Shego had learned many things during her somewhat turbulent relationship with her former foe, the least of which was that when Kim became obsessed with something, nothing, short of a 'very special episode,' was going to wave her off from her objective.
The first time that Shego was exposed to this tautology was when Kim announced she'd gotten sick of the ex-villain's classic color scheme and insisted that Shego wear something red. Initially, Shego thought it was laughable, she'd made a very distinct style for herself and she was not going to compromise it. But then the complaining started, first as comments whenever they met, eventually leading up to full out arguments on the merits of varying style with respect to maintaining secrecy of her location and maintaining her current bedmate. Eventually Shego caved and wore a sleek, curve-hugging red dress on one of their dates. It was a nice dress that cost Shego more than a little cash and ultimately ended up in pieces on the floor less than a minute after the two returned to Kim's dorm after dinner.
Coincidentally, that was also the night Shego learned there were benefits to losing an argument.
None of the times Shego came into conflict with Kim's obsessions before, however, had prepared her for the abruptness of the argument she gotten into the previous day.
“What do you mean, no?” asked Shego, more than a little perplexed. “Don't I get any say in this?”
“Not really,” Kim shook her head as she sipped her latte. They were sitting in the Café Carlitos drinking coffee before Kim's classes, one of many times during the day and week they started regularly meeting at now that Shego didn't have to look over her shoulder for the police every five minutes.
“Look, Princess,” said Shego, leaning on the arm of the overstuffed chair she was sitting in. “I realize things have been changing quickly since this HenchCo thing, but I'm going to keep more than an inch of personal space, whether you want me to or not.”
“I have no problem with that,” Kim simply said. She looked up from the textbook she was studying for her macroeconomics test the next day. “I'm not moving in.”
“I would think not,” agreed Shego.
“I wanna see it though,” the redhead nodded. “Maybe inaugurate it a little,” she added coyly.
“It's just…” Shego struggled for words. “It’s not ready yet. For you. I'm still having all my stuff moved from the various storage lots and hideouts I've had.” Shego sighed. “Let's just keep things as they've been until the new year.”
Kim raised an eyebrow and looked Shego right in the eyes. “Shego, for the last eight months, Beth has been graciously letting us randomly kick her out of her OWN dorm for our … time together.”
“I know that,” said Shego, irritated.
“Now that you have a place of your own, with no roommates, that's not going to fly anymore.” Kim shook her head. “Actually, the last month of you being around almost constantly has driven her slightly up the wall.”
“She never said anything,” protested the raven-haired woman. “I thought she was happy for us.”
“She is happy!” exclaimed Kim. “But only that you beat the law so we can be together, not that she's been sleeping in the lounge.”
“Hrm,” grumbled Shego.
“Anyway, I don't see what the big deal is,” said Kim, finishing off her drink. “What's the worst that your house could be? Messy? Please, like any of Drakken's lairs was the pinnacle of cleanliness.”
“It's just that…” Shego hesitated. “It's mine.”
“I thought most of it belonged to Hench,” asked Kim.
“Well, the loan's in his name,” the pale woman admitted. “Even though Interpol isn't distributing my name anymore I still wouldn't be able to get a bank to give me a positive credit rating.” She looked out the large windows at the morning sky. “It's just that… I've never had a home before. Even when I was young. I'm just afraid I'm going to break the illusion and it'll all disappear.”
Kim paused, looking thoughtful, then stood and moved to sit on the arm of Shego's chair. Wrapping her arm around the shoulders of the ex-thief, she hugged her gently. “It's all real, you don't have to worry,” she said, kindly.
Shego patting Kim's arm softly. “I know.”
“But you should keep in mind,” added Kim. “If we don’t start spending at least a little time away from my dorm, Beth will murder me in my sleep.”
Shego laughed and nodded wordlessly.
Afterwards they set up a time to meet the next day. Thursday. 'Their' day, as it had been for the first six months of their relationship. Shego was nervous the whole morning for reasons she couldn't comprehend.
After Kim's last final for the semester, Shego was waiting for her outside the academic building in her car.
“Come on, Princess,” she said waving the test-weary student over. Kim only gaped at the Cadillac for a moment before jumping into the passenger seat.
