Shego was the first to move, lunging right for Drakken, punching out a massive hole in the wall behind him when she missed. He ran off with her in pursuit as Tara made the next move, dive-tackling Ron through the hole, the two of them beginning their fight on top of a large conference table. The speed and agility with which Tara attacked was frightening. It was if someone had combined Shego and Kim, but hadn’t trained either to the level Kim and Shego were at. Still, for Ron, it was a game match. And he was more than ready to play. She blocked his punch and swung a roundhouse kick - he caught the leg and spun her back around – but in the middle of the spinning, she dropped to the tabletop, locked her legs together, and pushed back off the tabletop, delivering a punishingly powerful kick into the center of Ron’s chest. The impact sent him sailing through the air, and it was only by his mystical monkey instincts that he was able to right himself and land delicately on his feet. Tara charged him. He threw out a leg to trip, which she somersaulted over – but then promptly ended up on the receiving end of a painful uppercut from him, that slammed her against the ceiling so hard, some of the concrete actually cracked. Tara coughed as Ron held her pinned against the ceiling, his hand wrapped tightly around her neck – then smiled. She swung her legs down, locked one foot under his left armpit, the other against the right side of his neck, and gnashed her teeth into his hand as she corkscrewed her body clockwise – making him let go of her neck as she simultaneously hurled him face-first into the wall with her legs – hard. Halfway through the second corkscrew rotation, Tara switched into a backflip, and landed on the tabletop with perfectly delicate flair. “I should warn you, Ron – not only am I a cheerleader - but I also took gymnastics,” she sneered as he pulled his head out of the wall and spit out some of his teeth.
“Funny,” he quipped. “It looks more to me like you learned how to fight from your dogs.”
“I’m a bad girl, Ron. Bad girls don’t fight CLEAN!” She whipped her leg around wickedly fast, but Ron was expecting it. He blocked the kick by grabbing her leg, and returned her favour to him by jumping up while pushing down on her leg, vaulting him high into the air as she went tumbling smack into the wall.
The snarling poodles drew closer. “Nice doggies…” Kim backed up slowly. When the dogs finally snapped and charged her, she activated the Battle Suit. She’d thought about just keeping the shield up and not let the dogs touch her, but they needed to be neutralised. She just wanted to make sure they wouldn’t neutralise her first. As the determined dogs repeatedly attacked the Battle Suit shield, Kim drew the Centurion Project ring from her back pocket and slipped it onto her left wrist. With the training she’d received on it since the Halloween incident, activating and using it was now instinct. Just with a thought, the cybertronic armour shot out of the ring and extended out across and down, covering her body. The only spots the armour didn’t grow over were all the blue stripes along the suit, which had special circuits along their side designed for the armour to lock into. And instead of the armour covering her hair and neck, this time it encased her face in a truly intimidating mask, complete with glowing red eyes. The overall result was Kim looked nothing like Kim, and instead looked like a Viking warrior dropped into “Tron,” then spat back out into reality. Kind of fitting, actually, considering one of the first settlers of Iceland was a Viking matriarch… The way Kim looked now, she even gave the enraged Shego not far away from her a run for her money in The Department of Menacing.
But truth be told, nothing matched Shego when she was enraged – except the enraged Kim – and even then, Shego was still more dangerous thanks to her superpowers. But at the moment, Shego was way beyond enraged. Had Drakken not spent 3 years working with her, there was no doubt he would not still be running from her at the moment. Blasts of green energy rained down upon him as he bolted for the door. Almost there, he shrieked as a pale-skinned hand grabbed his collar and pulled him back around so he was face-to-face with her. “Oh, you’re goin’ outta that door, buddy – just not on your FEET!” CRACK! Shego’s devastating punch hit him like a rocket slamming into his gut. Drakken was catapulted backwards out of the room into the hallway, where he landed by his back crashing into the fluorescent lighting fixture at the top of the opposite wall, then falling to the ground in a shower of broken glass. Groaning as he picked himself up from the pile of shards, he’d barely regained his balance standing up when Shego’s green-gloved hand picked him up and threw him further down the hallway like a Brett Farve zinger. Again, just after he’d picked himself up, Shego was already barreling down towards him. “HRRRAH!” She tackled Drakken with a fury that was at a level even he had never seen her at before. Feeling it was worth a shot, Drakken wrestled an arm free and poked her square in the eyes. Surprisingly, Shego let go of him in pain - just long enough for him to stand up and draw his gun.
