Kim watched the hover machine disappear. That had so not just happened. She knew it hadn’t. The anger in her boiled for a moment, then exploded all at once: “ArrrRRGHH!” she screamed, kicking the rubble of the Supernova Death Ray device as hard as she could. For a second, the pile seemed stationary. Then it suddenly collapsed a bit more, making Drakken jump back.
Kim looked up at the sky. “NOBODY TAKES HER AWAY FROM ME WHEN I'M FIGHTING HER!” she roared. “NOBODY! YOU HEAR ME?”
Ron and Drakken looked at each other. Then Ron looked at Kim. “Uh, KP? I'm not a doctor - and you know Drakken isn't a real doctor-” Drakken seemed a bit upset at the remark – “But we both agree that you'd probably highly benefit from taking a chill pill.”
“Mhmm, Mhmm…” said Drakken, nodding frantically.
“Shut up, Ron!” Kim snapped. “Ooh, when I get my hands on that - dahh! The nerve of that guy!”
Robin sighed, looking up. “He got away.”
“They always get away,” said Kim, joining him. Then she looked at Robin. “I'm sorry. I don't believe we've met.”
“Robin,” He extended his hand in kindness.
“Kim Possible,” she said, accepting the handshake. “That's Ron, over there. Ron Stoppable. Oh, yeah - and Rufus,” she noted, as the naked mole rat ran up Ron’s shoulder.
“The blue guy?” asked Robin.
“Huh? Oh - that's Drakken, my nemesis.”
“Looked more like the woman in the green and black jumpsuit was your nemesis,” Robin said.
“Who, Shego?” Kim asked. “Oh - Shego's my archenemy. But for some reason, she works for Drakken as his sidekick… So, who was that freak in the mask?”
“Slade.” The voice came from behind them. It was Cyborg.
“The worst person you shall ever meet,” Starfire noted as the rest of the Titans came up to them.
“Kim, I'd like for you to meet Cyborg-”
“How ya doin’.”
“-Starfire-”
“Greetings!” the Tamaranean girl replied cheerfully.
“Beast Boy-”
“Hey there” said the green teen.
“-and Raven.”
“Hi,” said Raven dryly.
Robin turned to Kim. “We're the Teen Titans.”
Suddenly, Kim spied something near the rubble. She knelt down.
Shego's gloves.
Kim picked them up, looking at them as if she were mourning.
“We need to know everything about Shego,” Robin continued behind her.
An angry yet determined feeling washed over Kim, and it spilled all the way out onto her face. She pocketed the gloves, then stood up and turned around.
“Short story? She's evil.”
“Yeah, I think we got that part,” Raven noted.
“She's very handy, you know,” Drakken cut in.
“WHO ASKED YOU?” Kim snapped, whirling around. “Ahh! Sorry! Don't hurt me!” Drakken cried. “Hey, shouldn't we turn this guy in?” Beast Boy asked, pointing at the blue-skinned mad scientist. “No.” Robin scowled, knowing his duty to the law. “Shego worked for him. He knows her.” “Uh - I, actually - don't know that much about her, honestly,” Drakken stammered. “Kim knows more.”
“THAT'S BECAUSE ALL YOU EVER DID WAS ORDER HER AROUND, DRAKKEN!” Kim screeched.
“Whoah, Kim? Easy,” said Ron – as he backed up. Rufus climbed up Ron with the equivalent of “Ho-ho, yeah - chill…”
“You never fought her like I did!” Kim continued – though slightly calmer. “You never respected her as someone other than a tool - not a fighter, like I do!” She turned to the Titans. “We need to rescue her.”
“Why?” asked Cyborg. “You just said she was evil.”
Kim couldn’t think for a moment. “Uh-” Then she recovered, and answered the question. “Like I said before - we haven't finished our fight just yet.” She took out Shego’s gloves, and looked at them. “And it's not a proper fight with Shego if she doesn't have her special gloves.”
“Kim's right,” Robin said, though with much chagrin. “As bad as this Shego woman is, Slade's far worse. We can't let Shego become his new apprentice.”
