hands were crackling with energy and where they touched the ground the concrete was cracking, being reduced to powder. Her entire body was trembling, spasms running the length of her spine as the energy inside her tried to force itself out right through her skin. Kim was sweating profusely and nearly bent double with the pain.
For a moment the world seemed to waver in front of Shego’s eyes and she saw a young, green-skinned girl writhing on the ground, hands on fire, calling for help. But there was no one there. No one at all.
“You stupid idiots,” she yelled at the scientists behind her. “Can’t you see she is suffering from energy build-up?”
They couldn’t see, of course. Only someone who had had energy powers of her own since early childhood knew of the dangerous side effects they could have. The meteorite traces in Shego’s blood absorbed sunlight and background radiation and converted it into plasma energy. The upside was that, in order to recharge, she needed to do no more than soak up some rays. The downside was that, if she didn’t discharge the energy every so often, she’d end up exactly like Kimmie here.
Close to seventeen years ago, Shego had learned that lesson the hard way. It had nearly cost her her life.
“She needs to release the energy or it will kill her,” Shego said, stomping towards Kim.
“Careful,” Professor Kruger told her. “She is putting out so much radiation…”
“Doy, really?” She looked at the scientist who had been Team Go’s personal physician even back when she’d still been a member. “I’m immune to most forms of radiation, remember?” Kruger looked down, having apparently forgotten. Shego just shook her head.
She carefully approached Kim and could feel the energy wavering around her. The little cheerleader had powers that seemed very similar to her own, even if the colour was different. Well, it could have been worse, she mused. She could be glowing pink. Wouldn’t that have been something?
“Help me,” Kim whispered again, looking delirious. Shego doubted she’d even noticed her presence.
“I will, princess,” Shego said, lifting Kim by sliding her own arms under her shoulders. “The teasing potential is just too great to pass up, you know?”
The energy wavering around Kim wasn’t heat, certainly not plasma like her own. Shego wasn’t sure what it was, but she figured energy was energy. Which meant there was but one way to solve this.
Once she had the teen more or less vertical she picked her up fireman’s carry style and started walking towards the entrance.
“Outta my way,” she snarled at the scientists.
“Where are you taking her?” James Possible asked, even as he moved out of their path. Shego hesitated for a moment, seeing the concern in his eyes. Why did some people get so lucky? If her own parents had cared even a tenth as much…
“Somewhere she can vent,” she simply said.
Quickly making her way out onto the tarmac of the Space Centre, Shego did a quick check to see if the skies were clear. No airliners were visible, no rockets, nothing. She would have preferred a more secluded spot, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. From the looks of Kimmie, the princess wouldn’t last long enough to reach any other spot.
Carefully setting her down, she knelt behind Kim and propped the nearly-unconscious teenager up against her chest.
“Stay with me now, okay?” she demanded, lightly slapping Kim from behind. Amazingly her hands hurt from that simple motion, almost as if something about Kim was slapping her right back. Well, no time to deal with that now.
She took the teen’s hands in her own and pointed them up at the empty sky. The energy crackling around Kim’s body ran over her own flesh like a dozen probing hands, almost as if it was trying to push her away, but she ignored it.
“Okay, Kimmie,” she whispered into the teen’s ear. “I know you’re hurting. I know how bad this feels. We can make it go away, okay? But I need you with me, right here, right now.”
Shego could almost see how her favourite sparring partner fought her way back to consciousness, no matter how painful.
“We need to discharge all that energy you have built up, pumpkin,” she told her. “Just shoot it all up into the sky, so it won’t hurt anymore. Okay?”
“H-how… I tried to… can’t… gonna hurt people… must… how?”
Now came the tricky part. From her childhood days Shego knew that her own power worked differently than those of her brothers. If asked, she would be unable to explain how she activated hers. There was no mantra, no focusing technique, no trigger word or internal switch. She could no more explain how she did it than a normal person could explain how she made her heart beat. She just did it.
She would never be able to explain it to Kimmie in a thousand years, so she could only show her.
Tightly clamping down on Kim’s wrist, she slowly allowed her own power to come to the forth. Green plasma began to sparkle around her hands, dancing along the white glow coming from Kim’s. As slowly as she was able to she activated her powers while pressing tightly against the teen’s body, willing the smaller girl to go along with her. It had actually become easier to her these last few days. She just hoped it worked for Kimmie, too.
The process seemed to take hours, even though it was but a few seconds. The white glow from Kim’s hands increased in intensity, spurned on by its green equivalent, rising to the challenge. Shego now began to feel the intense pressure coming off Kim’s skin, almost like two identical magnetic forces repelling each other, but she ignored it. Both their clothes were starting to smoulder due to the heat Shego generated, but she ignored that, too. There was nothing but her, Kim, and their powers as they grew in intensity.
“Hurts,” Kim whispered.
“I know it does, princess,” Shego whispered back. “Just let it go! Let it all out! Get rid of it!”
“H-how…”
“No thinking, Kimmie! Just do it! You can do anything, remember? Do it! DO IT!”
Kim screamed as the radiance from her hands became blinding, the white merging with Shego’s green into a mint-coloured flash of energy that lanced up into the sky with thundering intensity. The air around them wavered, the tarmac began to melt into a puddle, cracks ran through the cement in every direction like skeletal hands reaching out. Shego couldn’t help but scream as well as the power ripped out of her, more intense than ever before.
Kim’s parents and their colleagues, along with Ron and Rufus, could only watch in amazement as the two women unleashed enough power to put the rockets that regularly launched from here to shame.
It lasted but a few seconds, but the heat was enough to melt part of the tarmac around the two women into glass. All observers had to look away, it was too bright. When the brilliance finally faded, the normal daylight seemed black as night.
“KP?” Ron asked, slowly edging closer, trying to spot his friend through the steam rising from the ground. “Are you…?”
Before he knew what was happening, Kim’s father was suddenly beside him and slapped a hand over his eyes.
“Hey, what gives?”
“No looking, Ronald,” James said sternly. “Kimmie and Shego are… not decent right now.”
“Oh boy,” Rufus chattered.
Both Kim and Shego were lying on the tarmac as God had created them, both their clothing burned away by the intense discharge of energy. Shego had fallen over onto her back and Kim, formerly propped up against her chest, was now lying halfway on top of her, her head resting on Shego’s stomach.
“Aw, man,” Ron whined. “At least tell me whether Kim is… whether they’re all right, okay?”
Kim’s mom quickly approached the two prone women, paying no heed to the still-smouldering ground.
“They’re both breathing and pulse rates are steady, if accelerated,” she said after a moment of checking. “I think they just passed out from exhaustion.” She looked at the watching scientists, most of them male. It was hard to tell whether their fascinated looks were due to the two women’s display of power or their state of undress.
“Somebody get some clothes for them,” Dr. Possible ordered harshly. “We must bring them to the hospital and quickly, just in case.”
TO BE CONTINUED