BLAM!
The dogs’ ears perked up.
Kim whipped her around at the sound. “SHEGO!”
Ron looked behind him. “What was that?”
“This!” POW! Tara’s kick sent Ron sliding down the conference table.
Shego stumbled backwards in shock.
She dropped to her knees.
Her head slumped over, her black hair cascading down over her eyes. She touched the bullet hole in her upper left chest. The blood against her green outfit seemed to stain her like the prick of a rose’s thorn.
“Kimmie…”
Kim let the Battle Suit’s shield down. If Shego had been shot, she had to preoccupy the dogs – or at least disable them for a while. They instantly jumped her – but got nowhere, thanks to the cybertronic armour. Tumbling backwards out into the hallway as she fought to keep them at bay, she threw up the Battle Suit’s shield again – this time, trapping the dogs inside the shield with her. As she struggled with the poodles from the very depths of Hell itself, she looked over – to see Shego on the ground, her head drooped – and Dr. Drakken standing over her, smiling in triumphant victory, with his gun drawn.
NO!
“SHEGOOOOOO!”
Shego’s head barely moved as she looked for the source of the yell. “Kimmie?” she asked, quite faintly.
Kim let the Battle Suit’s shield down, and threw both poodles as hard as she could back into the room they’d fallen out of. The dogs recovered, and charged, leaping at Kim in a fury of snarling rage – but Kim simply fired the energy rays on the wrist cuffs of the Centurion Project at them – and with the enhancement of the rays stemming from the integration with the Battle Suit, the dogs were sent hurtling backwards into the room, crashing into whatever was hidden in the shadows that heavily percolated it.
Kim wanted to run to help Shego now, but she couldn’t do it. She needed to make sure she’d neutralised the dogs before she did. There was no way in hell she was going to give the mutts even one chance to devour the woman she loved. Poking her head into the room, she found the light switch and flicked it on.
At which the dogs leaped out of the shadows and crashed into her again. They were just poodles, but when both of them slammed into Kim, they had enough force and momentum to knock her over again. She once again found herself preoccupied with keeping the poodles borne from the depths of the underworld from reaching Shego. Luckily, Wade had fully integrated every tiny thing between the Battle Suit and the Centurion Project. With the interweaving of both the Battle Suit’s and the Centurion Project’s self-healing and repair abilities, it pretty much made Kim’s Viking Warrior from the Future suit nigh indestructible. The dogs would be slashing and gnawing and furiously trying to rip it apart for a very, very, very long time before they would even have a chance to produce the tiniest dent in it. She kicked both of the pets – if one could call them that – off of her and stood up.
She looked back over at Shego. Her lover was still on her knees with her head slumped over. “No…” Underneath the intimidating mask, tears began to drip down Kim’s face. “For god’s sake…no….”
One of the dogs jumped for her jugular. Kim caught it and whirled around, throwing it onto the ground. She ran back into the room, drawing the dogs away from catching the scent of Shego - had she been shot…
Shego…hang in there!
Dr. Drakken, growing braver, walked in closer to the fallen Shego as she looked back at the ground; her head slumped even more forward. He put the gun to her head, and cocked it. “Booyah…” He grinned evilly.
Her right hand ignited in green flames as it shot up and she furiously slashed at his gun, slicing it in two.
“Bad. Move.” Shego’s head had never moved. The 2 pieces of the gun fell onto the floor with a KLINK.
“Huh?” Dr. Drakken looked down.
Shego was pulling the bullet out of her wound.
Drakken immediately backed away as she slowly stood up, keeping her head down. She looked at the bullet she’d just removed, and flicked it down the hallway. Her left hand ignited into green flames and she plunged it into the wound, grimacing in pain. A few moments of that, then Shego slowly drew her hand back out – and when she had taken her hand away completely and switched off the green flames, there was nothing but a nasty-looking scar surrounded by a hole caked in dried blood on her jumpsuit.
