As Shego left Kim behind on the rooftop, she shoved her black wig into her satchel, which she’d left behind a dumpster in a nearby alley along with her glossy black motorcycle helmet. Grabbing both items, she stepped two paces away and then stopped. Reaching up with one hand, she grasped the upper corner of one of the huge green patches in her leather bodysuit and pulled, lifting the flap of leather off of the thin strips of adhesive that had held it in place only seconds earlier as securely as if it were a sewn seam. This adhesive was just another of Dr D’s strange creations, although Shego had some serious doubts that he had actually come up with this stuff on his own. It was some kind of chemically engineered polymer that would bond semi-permanently with any surface of a specifically selected material and nothing else. To any other material, the adhesive would work about as well as melted butter. Of course, the stuff had to be completely redesigned and regenerated if Shego ever wanted to use it to stick to something other than the lamb leather it was currently “programmed” for, but she had no plans for something so useless. The adhesive had its uses to be sure, but they were few and far between. And the semi in the semi-permanent came from the fact that this weird stuff had a tendency to bond unbreakably at every point except where a specific chemical marker was placed. At the upper corner of the largest green patch on Shego’s suit, for example, at the junction of two adhesive strips, there was a small patch of the chemical marker. The marker was basically one half of a weaker adhesive polymer that would only become the slightest bit adhesive once it was combined with its other half, which was on the underside of the upper corner of the green patch. This weaker adhesive bonded about as well as Velcro, which was good enough since it was only about as large as a dime, but the cool thing was how this adhesive interacted with the super-strips on Shego’s suit. When the weaker, Velcro type was linked with the strips, it became a sort of control mechanism. As soon as the two halves of the weaker compound were separated again, the strips would react and release their bonds like magnets repelling each other. It was a…interesting method of switching from her trademark colours to a less conspicuous look, even though it wasn’t really her style.
Still, it was better to stay hidden than to get caught.
Glancing around the deserted alley, Shego flipped the green flap of leather over to the other side of her chest and fastened it down on the other adhesive strips that were there, revealing that the green flap of leather was only green on one side, while the area where it had just been was still covered in black leather. With a soft sigh of annoyance at the work this always took, Shego bent to the task of transforming her occasionally excessively flashy bodysuit.
A few minutes later, a tall short-haired redhead in an all-black leather body suit stepped out of the alley and started walking down the street, swinging a black satchel over her shoulder carelessly. God I hate having to ditch my colours, she thought. But it was necessary; Global Justice still had a large sum of money out for her capture, and their agents were many. It had hurt even more to have to cut off her hair, but that too had been a necessary sacrifice if Shego had wanted to continue living free – and she always wanted to be free. Those many times that Kim had managed to get her thrown into prison were not the source of her most pleasant memories. And that time that Señor Senior Junior thought he could sing – ugh…I’ve got to remember to get Kimmie back for that…
As she walked, Shego thought of the one friend she’d had in these past four years. Although, she thought. Friend might have been the wrong word for her. We had been a villain and hero-worshipper at best. Kaia had been…something else. That Norwegian, pint-sized blonde had been an odd one, to worship Shego like she had.
<Flashback>
It’s been ten freakin’ months, Shego thought, walking down some nameless street in some nameless town in Norway. What the Hell is wrong with me? Why can’t I get her out of my head?
She wanted to scream. She really did. Unfortunately, even in so small a town, news of a crazy foreign woman in easily recognisable shades of green and black could spread quite quickly. So, she held in her frustration, waiting until she could be alone in her flat to shriek into a pillow and destroy her vocal chords for a few hours. A handy thing accelerated healing…Shego almost thought about thankingDr Drakken for giving her that small comfort along with the rest of his bio-chem cocktail.
Almost.