“Perk of work?” asked Kim, tossing her books onto the back seat.
“Are you kidding?” smiled Shego. “Hench wanted me to have some old man's Buick. I insisted on a convertible. It's not like I'm poor, anyway.”
“Just don't leave this thing parked at the university,” joked Kim. “There's about a zero percent chance it'll be there when you get back.”
“I'll keep that in mind,” said Shego as she put the car in gear.
The trip was brief, which was one of Shego's considerations when looking for a house near the university. She wanted easy access to the school while still being within a handful of miles from where Hench had set up her office. The final restriction was the location of the GJ development facility she would be interacting with, but that turned out to be a non-issue. Dr. Director wasn't going to be giving her access to that location and instead offered her access to the nearby Northeast headquarters. It seemed a little strange to deny her access to a development facility but grant authority to enter headquarters until Shego realized that the HQ was not only the location of the largest number of agents but also their most secure jails.
Shego pulled up to the house and parked on the street to give Kim a good look at the exterior. The house was modest for the street, but definitely a step above the 50's style ranch that Kim's parents had. The house was a two story colonial with a pair of white columns in the front to either side of the front door. A single car garage came off to one side, causing the driveway to turn sharply left near the entrance, and apparently had a room above it as the roof was even with the rest of the house. The windows were new, and adorned with dark gray shutters on the light green siding. On the opposite side of the house to the garage a semi-circular extension sprouted, extending to both floors. The half-moon shape had large arched windows covering the majority of its height.
Kim blinked, simply. “Wow,” she said, impressed.
Shego smiled and headed for the front door. Kim followed, casually looking around at the neighborhood, which featured similarly sized but differently styled houses. Shego's was far from the only colonial, but there were several other ranches and split levels on the street as well, ending with a gated property and a long drive to a manor on the hill. Kim idly wondered if that was Jack Hench's house, but dismissed the idea as she knew HenchCo HQ was closer to Middleton than her university.
Stepping side, Kim realized why Shego wanted to wait until she'd had more time to settle in. The first floor was mostly vacant of anything to show her personality. The kitchen had a large oak table that was probably as old as the house, with a set of folding chairs around it and little else. A living room had an oversized couch in it and a flat screen television but no tables, stands, or decoration. A pair of large, dark double doors appeared to lead into the half-moon shaped extension but they were closed.
“I don't want you in there,” Shego said when she spied Kim approaching the doors. The redhead froze and boggled at her companion. Because of the open design of the first floor, from the kitchen Shego could see just about the entirety of the floor. The former thief was making a pair of apple martini's but clearly keeping an eye on Kim's wandering.
“Why not?” Kim said, raising an eyebrow. “Hatching some villainous plot to take over the world from in there?”
“Please,” dismissed Shego with a wave of her hand. “Yes, I keep all my nefarious equipment in the room with the giant windows. That'll ensure my privacy.”
“Then you'll have no problem with me taking a look,” the younger girl turned back towards the doors.
“That's just my study,” supplied Shego as she poured the green concoction into two martini glasses.
“You have a study?” Kim said, shocked. “What, you study?“
“Okay, you're not winning any awards here in our relationship today.” The black and green dressed girl handed a martini to Kim with one hand while casually shuffling her away from the double doors with the other.
“And you're definitely failing to keep me from being interested in what's in that room.” Kim sipped the drink and noted it was on the strong side. It was also a gin martini, which had been Shego's favorite, where as Kim usually preferred vodka. She swallowed the bitter beverage. “If you had just said it was dusty, I probably wouldn't have thought twice but now you've got me interested.”
“Well, get disinterested,” snapped Shego as she went into the kitchen to retrieve the other glass.
Kim paused. “I'm sorry, Sheeg,” she said honestly. “I was just teasing you.”
Shego grumbled something then headed for the living room. Kim glanced once at the doors and then followed. Once they reached the couch, they plopped down together and Kim tried to let the day drain out of her. Her finals, of which she had two on her last day, were finally over and all she really wanted to do is relax, not argue with her lover.
“It's all right if it was just teasing,” said Shego suddenly. Kim had tipped her head back to rest it on the couch pillows but she looked up when she heard Shego speak. “But I shouldn't have to…” she hesitated. “I'm not going to lie to you to manipulate you or ask you to do something I know you wouldn't normally do. You have to start trusting me, pumpkin. I'm getting tried of you asking me to explain every decision I make.”