Before Drakken could move, her arm shot out. She pinned him against the wall, his neck in a death grip.
“I said: Bad…MOVE!” Shego blasted a hole in the ceiling with a stream of her green energy, and proceeded to blast another hole in the ceiling of that room, and in the ceiling of that room, too – until she’d pretty much blasted a hole through every floor of the lair. She pulled Drakken off the wall she’d pinned him against – and, screaming with utter bloodcurdling rage, threw him up through the first hole, leaping up into the hole after him. Finding him groaning in agony, she picked him up again – and threw him up through second hole. Going after him once more, she picked him up again – and this time began to furiously punch the living daylights out of the mad scientist. POW! She drove a low uppercut into his gut.THOK! She delivered a stinging jab to his jawbone.WHAM! She caught his upper chest with a vicious sidearm. CRACK! She crunched her next knuckle sandwich across his face so hard, Drakken was sent spinning in midair. Before he could hit the ground, Shego spun into a bicycle kick, connecting the kick just under his chin – and with enough force that it launched him backwards, up through the last hole she’d blasted. She heard him crash into something in the new room, which was as dark as all night. “That,” she snorted as she leaped into the darkened room after him, her hands fully alight in her green flames, “is true football.” She advanced on Drakken. “However, I always liked playing Rugby more.”
Suddenly, a familiar crackling sound ripped the air, getting louder and louder. The increase in volume of the noise was accompanied by the increase in appearances of an even more familiar glow, resulting from the sparking and dancing of blue energy. The darkened room lit just up a bit more with each new glow. Then someone finally got the bright idea of turning on the light. Shego looked around in partial shock.
Surrounding her was a near-militia of Drakken’s henchmen, all of them carrying the signature energy lances Drakken had designed. “So that’s where the henchmen have been all this time…” Shego sniped.
Drakken scuttled away as she flared her green flames even higher and beckoned the henchmen to attack.
“You know what the funny thing is?” Tara asked as she dodged a spin kick from Ron and countered with a decimating punch that landed on his cheek with a solid THWACK!
“What?” Ron asked, stumbling back from the punch and blocking another gut-check attempt from her.
“That when a good guy goes bad, they always seem to be better at being bad than the regular bad guys.” Tara fell to her knees and rolled out of the way of his attempt to sweep her feet out from under her and throw her down to the ground. “I mean, c’mon – you should know all about that, right? Right - Zorpox?”
CRUNCH! Ron’s fist rammed into her gut. Tara lurched backwards, gasping for air. She recovered, snatched up one of the chairs around the conference table, and clotheslined the charging Ron with it. “Oooh – did I happen to hit a nerve with that one, Ron?” she laughed as he lay sprawled on the ground. He attempted to trip her, but she nimbly leaped into a backflip, landing on the edge of the tabletop. She watched him try to get up again - and when he couldn’t, she set up, then leaped off the table and fell on him, driving her elbow into his chest, letting him gasp for air as she laughed evilly. “Or are you in shock that I just floored you twice with two moves that came from the “sport” you just love so damned much?”
“The fact that I went bad doesn’t come into play here,” he growled, struggling to pick himself up off the ground. “For one, that happened via outside circumstances – that were completely out of my control!” Ron snapped as he finally found the strength in his legs to stand – and did just that, setting into a stance.
“Oh, it may have been caused by something out of your control, but let’s face it – it wouldn’t have worked had you not already had the evil inside you –right?” Tara chortled. “I mean, really – wasn’t it your “tips” to Señor Senior Sr. about how to turn his house into a lair that started his career as a villain?”
They circled each other. “Yes,” Ron stammered. “But I didn’t tell him he should’ve become a villain!”
“Oh, no, no - “He made that choice on his own!” Blah blah, boring, boring - you still suggested it well.”
“Your point in all this, Tara?” asked Ron, already getting annoyed and fed up.