“Uh, just to step in,” Ron piped up, “But how can anyone be worse than Shego?”
No answer.
It was silent for a moment. Then--
“Dr. Drakken.” Robin didn’t even turn around when he said it.
“Zuh-wha?” Drakken asked, having not paid attention.
“In any of the plans you've carried out - how many people have suffered due to them?” Robin pressed his inquiry.
“Um, well - two: Kim, and - The Buffoon,” Drakken replied.
Raven raised an eyebrow. “The Buffoon?”
“Rrrrr - he never remembers my name…” Ron grumbled.
Drakken raised his hand. “Why, exactly, do you wish to know this?” he asked Robin.
“How many people have lost their lives?” Robin asked him next.
Kim gasped.
Drakken put his hand down. “Question answered.”
In the underground caverns he and his captive were speeding through, Slade manoeuvred the hover machine easily through the tight corners.
“This little hovercraft of yours is a wonderful little device,” Slade noted. “I'll keep it.”
“Go ahead. Shego scoffed. “Drakken'll just build another one. Now -- what exactly is this about me being your “apprentice?” ”
“I think that's all it's about,” Slade responded. “You're to be my new apprentice, Shego.”
“Unh-uh! No way! No way am I gonna be working for you, candy-corn face!”
“Are you going to stop calling me that?”
“Not anytime soon,” Shego noted, crossing her arms.
Slade's eye narrowed. His head dropped slightly.
“Mmm. So be it.”
They turned a very tight corner.
“But, do allow me to notify you of just how much you've missed the point here: I never said you'd be working for me. I said you're to be my new apprentice.”
“So, new apprentice. Got it.” Shego was already getting bored again. “So, uh – out of curiosity, what exactly happened to the old apprentice?”
“Mmm.” Slade nodded. “I was hoping you'd ask that.”
“Huh?” Shego asked. Shego knew voice tones, especially for villains, and the tone of voice that had been used in that response had carried an extra non-particularly pleasant ring to it.
Slade didn’t answer. He sped up the hover machine. Shego still looked confused as it skeetered down along down another long underground tunnel.
“Slade was born with the talent to inflict pain. To make others suffer.” Rufus could hear Robin’s voice as he climbed up the - somewhat damaged - stairs to a platform back in Drakken’s lair. “That's all he's done to us since we first ran into him: Made us suffer.” Emerging at the top of the platform, Rufus found it little with battle debris. Then the naked mole rat spotted Drakken – who was sitting at the edge of the railing, his feet dangling over the edge like a kid fishing off a bridge - but looking particularly glum. Those glum feelings looked to be projected at the debris at the Supernova Death Ray rubble down below – near Kim and the Titans. Rufus watched as Drakken sighed and chucked a pebble of debris at it. But the pebble didn't hit the rubble pile, though – instead, it ninged Ron right on the top of the head.
“Ow! What th-” Ron stopped, seeing what had hit him. “Oh, only rubble. Heh…”
Kim turned back to her conversation with Robin. “Can you tell me what happened then - that first time you ran across him?” she asked.
Robin sighed – then began.
“I became obsessed with stopping him. I even disguised myself as a villain named Red X to try and deceive him. But I made a mistake: I didn't tell my friends. When they discovered the truth - well, you don't need me to tell you how it feels to discover someone you thought you knew wasn't being honest with you…” Kim’s skin prickled as she was reminded of what had happened between her and her ex-boyfriend earlier in the day during school. Robin knew it, and quickly resumed his story. “I dumped Red X - but I was still obsessed with stopping Slade. So I chased him again. That chase ended with my friends’ lives hostages in his hands - and I…his first apprentice.”
“First apprentice?” Kim asked, startled.
Robin nodded solemnly. Above them, on the platform, Rufus had joined Drakken, and now looked at him with the equivalent of “Huh?” Drakken shrugged, and turned to listen to the rest. “But that –” Robin’s voice grew icier, and Kim noticed all the Titans seemed to get angrier - especially Beast Boy - as he finished his sentence. “That was nothing…compared to what he ended up doing to us next.”