Instead, Shego just reached up with one hand and ran it through her long black hair. Maybe I should think about doing something with it, she thought. It’d give me a chance at sneaking back into America without raising any flags. She grimaced. Every other country in the world seemed to be so lax in security right now – except the good old United States. It seemed like Global Justice only cared that Shego stay away from the land of the free, if they actually cared all. She hadn’t seen a single agent in five months and the last one had been little more than a freak accident. Stupid janitorial job…Should have done dishwashing.
Shego had been working as a janitor in a shopping complex in Hong Kong when some jerk-off with a gun and no job thought she’d make a good hostage. He’d grabbed her mop and used it to put her into a rather clumsy headlock. If she’d wanted to, Shego could have easily broken out, but she’d been having a boring day, and this promised to be entertaining. If this jerk’s threats weren’t amusing enough, the authorities’ frantic attempts to preserve a life certainly would be, especially since that life was quite capable of defending itself.
In the end, they’d ended up negotiating and the unemployed hack walked off with Shego’s job, which she’d all too willingly given up when asked by an uptight suit with glasses. He’d had GJ written all over him but he hadn’t recognised her. He must have been a new guy.
From Hong Kong, Shego had moved to Siberia for a little adventure. The thrill had worn off as soon as the raven-haired villainess had realised that there was no Dr D and his world-famous world-class-failures to attract a certain redheaded teen hero. Of course, as soon as she’d had that thought she’d been so angry with herself she’d actually used her climbing claws on her own leg, resulting in a bit of an extended stay. God Dammit,she’d thought as she lay in that hospital bed, her leg healing faster than normal, but not quite fast enough to allow her to escape. All this damned globe-trotting is supposed to get that brat out of my head, not remind me how much I miss – No!
Back in present-day Norway, Shego rounded a corner and walked straight into –.
Nothing.
Confused for a moment, she finally looked down to see a short blonde girl staring up at her in shock. The kid couldn’t have been any more than fifteen.
It probably wasn’t her skin colour, since she’d been sure to put her makeup on, covering only her face and neck today since she had no plans to remove her clothes in public. Not for a long time at least. Shego continued to stare at the girl, trying to figure out what could have her so spooked. No way a kid from this backwater place could have heard of me, is there?
Apparently so.
The girl stared up at Shego, her shock quickly fading as she said a single word. “Shego.”
Dammit. “What do you want?” Shego’s grasp of the language wasn’t the best, but she could get by well enough.
Moving quicker than she’d expected, the girl threw herself at Shego – or rather, at Shego’s waist. The kid wasreally short. Wrapping her arms around the mildly disguised fugitive, the girl flew into a stream of words that bombarded Shego like a machine gun. Questions, introductions, requests, compliments.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Shego none-too-gently pried the girl off of her and held her at arms’ length. “Who are you?”
The girl beamed. “My name is Kaia and I like you.”
[“My name is Kaia and I like you.” Peh…
Shego snorted. That girl had been nothing but trouble from the start.]
She hadn’t turned the villainess in, which might have been the more merciful thing to do in retrospect. Hell, if Shego had ever lost her sanity for an instant in those two months, she might have tried to turn herself in! Kaia hadn’t even told her parents who her new friend was, and as it turned out, no one else in the town ever recognised her – except Kaia, and she only knew who the villainess was because she’d been keeping track of the world-class super-thief’s entire life over the Internet. The one time Shego had been over to the little runt’s house, she’d seen that the girl’s bedroom walls – and even her ceiling – were completely plastered with photographs, newspaper clippings, pictures blown-up to poster size, and even drawings…
All of Shego.
Well, mostly. There were some drawings of Shego with a blonde girl – no guesses as to who that was, and a few pictures with some of the many duels that Shego had fought with Kim. In the centre of one wall, there had been a small, almost artistic-looking 4x6 of Kim and Shego, standing far apart but staring seriously across the distance between them in preparation for yet another of their impromptu dances – one in hatred and rage, and the other with determination and apprehension.
It was the worst case of hero-worship that Shego had ever seen, but she’d thought it pretty harmless until two months later.