“My point is-” POW! She punched him in the chin, launching him into a backflip – then with a scream of nothing but pure rage, kicked him as hard as she could – which was enough to send him clear over the conference table and into the curtains on the back wall, which fell down over him, metal bars and all. Tara walked over to him and grinned. “It’s always the quiet ones who end up doing the most damage.”
“I’ve never heard it said like that before.” Ron sprang to his feet.
“Hmmph. Clearly you haven’t taken a course that involves politics,” Tara chuckled.
Ron ran at her. She attempted to sidearm him, but he smashed her arm away and kept coming at her. He grabbed her by her shoulders and threw her like a track hammer over the conference table. Tara slid down the tabletop after landing on it halfway over it – and breathed a sigh of relief as she stopped at the edge, almost falling off. “I know enough about politics, Tara – for instance: You’ll never get my vote!”
He threw his hands up to collect all the strength he needed – then picked up the entire conference table, sending Tara tumbling to the ground. He proceeded to tip the table over next, crashing it down on top of the screaming blonde girl. “Sorry ‘bout that, Tara-” He clapped his hands free of dust as he walked away from the cloud of it that rose from the rubble pile. “I hate having to damage good mahogany like that. Oh, and I know you’re most likely still alive under all that rubble – but you know what? I’m not gonna finish the job, as much as you deserve it. Wanna know why? Because I’m a disciple of the great art that is Monkey Kung Fu. And as it says in the mystical monkey scriptures: “A true Monkey Master knows that, in battle, true victory is achieved only when not does he cause his opponent’s banana fall from the tree – but rather, lets it stay on the branches even in his defeat of them.” I must honour the sacred monkey texts.”
Kim had no idea how Shego was faring. Her face was almost drenched in tears under the mask as she fended off the snarling dogs for the umpteen-thousandth time. For poodles, these dogs were definitely more dangerous than even the most rabid of rottweilers. Hell, she didn’t even know if Shego as a dog would be as dangerous as these dogs. Tara had trained them pretty well, despite what she’d trained them for being not exactly what one thinks of when told a dog has been trained. All Kim knew was thus: She’d heard gunshots. The dogs seemed to equate gunshots with a meal, judging from the fact they instantly paused and their ears stiffened when the shot had rung out. And briefly, she’d seen Shego on her knees in the hallway, while Drakken stood over her pointing a gun to her head. She had to keep the dogs from escaping and going after Shego. But she also had to do it without killing them – even if they deserved it. She didn’t want anyone else to die. Wade was already going to be devastated as it was…
She shut the door to the hallway. That was probably a good first step in preventing them from going after Shego. As the dogs once again lunged for her, she swung hard and knocked them backwards a few feet. She looked up. She’d bought a few seconds as the dogs recovered before they would charge her and she’d have to defend herself once again. She scanned everywhere frantically. There was no way that there wasn’t. There had to be something somewhere in the room that would hold the ravenous mutts…
She looked up once again – and nearly smacked herself in the head as hard as she could. The cage. The cage that had just recently held her family, Ron’s family, and her friend Monique as hostages of Dr. Drakken’s. The damned dogs would jump into it in a flash – and the bars were just close enough together that they couldn’t slip through. It’d be perfect. How could she have missed something like that?
She ran for the levers. She knew one of them opened the bottom of the cage. She just had to find the one that lowered it to the ground. But almost at the levers, the dogs both jumped her, rolling back along the ground with her, preventing her from getting to the levers – at least, preventing her from at the moment.
Shego leapt over two henchmen and kicked two more jumping towards her in the face, twisting them away from her. Landing, she grabbed the energy lances of another henchman and swung it like a bo staff at the circle of them that instantly closed in around her. She struck five of them with the lance, rendering them unconscious, then kicked, punched, clawed, and beat her way through the remainder of the circle.
She looked up to see Drakken running for the door. “Nunh-uh, Blueface!” She fired a stream of green energy just in front of the door, sending part of the ceiling tumbling down, the rubble blocking it quite well. She backflipped over a henchman running at her from behind, kicking him in the back so hard, he slammed to the ground and went out light like a light. She ducked a henchman leaping at her from her left, sending him tumbling into the pile of concrete now in front of the door, and gut-checked the henchman she took the lance from with her boot as he attempted to trip her up and steal the lance back.