Kim nodded solemnly and Shego looked into her worried eyes. “Hey, it's okay,” she said reassuringly. She leaned slightly against Kim for emphasis. “I told you before. I have to have a little space to myself. I've still got a need to be independent in some ways and one of those is having a little place where I'm the only one allowed.”
Kim looked up. “I get it,” she said softly. “I didn't mean to make it seem like I don't trust you. I just get suspicious when I think things are being hidden from me.”
Shego smirked. “Still the hero.”
“Maybe,” Kim said, smiling slightly and moving her face closer to Shego's. “But I'm chasing you for a completely different reason.”
“You'd have to be,” said Shego confidently. “Otherwise I'd never let you catch me.”
“'Let me catch you?'” repeated Kim. “As if. You'd only get away if I let you escape.”
“Please, princess, you can stand toe to toe with me but you know I'd win out in the end.”
“Win out?” asked Kim, incredulously. “I've beaten you many times before!”
“You beat Drakken's plans,” corrected Shego. “If I was fighting for me, and just for me, you couldn't lay a finger on me.”
“Oh, is that right?” quizzed Kim. “What about Bueno Nacho, hmm?”
“You didn't beat me,” said Shego. “You cheated. AND you had that crazy suit.” Shego paused for a moment. “Speaking of which, what ever happened to that thing?”
The liveliness drained out of Kim and she looked away. “I … lost it.”
“Lost it?” asked Shego, frowning. “What, in the laundry?”
“It was… stolen,” said Kim, awkwardly. “From my parent's house by Maya Tromper.”
Shego's eyes went wide. “Oh,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I didn't know.” She looked around awkwardly for a few moments, then added, “You never talk about her, really.”
“I don't really like to,” said Kim, sipping her drink. “You'll be at GJ, though, so if you really need to know just find out from them.”
“I'm sure they're not going to let me dig through their files un-chaperoned,” Shego said dryly.
“Undoubtedly electronic security has reached a new zenith under Wade's watchful eye, but probably still vulnerable to a resourceful thief,” she looked at Shego expectantly. “Of course, you are an ex-thief.”
“Oh yes,” nodded Shego. “Very ex. I would never dream of dropping that prefix.” She looked to the side. “Well, not that anyone could prove, anyway.”
“Uh-huh,” mused Kim, staring off towards the large bay windows at the front of the house. She nestled against Shego, letting the warmth of the elder woman comfort her.
Shego stared ahead, lost in thought, and gently stroked Kim's hair. After a few moments she sipped her martini and looked slightly down at the redhead. “Do you want me to find out?” she asked. “About Tromper. Is it something I need to know?”
Kim furrowed her brow but didn’t move. “Not really,” she said softly.
“Then I won't,” said Shego with a nod. “You can trust me.”
Kim slowly nodded, then closed her eyes and put an arm around Shego's waist. The two held each other closely, sitting quietly on the large sofa, watching the golden rays of the slowly setting sun until it vanished below the horizon.
At night, there were rarely more than a dozen people in the Global Justice Midwest Headquarters command center. While the organization was absolutely a twenty-four hour affair, there was a series of rotating HQ offices that took command of global activities at different times of the day and night. Since, globally, United States Midwest was the seat of all of GJ's operations, it retained global control between six in the morning and eight at night. But after then, it moved to Sapporo, then Brussels, then back to Middleton, aka Midwest HQ. The governing philosophy being that while there could be people trained to be awake on an opposite schedule as most people in the US, they couldn't have the whole staff on duty. Even those they found to be moved to an alternate schedule would be the best the espionage agency had to offer and that was unacceptable.
So night in the command center was, effectively, night like any other company with global holdings. Enough staff for support, enough staff to wake the critical staff in an emergency, and the odd late-nighter lingering around until they passed out.
Naturally, Dr. Elizabeth Director was one of the latter. Despite the organizational scheme of GJ, she couldn't really keep herself out of the affairs of the other offices during the night. She had too much of a controlling personality to ever really let anyone manage anything without keeping an eye on their progress. She wouldn't intervene unless it was appropriate or she was asked but she had to know, otherwise how could she be an effective leader?