“Let me ask you - that…Dr. Drakken –” Slade clearly was disgusted calling Drakken that – “Did he ever…create giant scorpions - that escaped - and weren't squashed?” he asked Shego.
Shego didn’t need to wrack her brain to answer. How could she forget this one? “Huh? Oh, yeah, that,” she replied. “Yeah, he did, he did. You're lucky, though - I only remember because it was the only confrontation I had with Kim that didn’t reach the 5 o'clock broadcast.”
“Ahh…” Slade was glad to hear that. “Just as I suspected.”
As they passed through another huge cavern, a distinct rock formation caught Shego's eye:
A statue of a girl, with her hair flowing behind her and her hands outstretched.
“My last apprentice,” Slade nodded at the statue, his voice clearly full of disdain, though he tried to hide it. Shego stared at the statue as they went by it. His last apprentice? What was he talking about? Then it hit her – that statue hadn’t been carved. “Literally had the power to move the earth,” Slade went on. “But she rebelled - and foolishly-”
“-Sacrificed her life?” Kim was horrified. Not even Shego had taken a life. Or – she had and Kim didn’t know about it. But killing – Kim couldn’t see Shego kill someone. Maul, beat within an inch of life, yes – but killing? No. The only person Kim could see Shego killing was ---- her.
“It was her choice,” Beast Boy finished, tearing up even as the rage of losing Terra filled his eyes and inflected sharply into his voice. “But she only made it because Slade gave her no other option.”
“So, who were those kids back there?” Shego asked, stepping off the hover machine and onto the platform in Slade’s hideout. She looked around, impressed. She especially liked the huge monitor banks along the walls. Drakken would kill to have a lair like this. Though, the place needed a few windows, or sunroofs, at least. Pale as her skin was, Shego still liked to go for a tan every once and a while. “The Teen Titans,” Slade responded. “They live not far away from here, in that… T-shaped building you see up there on the monitors.”
That building…
“Huh. Looks kinda familiar,” she said, squinting at it.
“It should,” Slade said, sitting in a huge chair. “In fact, it looks rather similar to this:”
He clicked a button. The monitors changed to a news broadcast - where, in the background, a tower on a bay island sat in ruins. The graphic read “BREAKING NEWS - TEAM GO: GONE?”
Shego’s eyes went wide. Team Go – her brothers! Her idiotic superhero brothers! Shego still couldn’t believe she had used to be part of that team – she still cringed whenever reminded she had been a superhero. But still – how in the hell had this guy known about her pathetic family?
“Yes, Joe,” cried the reporter, shouting a bit too loudly over the news helicopter’ rotors, “We are live over Go City bay - where just moments ago, two unidentified assailants utterly destroyed Go Tower whilst Team Go was inside sleeping! There is still no word as to whether Team Go has survived this attack!” The reporter was trying incredibly hard not to panic.
“A villain you may be,” said Slade as Shego reacted behind him, “But I know that in some deep part of you, there still resides a - minute - amount of care, of love - for those who are your family.” Shego stayed silent. Slade went on. “You remember how I told Possible I knew everything about her? Well, that goes for you, too -- Shego.” Shego couldn’t believe it. The calm this guy had – did she really want to piss him off? “You see,” Slade continued, “I even know what you're wondering right now: How can I stay so calm, even when I know that the Titans and your -- precious -- Kim Possible are going to team up and attempt to rescue you from me - right?” Shego was stunned as he turned around. “It's because unlike your blue Drakken friend, I learn from failure. I find my mistakes, and I fix them. And -- I plan ahead - to make sure there is only one viable option for anyone to choose.” Then he advanced on her. “Now, then - you're going to be my new apprentice, Shego – whether you like it…or not.” His voice was coldly sharp.
Shego thought it over. It didn’t take her long. There was only one thing on her mind.
She looked up. “I don't care for Team Go.”
She clenched her fist.
“All I care about is finishing my fight with Kim. You promise me that – and I'll do this apprentice thing…of my own free will.”
Slade's eyebrow raised.
END ACT THREE