There were about 3 henchmen left standing now. And in about 4 seconds, there were no more standing. Shego looked up at Dr. Drakken. “YOU’RE MINE NOW, YOU FUCKING BASTARD!” she screeched as she took off after him. She powered up her green energy as he ran towards a staircase at the other side of the room. He jumped down the stairs as she launched a massive blast of it at him. It missed however, and with an impact so powerful the room shook, the blast ripped through the ceiling and wall – exposing the land outside, which, due to the grass and sky she saw, let Shego know they were at the top of the lair. She powered up her green energy again as she raced to the staircase. Drakken was frantically running down it. “OH, YOU’RE GOIN’ DOWN, DRAKKEN!” Shego yelled as she brought her hands up over her head. “NOW – DIE!” she bellowed, and hurled an even more massive blast of green energy straight down the staircase. Drakken barely jumped free as the blast violently ripped down past his level.
It was such a powerful blast; in fact, it tore down through every level, finally stopping when it slammed a hole through the floor above the room that the Ron versus Tara fight had taken place in. “Holy-!” Ron exclaimed, jumping back as the room shook like a madman and the ceiling shattered into a colossal hole.
When the whole building shook, Kim knew something was going on. When she saw Ron jump back from a massive stream of green energy that tore down through the ceiling, her heart raced. SHEGO!
When the dogs attacked her again, she found some renewed strength and used that to pummel the two poodles as hard as she could, sending them sailing through the air and landing just under the cage.
She raced back to the levers. “C’mon, c’mon, which one, which one?” she asked herself, her hand hovering. She didn’t have much time. So she randomly pulled a lever.
The chain holding the cage moved down rapidly – not enough to shatter the cage, but enough that the dogs weren’t able to move away before it slammed onto the ground. “Yes! YES!” Kim rejoiced.
Now she just had to lure the dogs into the cage.
Ron looked up at the hole blasted through the ceiling, curious. “What the hell?” he asked himself.
Suddenly, Tara exploded out from the rubble of the desk, grabbing Ron’s feet and yanking his legs out from under him. Ron slammed into the ground with his face landing first. Tara picked him and prepared to do more – when Drakken’s voice above stopped her. “TARACHEEKS – LET’S JET, HONEY!”
“Oh, you are sooo lucky, Ron…” Tara growled. “COMING, DRAKKIE-POO!”
“Huh?” asked Ron – and then was answered when Tara activated a jetpack and blasted her way up through the hole. Drakken was waiting for her, and when she blasted past him, he fired up his own jetpack and followed her. “Oh, sonofacrapbitch – KIM! I’M GOIN’ AFTER TARA AND DRAKKEN!”
He punched a few buttons on the belt of his Battle Suit, activated its jetpack, and blasted up through the hole after the villains. Kim ran into the room – carrying the dogs that she’d finally trapped in the cage. She frantically yelled up the hole, using the Battle Suit’s amplification system. “SHEGO! SHEGO!”
“WHAT?” Shego yelled.
Kim nearly cried under the mask. She was alive! Shego was alive!
“ARE YOU OKAY?” Kim yelled up at her.
“YES – NOW WILL FIRE UP YOUR JET PACK, GET UP HERE, AND GRAB ME ALONG THE WAY SO WE CAN GO AFTER THOSE MOTHERFUCKING BASTARDS?” Shego shrieked.
Kim smiled through her relieved tears. Instantly, with her thought, her jetpack emerged and fired, taking her up through the hole. Shego had her hands out as she went by, and Kim snatched up the woman she loved in them. Shego looked at her in confusion. “Kimmie?”
“Oh!” Kim allowed the thought, and the mask vanished away from her face. “Centurion Project.”
Shego grinned. “Nice.”
“Cool, huh?” Kim asked.
“Not as cool as you, Kimmie.” With that, Shego leaned in to kiss her lover.
They emerged from the hole and landed. Kim put the cage with the dogs down – and due to the sight in front of her, willed the mask to sprout back up over her face. “Good thinking, Kimmie,” Shego said.