Unfortunately, tonight was proving to be one of those harrowing nights where everything was going smoothly. Betty hated those, if only because it took her the better part of the night to convince herself to go home and do her remaining work in the morning.
“I'm going home,” Betty announced to the command floor. Six people were there tonight. Three were technicians, two were operating the monitoring stations that spat gobs of global and local information onto the twenty-six foot tall intractable screen at the front of the room, and the last was an agent commander, just two steps below the second in command Agent Du.
“Finally assured that nothing is wrong with the world tonight?” asked the towering Commander Al Ferris. He would be placed in command with Betty's departure so he picked up the evening log and walked it over to her for her to sign as she descended the stairs from her suspended glass office.
“There's plenty wrong with the world,” said Betty, paging briefly through the clipboard before signing the top sheet. “There's just nothing I can do tonight about it.” She handed the clipboard over to the agent in charge. “Be sure to have our G-Project technicians on call at GJ Northeast and make sure internal security is appraised. Shego will be there tomorrow.”
“Not making the trip yourself?” asked Commander Ferris, tucking the clipboard under his arm.
Dr. Director sighed and rubbed the back of her neck. “I can't watch her forever. As long as Ms. Possible vouches for her, I'll give her a little slack.”
“Very well, sir,” nodded the commander. “Have a good--”
“Director?” a technician interrupted from his console in the third row in the command center.
“The 'Director' has retired for the night,” said Betty with a smile. She patted Ferris on the back.
“What is it, agent?” asked the commander as Betty turned to leave.
“I have an agent from Communications with something strange to report,” the technician said, uneasily. “I can patch him to the screen.”
“Where?” asked Ferris, frowning. “Tokyo?”
“Uh, here, sir,” replied the agent. “Floor twenty-eight.”
“Here?” asked Betty, turning just before reaching the door. Her eye was wide. “There's something strange going on here?”
“I'm patching him through,” said the technician.
Moments later a window popped up on the main screen with a video feed showing an aged man, probably in his late sixties, wearing a dirty labcoat and cleaning his glasses. The identifier tag at the bottom of the window held a barcode and the name 'Dr. Francis Garrick, PhD.” He pushed his thin framed lenses onto his nose and nodded.
“Dr. Director,” he said casually, pushing his hands into his grimy pockets.
“Dr. Garrick,” said Betty, stepping up beside Ferris. “You're looking… unkempt.”
“I apologize Director,” the elderly man said with a half nod. “I was just in the crawlspace above corridor J-17a, it's not… entirely sanitary.”
“What were you doing there, Doctor?” asked Ferris.
“Uh, well, I was searching for a class F disturbance in our internal relay network.” The doctor pulled out a notepad from his coat and began fumbling through it. “We were testing our high-output wireless communications protocol when we encountered a sympathetic signal that was disrupting our receptors along J-wing.” He paused in his search and ran his finger down a page full of scribbles. “We were receiving a … yeah, a -0.753 cancellation effect. We don't, uh, we don't have anything operating that close to the network protocol so I went looking for it.”
“And you found it in a crawlspace in J-wing?” asked Ferris, incredulously.
“Yeah, that's right,” nodded the doctor on the screen. He began digging in his pockets again.
“What's in J-wing?” mused Ferris to Betty. “Non-hazardous storage, equipment lockup, galley, food stock, conference rooms E-11 through F-16--”
“Long term care,” added Betty. “Infirmary II.”
“Even then, it's far from a sensitive area of the base. In fact, it's probably one of the least.”
“Ah, here it is,” came Garrick's voice. Betty and Al looked up at the screen. The doctor was holding up a small cube-like device with a small pair of antennae on one side. It looked like a miniature television. “This is what I found up there. It's really small, but pretty incredible. It was piggybacking our wireless signal until we boosted the density of our transmission and it could no longer hide effectively. I'm not entirely sure what it does, but--”
The sound of papers hitting the ground caused Ferris to turn and look at Betty. Her work had fallen out of her grasp as she stared opened jawed at the screen.
“Director?” cautiously asked Ferris.