The night Kaia had knocked on Shego’s door at 2 in the morning to talk about how she lost her virginity to her boyfriend was the day Shego cut her hair. She’d already let the girl into her flat when the girl started going into her story of the night’s oh-so-graphic events and Shego had really wanted to just push the girl out of a window for taking what was supposed to be a distant friendship and turning it into “best friends forever”.
But the super-villain just didn’t have it in her to hurt the kid. A thief and devoted criminal she may be, but a murderer – never if she could help it. And, seconds later, Shego had realized she didn’t even have it in her to break her little fan’s heart with an enraged rant that would curl her ears. So, she’d instead jumped onto the plan she’d been toying with for weeks…
She’d offered the girl her hair in return for a night of silence.
Of course Kaia had squealed at the offer and asked many times if she was serious, but in the end, Shego unceremoniously chopped her hair short, packed her bags, and left Norway. It wasn’t until a few days later that she’d begun to regret just giving away her familiar, luxuriously soft locks, but it was too late by then. And besides, it would always grow back – quite quickly too. In fact, to keep her short hair to keep up her disguise, Shego found that she’d had to cut it almost monthly. Just a few months, and she could have her waist-long hair back, good as new.
<End Flashback>
Shego kicked at the ground. She’d been back to Norway a couple times – briefly. She didn’t know why, other than the fact that Kaia had been the only one in a long time who hadn’t attacked her on sight or run to hide in a corner, and she’d also been a welcome distraction from Shego’s own inner demons, which had continued to attack her with a barrage of hurtful truths she hadn’t wanted to hear.
Kaia seemed to have calmed down now. Her relationship with what’s-his-name fell through by the time Shego visited the first time, and Kaia had come over to her flat to cry but she hadn’t been as touchy-feely as the villainess had remembered. She was still just as friendly though. Shego’s sudden departure must have kicked more sense into the girl than her words ever could have, and for that Shego was eternally grateful. She’d been a little apprehensive about visiting that first time, but now…she almost looked forward to the next one.
Shaking her head at the turn of her thoughts, Shego turned into another alley and walked as far as the first dumpster before stopping. Right beside the rank iron box there was a tarp-covered pile of – something, and Shego reached forward to tear the tarp off, chuckling a little at the sloppy camouflage. A wide grin slid across her face at the beauty she saw before her. There she is…
The Ghost.
It was essentially, a motorcycle. The fact that Drakken had designed and built the thing, however, made it a technological marvel. It had no weapons, which didn’t really mean anything to Shego – it was only a mode of transport, after all.
But, say what you want about the snake’s ineptitude when it comes to grand schemes, his little projects are flawless. Shego climbed on the midnight black machine and fired up its compact but powerful engine. Drakken’s research and experimentation had enabled him to compress the complete workings of a Ferrari Enzo into a smaller, much lighter package that could be run on a litre of regular gasoline per thousand kilometres. The mutated Enzo engine was still as efficient and powerful as ever, if not more. The walking blueberry’s idea to put his super-Enzo engine into a modified Suzuki sports bike’s frame was a nice touch too. And, the fact that the Ghost was only about a third the size of a Ferrari made Shego’s bike fast enough to outrun anything short of an army helicopter.
Drakken had built only one Ghost and designed it specifically for his second-in-command. He’d made sure that as much of the bike as possible was built from his almleti alloy. The lead content of the plasma-neutralizing metal was quite low – only about ten percent, which didn’t logically seem to be high enough to block the radiation from Shego’s hands, but she didn’t really dwell on that too much – so almleti was still a light enough material for her bike to run on. Drakken’s own nanotechnology had been used to equip the Ghost with a fair level of self-repair capability. A small control centre in the bike’s console was used to coordinate and relay commands to the trillions of nanodrones that were housed in a tank under the rear seat cushion – just waiting to be unleashed. Dr D had also equipped the Ghost with all the usual goodies, like a high-tech heads-up display embedded in the windscreen, a global positioning system – which she’d gone through very thoroughly after leaving his employ to make sure no one could track her through her use of the thing –, a duplicate set of Shego’s personal toolkit, a few of his own personal toys, and an entire field repair kit for those times when Shego needed her bike fixed fast rather than well. The nanodrones could overwrite her sloppy repair jobs and completely fix the bike at a more opportune time. There were also quite a few things that Shego had taken without the cyan-skinned man’s knowledge to equip her baby even more.