In front of them, Tara kicked Ron off of her as she and Drakken leaped into the Go Jet.
“Oh, they did NOT just do that!” Shego growled.
“Well, uh, they just, uh – did.” Kim looked at Shego as they both raced to stop the villains from getting away. Watching from the plane that had brought Kim to the base, the one she’d almost given up in, were her family, Ron’s family, and Monique. Good for them…She motioned for them to stay out of sight.
“Hah hah, Kim Possible! There is just one last thing I did that I have the Memory Modifier to thank for covering up all this time!” Drakken cackled. He punched a button on the dashboard of the plane.
The faint BONG…BONG…BONG…made Kim freeze in her tracks. She threw her hand out to stop Shego from running by. “Shego, no! Listen!” Shego, upon doing so, just got even angrier.
“Oh my fucking god – Blueface here is gonna find himself hurtling into the sun after all this, you know…” Shego growled as she and Kim retreated all the way back to where the other plane was.
In seconds, the Go Jet wasn’t the Go Jet anymore. Instead, it had transformed into a giant robot.
“I PUT THE 2ND HESPHAESTUS PROJECT IN THE GO JET!” Drakken cackled maniacally. “NOW NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO STOP TARA AND I FROM TAKING OVER! AHAHA!”
He fired up the robot’s rockets and blasted off, heading straight for the center of Reykjavik.
“Shit! He’s goin’ for the city!” Kim cursed.
“Well?” Shego asked. “Got a jet pack for me?”
“No. Just make sure that he doesn’t blast the people we came to rescue!”
Shego nodded. Yeah, she was disappointed, but she knew from her past that there was no arguing. What had to be done had to be done. She didn’t have a jetpack; she couldn’t go after the thing with the ability to get out of its way fast enough, especially since the robots had been improved since last time.
“RON! JET PACK! LASERS! C’MON!” she bellowed, firing up her own jetpack and taking off towards the giant robot.
“ALREADY AHEAD OF YA’ ON THAT ONE, KP!” Ron yelled as he joined in configuration with Kim. They both put their Battle Suits’ shields up as they zoomed towards their target.
Seeing them, Drakken spun the robot around and aimed the major plasma gun at the two teens.
“Steady…” Ron yelled as the weapon powered up. “NOW!”
Just as the weapon fired, Kim and Ron veered off in opposite directions, the plasma blast soaring through the air and dissipating harmlessly in the air behind them as they pulled up and hovered.
“BLAST!” Drakken yelled, turning the robot back towards Reykjavik, deciding to ignore his pursuers for now. “Missed them!”
Tara gasped. “My babies!”
“Huhwha?” Drakken asked.
“Kara! Fang! We have to go back and get them, Drakkie!”
“You cannot be serious - yes, honey!” Drakken squeaked as soon as he saw Tara’s face. He turned the robot around, and headed back for the hidden base to retrieve the dogs snarling and clawing at the cage.
“Oh, shit – KP, LOOK OUT!” Ron yelled as the robot came back right at Kim. Kim whirled around and immediately blasted up out of the way, as the robot passed through below where’d she’d been. She turned around and zipped right back on its tail, Ron on the other side – and whilst she activated the Centurion Project’s lasers, Ron activated his Battle Suit’s lasers – and together they fired blast after blast at the robot. But the laser blasts did nothing – the Hesphaestus Project was cybertronic, too – so it just repaired itself each time a new blast from Kim and Ron’s lasers hit it. Kim sighed. Shit…what now?
“What the hell? Why is he turning around?” Shego asked as she watched.
The snarling and barking not far from her answered her question. She looked over at the dogs trapped in the cage “Oh, yeah – KIMMIE! HE’S COMING BACK TO GET THE DOGS!”
Kim acknowledged Shego’s tip, and looked at Ron. “RON! LET’S GET THE DOGS BEFORE THEY DO!” she yelled. Ron nodded, and the two fired up their jet packs more and blasted ahead of the robot, heading low to the ground to save fuel.