“Cale!” she suddenly burst out. The technician who had reported the call earlier suddenly perked up and turned to listen. “I want to see a close-up of that thing. Snap a shot and zoom.”
Betty raced down to the front of the room as the screen changed to show a large picture of the cube-like device being held by Dr. Garrick. Betty stepped back to get a good look at the silver box. Her eyes traced it's straight lines and lingered at each of the corners.
“Betty?” Garrick asked softly as he came up behind her. She spun on him.
“It's a Luminocodec!” she said, angrily.
“A what?” asked Garrick.
Betty turned to the side, lost in thought for a moment. “That's why it was in J-wing, close to where Long Term Care is.”
“Um, Director,” said the commander. “I'm a little confused as to what's--”
“Allucinere is in Long Term Care!” yelled Betty. “Get a detail down there NOW! I'll meet them there!” She bounded out of the command center, her papers discarded and forgotten.
As she ran full tilt through the base, Betty couldn't help but criticize herself. Of course she's always kept an eye on everything, it was the best way to know what was going on. But there were some people, devious people, for which merely keeping an eye on was just the same as not watching at all.
Betty got to the J-wing corridor near junction 17 and noticed a full squad of security agents waiting for her. At her arrival, the nearest six saluted immediately while the remaining four stood watching the door to Long Term Care or the hallway for any sign of movement. Betty wanted to scream at how meaningless the vigil was in this circumstance, but she couldn't get over the guilt that she'd been fooled under the same pretense.
Or maybe not, Betty thought. She had to hold up hope that maybe, just maybe, the Luminocodec was old, and a remnant from when Allucinere was first caught. It was a distant hope but she tried to cling to it, as it was the only way she was able to gather the courage to step into the ward.
Immediately after entering the now well guarded door, Betty was assaulted with the stench of medicine. The Long Term Care ward was a special facility in the GJ base for the unfortunate victims of irreparable harm over the course of a GJ operation. Half of the patients here were agents themselves once upon a time, while the other half was split between civilians and obsessed villains.
The people here weren't injured, they were devastated. Some in comas, some with high levels of brain damage, some experiencing time at an alternate pace than the rest of the world. All of them the result of mad science and perfect examples of why the world's greatest minds need to be restrained with the most rigid of laws regarding human experimentation. Betty hated this facility because of the stench, but she hated it more because each person was a time when GJ got there just a little too late.
Walking solemnly through the ward, Betty moved to the end, to the only bed behind hefty steel bars and containing a rather petit woman with long red hair, covered up to her chin with a blanked and hooked up to a least three machines supposedly monitoring her comatose state.
Betty stared, searing the image onto her eye, watching the body in the bed for any sign something was amiss. The blanket moved regularly with her breaths, the machines responded appropriately, there was even a slight gust of air brushing across her hair as the security agents quickly shuffled behind Betty.
Without blinking, Betty stared, unable to take her eye away for a moment. There would be a sign of some sort of she was right, and nothing if she was wrong. God she hoped she was wrong. She didn't need this to happen today. She didn't want to have to deal with this threat again. She didn't want to have to go back to Kim and tell her, “Gee, not only did we screw up once with this girl--”
And then, the image of the girl in the bed flickered just for a microsecond.
Betty felt like she could cry.
“Shego!” yelled Kim from her table at the Rhino Chops, the decidedly bizarre name for a fantastic sandwich and salad place just three blocks from the campus apartments. She was having lunch with Kelly Wellings, a girl from her macroeconomics class, but she stood and waved down her green ex-thief as soon as she caught sight of her at the door.
Shego noticed the redhead immediately and started wading through the crowds of post-finals students alternating between delight for their conclusion and absolute depression over the certainty of failure. Shego could care less and shoved both types of people out of her way with equal, and probably excessive, force. Reaching Kim, they two briefly hugged (an action that Kim had not only insisted was more acceptable in public than a kiss between two women, but made clear was expected from her bedmate) and Shego sat, waving over a waiter for an iced tea and a club.
After a brief bout of introductions, Kim raised an eyebrow. “So, what are you doing her?”
Shego blinked. “Was I not welcome?”
“She's afraid you might have some concept of the global marketplace and therefore easily do better on her economics test than she did,” said Kelly, dryly. She poked at her salad a few times before taking another bite.