Dr Drakken had built this bike as a sort of anniversary gift for her – her first year in his employ. Shego saw now that it had just been a ploy to keep her loyalty, but she had to admit that he delivered quite well. When she’d left him broken amidst his comatose lackeys, she’d made sure to take her stuff – and her bike – with her.
Shego smirked behind her helmet’s reflective black faceplate and revved the engine, riding the all-lime-green bike out into the heavy downtown traffic. She had chosen to forego her traditional colours just once and asked her boss to paint her baby all one colour – he never questioned why. And, now that she thought about it, Dr D never once asked her why the Ghost just seemed to wink out of existence as soon as he’d presented it to her.
Shego had no fear of being recognised in her all-black bodysuit; she wasn’t Shego. Shego didn’t own a homemade motorcycle of any kind – not according to any authorities that is. And besides, wasn’t Shego that egotistical villain that always painted everything in a combination of green…and black. So what would Shego be doing with an all-green bike? That was what Global was supposed to think, and it appeared to have worked.
Or, Global Justice just didn’t give a damn anymore. Shego had been out of the game for four years now, so what kind of threat could she pose?
Regardless, Shego had made sure never to take the Ghost out anywhere when she was wearing her trademark clothes.
No – instead, the bike was registered under Teri Nordham, her alternate identity.
Shego made her way through the slow traffic to the faster highway. Once there, she opened up the Ghost’s Enzo engine and let her bike fly down the blacktop at 120 kilometres an hour. Once she was comfortable, Shego let her mind slip into automatic.
She had other things to think about…
Like her private visit to Kim’s apartment.
<Flashback>
Just as Kim recovered from her second near-fall off her grappling hook wire, Shego had a sobering thought that she didn’t know how to interpret. It was like her subconscious was trying to speak to her – trying to tell her something.
Just how much have my feelings for her changed? And why am I suddenly so afraid?
Shego shook her head, filing that thought away for later. Any second, Kim would reach the end of her cable and would probably look back to see if her opponent in this game had really left the scene, and if Shego wanted to win this hunt, she couldn’t be seen at all by her opponent. Being seen was the first step to being caught, but it was very difficult to get caught if you weren’t seen. That was the first thing Shego had learned when she began her life of crime.
The closest place to hide, then, was back in Kim’s apartment. Anticipating her long night away from home, the former crime-fighter had switched off all the lights in the sixth-floor apartment, providing Shego with the perfect place to start their game. Plus, she had other things she needed to investigate in the redhead’s apartment.
So, grabbing hold of the roof’s edge with her left hand, she dug her climbing claws into the tough brick, taking a fleeting instant to appreciate Drakken’s generosity towards her – while she was working for him that is, ignorant of he part in destroying her life. While she had worked for him, he’d provided everything she ever asked for when she needed or wanted something. In fact, come to think of it, he’d designed and built more than half her gear, including her climbing claws.
When she gripped with her fingers, sensors embedded in the fingertips of the gloves took the intended motion and amplified it with the tiny motors that were built into each of the joints. For all intents and purposes, Shego’s climbing claws were basically solid almleti-plated robotic gloves that fit over her real hands. The steel claws were also coated in a diamond-hard black substance that Drakken had on hand, which was also impervious both to the plasma energy in her hands as well as every other kind of abuse that Shego had ever submitted them to. The specialized gloves were designed to do tremendous amounts of work without drawing very much power, so each glove was only running on a trio of lithium batteries, which were worth about two years of constant climbing before a gradual decline in power. Two minutes after the heat from her hands had left the fingertip sensors, the gloves would automatically shut down, so there was little to no drain on the batteries when she wasn’t using them.