“Hmm…” Drakken thought as the other plane, Shego, and Kim and Ron came into view up ahead. “This may be beneficial after all – I can snatch the dogs and take out all of them at the same time!” he exclaimed. He leaned in to kiss Tara. “Oh, Taracheeks, thank you for telling me to turn around!”
“You’re welcome, Drakkie!” Tara cooed. Then her tone changed. “Just don’t fry the dogs – or else…”
“I know! I know! I swear that I will not hurt Kara or Fang!” Drakken mimicked taking an oath in court.
Kim and Ron had reached the dogs first. But the giant robot was now upon them. Landing the robot a bit far away - to keep the range of the plasma gun accurate – Drakken cackled delightedly as he aimed it.
“So he’s gonna take us all at once?” Shego asked. “Might not be so insane after all.”
“What?” Kim asked.
“I mean, Kimmie, that it’s a very good strategic decision. Take out everyone at once - instant win.”
“Oh. Well, I knew that…” Kim grumbled.
Drakken laughed uproariously as the plasma gun powered up. “GOODBYE, KI-HUH?”
The ground was shaking.
Violently.
Suddenly:
KEE-RACK! The tundra-covered ground split wide apart as another giant robot rose out of the ground.
“WHAT?” Drakken yelled.
“Oh, great – two of ‘em!” Shego moaned. “Could this get any worse?”
“Wait! Shego! Wait!” Kim pointed at the logo on the back of the robot. “GJ! IT’S GJ!”
“Uh, hello, Kimmie? GJ betrayed?” Shego asked.
“THIS IS KEN DU, HEAD OF GLOBAL JUSTICE! GIVE IT UP, DR. DRAKKEN! YOUR RUSE IS OVER! ALL YOUR OTHER ROBOTS HAVE ALREADY BEEN DESTROYED!”
Kim smiled the “I told you so!” smile back at Shego.
“Well, I’ll be…” Shego grinned. “Looks like somebody finally came to their senses after all.”
“YOU MAY HAVE DESTROYED MY OTHER ROBOTS, BUT YOU CAN’T STOP ME!” Drakken yelled through the robot’s mic in retaliation. He turned to Tara. “Come, Tara – let’s get the dogs and blast the hell out of here! We’ve got twenty seconds!” he said, setting the robot’s self-destruct sequence to go – not noticing as he and Tara bolted for the hatch that it was only set for ten seconds. They’d just reached the top of the hatch, and Drakken had already begun to blast away from the robot - when it exploded in a massive fireball. The fireball hurled a piece of metal into Tara’s jetpack, which damaged it badly enough that it stopped working. “DRAKKIE!” she screamed as she plummeted down.
“TARACHEEKS!” Drakken yelled, and turned around to dive after her.
But Tara was going faster, and she soon hit the ground, splitting her lip wide open upon impact.
She heard snarling. Looked up. “KARA! FANG!” She yelled excitedly upon seeing the dogs, which were out of the cage thanks to a piece of the destroyed robot that had smashed into the front and damaged the lock, swinging the door open. But when she smiled at her pets, the dogs didn’t change their expression. “Kara? Fang?” she slowly backed up as they continued to snarl. Almost falling backwards, she gasped as she looked back. She was at the edge of the deep crack in the ground just made by GJ’s giant robot. Then she noticed the blood trail from her lip gash – and quickly realised the dogs were sniffing that trail.
Her eyes flashed open as the poodles advanced more on her. “Kara! Fang! It’s me! It’s Tara, sweeties! It’s TarRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!” she screamed as the dogs pounced her, and all three tumbled down over the edge of the crack into the black darkness.
“TARACHEEKS!” Drakken zoomed down into the crack after her.
Kim averted her eyes. “Oh god – not again…” All the Centurion Project armour disappeared back into the ring around her wrist as she buried her head in Shego’s chest and Ron came over to comfort as well.
“Shhh…it’s okay, Kimmie…” Shego patted her lover’s hair calmly. “It’s all over…It’s all over…It’s all over…” A single tear dripped from her eye as she hugged Kim quite tightly against her chest.
END CHAPTER NINETEEN