“Hey!” protested Kim. “I knew… some of what was on that test.”
“I'm not really all that interested in how the global economy works,” admitted Shego. “If things from here sell higher in Switzerland, then I'm a happy girl.”
Kim frowned.
“Well, I was anyway,” shrugged Shego.
“Answer my question,” Kim said coldly.
“What am I doing here?” repeated Shego. “I'm not entirely sure. I was kept out of … uh,” she eyed Kim's friend. “Betty's this morning because of some security issue. Jack told me to linger around until I get the go ahead from the director.”
“Security issue?” asked Kim. “Think it was serious?”
“It's only my second week,” the thief said as her drink arrived and she took a sip. “I couldn't tell you what's regular over there yet.”
Kim mused silently as she poked at her salad. Kelly turned to look at Shego. “So, I'm surprised I got to meet you,” she said casually.
“What's that supposed to mean?” asked the raven-haired woman.
“Kim had always been rather vague when talking about you,” explained the taller brunette. “I was curious if you were real.”
“Oh, I'm all real,” said Shego instinctively, then hesitated. “That sounded strange.”
“I wasn't going to say anything,” started Kelly. “But, yeah.”
“Almost like a come-on,” said Shego, curiously.
“Again, not saying anything.” The girl took another bite of her salad.
“Stop flirting,” commented Kim, coming back to the conversation.
“I'm not!” protested Shego.
“She's definitely not,” agreed Kelly.
Shego looked back at Kelly with a frown. “Now what's that supposed to mean?”
“It means you're not flirting with me,” replied Kelly. “What else is it supposed to mean?”
“You said it like I couldn't possibly ever flirt with you,” explained Shego. “Like I'm beneath you.”
Kelly looked around the restaurant suspiciously, then leaned closer to Shego. “Do you want to be flirting with me?” she asked, curiously.
“No!”
“Then I don't see what the problem is,” concluded Kelly, finishing her salad.
Shego opened and closed her mouth a few times before turning to Kim. “I don't like your friends.”
“Tough,” said Kim, throwing her napkin in her salad bowl. “We should talk about Christmas.”
“We definitely should not,” said emphatically as her club sandwich arrived. “It won't end well for you, trust me.” The server took Kim and Kelly's finished salads.
“You said you'd come visit,” said Kim, pointing a finger across the table. “And I won't have you breaking your word.”
“First off,” Shego explained between bites of turkey. “Breaking my word is hardly news. And secondly, I don't exactly have fond memories of Middleton. I'd lay odds your father would think I was kidnapping you if I even showed up.”
“Eh, he thinks you're with the circus,” said Kim with a wave of her hand.
“Kidnapping? Circus?” Kelly looked puzzled between the two girls.
“We had an interesting time growing up,” said Kim.
“Growing up?” repeated Kelly. She pointed at Shego. “Aren't you like, way older than Kim?”
“Way older?” exclaimed Shego.
“Let's not go there,” Kim nervously said.
“How old, exactly, do you think I am?” snarled Shego.
Kim stood and grabbed Shego's arm. “We're leaving.”
“I dunno, twenty-nine? Thirty?” mused Kelly.
Shego's fists flared green and Kim quickly grabbed her forearms and twisted them behind her back. “Sorry, gotta run,” Kim apologized to Kelly while dragging Shego away.
“Let me go!” yelled the raving girl. “I just want to fix her eyes!”
“Let's go, Sparky,” grumbled Kim, finally pulling Shego through the door. Her hands felt like they were burning and she looked down to see them engulfed in Shego's green flames that were quickly expanding up her arms.
“Yow!” Kim yelled, and immediately let go of Shego, waving her hands around franticly.
Shego spun and noticed the lingering glow on Kim's hands and felt her angry immediately dry up. “Don't panic!” she said insistently, moving around trying to catch Kim's eye. “It's gone! Just calm down!”
Kim slowed and looked back down at her hands again. They were red from the heat but not blistering and were slowly fading back to their original color. She breathed deeply and looked back up at Shego. Her eyes instantly looked panicked again. “Hey!” she pointed.
“Wha?” asked Shego, confused and looked down to see her arms engulfed in green flames from her fists to her shoulders.
“Oh,” she said flatly. She closed her eyes and scrunched up her face in concentration before the green energies died down and eventually vanished. A bead of sweat trickled down her face as she opened her eyes again. “Better?”
Kim blinked. “What the hell was that? I've never seen you do that before.”
“Sorry,” shrugged Shego as she turned to walk away from the restaurant back towards campus.
“Sorry?” echoed Kim as she ran to catch up. She looked up at the face of her lover and tried to read the expression she wore there. The best she could come up with was: guilty. Kim frowned. “Seriously, what's going on?”
“Nothing is going on,” said Shego looking away. “I just lost control for a second. It's not a big deal.”
“Lost control?” repeated Kim.
“Can you please stop that,” said Shego, irritated.
“Stop what?”
“Stop repeating everything I say like a question!” Shego threw her arms in the air in frustration and started walking faster. Kim hesitated then matched her strides. Shego scowled at her. “I just got a little carried away because your 'friend' Kelly is a jerk.”
“Well, you wouldn't be the first to say so,” said Kim lightly, trying to improve the mood.
Beep-beep-be-beep!
Shego's eyes went wide as she spun on her foot to stare at Kim, who wilted slightly. “It's just a cell phone,” the redhead said weakly. She pulled out the simple metallic clamshell and flipped it open. “What's the…” she paused. “I mean, hey, Beth. What's up?”
“Kim,” the voice on the other end said urgently. “You need to come down here to the Quad right away!”
“What? Why?” Kim furrowed her brow.
“There's been this guy here asking crazily for you for the last half-hour and he's dressed… a little strangely,” said Beth. “And he's wearing a mask.”
“That doesn't narrow it down for me,” explained Kim. “Nobody has said anything, have they?”
“About you? No, not really. But he didn't give up until…” she trailed off.
“What is it?” asked Kim, listening closer on the phone.
“He just collapsed!” Beth suddenly yelled. “I gotta go, hon, and call campus health. Bye!”
“Wai--” started Kim but the line was already closed.
“What was that?” asked Shego, trying not to sound curious.
“We gotta get back to the apartments,” Kim said, stuffing her phone in her pants. “I think someone just got hurt.”
She started to run, but was grabbed after the second step and pulled back. Kim looked at the hand holding her then stared up at Shego's serious face.
“Shego, what do you think--”
“Are you sure you want to go?” asked Shego plainly. “You know where this road ends if you do.”
Kim locked eyes with Shego and found herself a sudden prisoner in her fierce gaze. Shego was being stern but there was just a hint of sympathy behind her green gaze. Kim had to force herself to blink.
“I don't want to be involved like I was,” she finally said. “But that doesn't mean I'm going to compromise my morals to stay away.”
Shego nodded. “I just want to make sure you know what we're getting into.”
Kim smiled slightly and put her hand over Shego's. “Thank you.”
The ex-thief slowly released her grip. “Let's go then,” she announced and started running. Kim only watched her for a second before following.
By the time they reached the Quad, a courtyard between three of the major apartment towers at the university, a crowd had already gathered. Kim suspected it was the man who Beth called her earlier about but she was caught completely off guard at the figure she saw thrashing despite the best efforts of the paramedics that had arrived.
Shego was equally as surprised.
“Hego!” Shego yelled as soon as she saw the blue and black outfit. She pushed her way immediately through the crowd, knocking people left and right until she came to the three paramedics wearily trying to grab ahold of the constantly moving form. Another paramedic was nearby, nursing what appeared to be a broken nose.
“What happened?” asked Shego as she reached the medics. She tried to get in closer but her brother's flailing made it hard. Blood was spilled in many places, partly from the paramedics broken nose and partly, Shego now realized, from the blood dripping from Hego's own nose.
“He's having some sort of a seizure,” one of the medics responded, a young man with short brown hair and a goatee. “But he's a beast, we can't get him still long enough to restrain him.”
Hego gurgled sickly but his eyes caught a hold of Shego kneeling nearby. Kim had made her way through the crowd by now and was trying to get in closer.
“Siiiister!” Hego screamed in agony. He whole body twisted and turned under unseen forces. “It's … tearing … me apart!” he yelled cryptically.
Shego paled and stood up suddenly. “He's not having a seizure,” she announced and quickly wound up and kicked her brother hard in the ribs causing him to spasm and roll over onto his stomach.
“Shego!” scolded Kim but the green girl wouldn’t listen.
Shego dropped her knees onto Hego's back hard and he sputtered in pain but remained under her grip. She grabbed ahold of the back of the hero's jumpsuit and pulled quickly, tearing a long, large gash across the back.
Kim stared in almost revulsion at the writhing mass beneath Hego's skin. It looked like his muscles were twisting and move on their own, with no regard to how they normally should be working. His skin writhed and pulsated as if an army of ants lived beneath it all. Unsure of what was going on, Kim could only watch in silence as Shego suddenly pressed her fingers up Hego's spine, her lips moving silently as she counted.
After a few counts and recounting, Shego lifted up her hand with her fingers together and pointing towards the area she'd just had her fingers on. Her fingers exploded with green energy, shocking the nearby paramedics into scrambling away from the green flame wielding woman. Completely ignorant of everyone else around her, Shego narrowed her eyes and slightly adjusted her flaming fingers before moving.
Her hand shot down like an arrow striking Hego's back and immediately slicing the sturdy skin with her energy-enhanced claws. Her fingers dug at least an inch or so into her brother's body and Kim winced at the brutal scream that he bellowed for just over three seconds before suddenly dying away. Kim immediately reached out a hand to restrain Shego when the shaking mass of flesh that was Hego began to calm and relax. His body slowed its movement then stopped alto her, save for small signs of breathing.
Shego pulled her hand away and got off her brother's back. A small bead of blood ran down her hand as the only sign of what she'd just done. When she'd stepped back beside Kim and away from Hego, the paramedics converged on him and began taking his vitals and administering drugs.
Shego wiped her hand on her pants and looked at her brother with a sympathetic look. Her breathing was steady but her eyes were racing around the scene at lightning speed.
Kim looked at Shego and was completely at a loss to figure out what to do next. She wasn't even sure what had just happened. But if she knew anything right now, it's that Shego had that look on, the one that meant any question Kim asked would be the wrong one. Torn between her desire to know, and her knowledge that Shego wouldn't tell her if she asked, Kim only stood in silence, waiting for something to break the status quo.
“Kim!” a voice called from behind the crowd. Many of the looker-ons had been as shocked as Kim was and were saying very little as Hego was being examined by the three remaining paramedics. So the voice of Beth, Kim's roommate, was clear as day.
Kim turned in time to see Beth push her way through the crowd. “What just happened?”
Kim stood with he mouth slightly open for several moments, just on the verge of speaking with each second, before finally turning her gaze to Shego. “I'm not sure,” was all Kim could say. Shego turned to look at Kim and in the instant their eyes met, Kim knew something was wrong, something dreadful.
“Shego…” started Kim but she couldn't figure out what to follow it with.
“I need to go,” Shego said emotionlessly. “Please,” she insisted, “watch my dumb brother for me.” Without waiting for an answer, she turned and fled.
“Shego!” Kim called afterwards but to no avail.
“Ma'am,” one of the paramedics tapped Kim on the shoulder just as she was considering running after her lover. The ex-heroine turned and looked up at the brown-haired paramedic. “Do you know this man?” he asked.
“Yes,” nodded Kim. “Kinda. What's wrong?”
The medic sighed. “I'm not really sure,” he said. “I'm not positive it wasn't a seizure but based on what just happened, it would have to be a remarkable coincidence that it ended at the same time that woman attacked him.”
“She didn't attack him,” said Kim forcefully. She was so lost and confused right now she clung the few scraps of her life she knew and could act on. Her desire to defend Shego was an easy one. “She was … she was helping.”
“It seemed to quell the shakes,” agreed the paramedic. “I don't know why, though. We need to take him to a hospital to get tests done. As the only contact we have at the moment, you need to come with us.”
Kim shivered involuntarily. She didn't like hospitals that much these days, not since… “O-okay,” she nodded. The paramedic turned to see that Hego had been put onto a stretcher and lifted into the ambulance. Kim swallowed and followed the paramedic silently back to the ambulance.