With her gloves firmly gripped on the roof, Shego smoothly rolled off the edge and dropped down onto the balcony of Kim’s apartment. Then, she grabbed hold of the upper corner of one of the green patches on her bodysuit and pulled, flipping it over to the other side and continuing until she’d turned her bodysuit completely black, which blended far better into the shadows of Kim’s balcony.
She finished concealing herself just in time. She watched Kim reach the other side of the street and turn to look back – directly at Shego.
Shego froze and stared straight back. If her first lesson in stealth was to not be seen, her second had come soon after. If she was ever close to being seen, moving to a better hiding spot would only give her away. Experience had taught her that motion attracted attention while stillness did not, and there was always a chance that a passing guard’s gaze would simply sweep over her hiding spot. So, if someone was looking straight at the shadows in which she hid, the smart money was on remaining as still as humanly possible. That is, as long as the guard didn’t come too close. Shego was reluctant to admit it, but she knew all-too-well how this tactic could sometimes backfire on her. She’d learned a long time ago, however, when this stratagem had the best chance of succeeding, and this was exactly one of those times.
Kim looked at Shego for only a moment longer before turning away to greet her hacker friend’s hovercraft drone. Shego used that moment’s distraction to turn around and slide open the balcony door, smirking at the charred remains of the door lock. She could have gotten into Kim’s apartment without breaking the door, but she couldn’t resist playing around with the fiery redhead.
Once she was inside, Shego moved freely through Kim’s home. After a moment, she stopped and opened her mouth to taste the air silently, breathing in the residual emotions that hovered in the air. If her own were still here, she would be unable to sense them, but it was unlikely that her emotions were still in this place. She had left an hour ago, and had only been her once, so her emotions wouldn’t have had any time to sink into the environment.
Shego had taken a great deal of time during high school to learn how emotions and her sixth sense worked. After a long time, she had finally gotten to the point where her ESP held no secrets from her.
Whenever Kim was in her home, anything she touched would become infused with whatever emotions she was feeling at the time. Emotions could only be captured by solid objects, like a book or a couch, so Shego had to make sure to wear her almleti-lined gloves when she handled anything. She could sense all the trapped emotions in an area at once without touching an object, but to get a feel for the details of the captured emotions, she had to pick something up. Picking up anything would cause her to stop sensing the feelings in the air, and her sixth sense would instead focus on the object. Shego had never understood how her sixth sense could work without skin-on-object contact, but she’d resigned herself to the simple-yet-unrealistic rationalization that her powers extended through the gloves – or any other clothes she wore for that matter –, transforming the dual layer of almleti and leather into a kind of second skin.
The things that she could learn from a simple object were incredible, if uncontrollable. Normally, she could suppress her mind’s susceptibility to the trapped emotions if she so chose, but if she wanted to learn the nature of the captured emotions, she could not avoid feeling them herself. Overall, there were three main things she could learn from the experience: how often the emotion was passed onto the object, how recently it had been, and how strong the emotion was when it moved from a person to the thing.
Shego moved to the square coffee table where she’d left her bag and all her gear. She quickly switched her climbing claws for her almleti-lined leather pair. Slipping them on, she reached out and brushed her hand across the white couch where Kim had been sitting as they talked, stubbornly ignoring the fact that she couldn’t feel the softness of the fabric – unless she wanted to burn it to ashes. For a moment, she blocked out the emotions that Kim had passed on to the comfortable furniture, but then she closed her eyes and readied herself for the inevitable roller coaster ride of emotions she was sure to experience in her exploration of Kim’s home.
Finally, she released her control and drifted away on a gentle breeze of curiosity, tranquility, and playfulness. Nothing she didn’t expect, really; she’d sensed these feelings as they talked.
No, Shego learned nothing from the couch, but the exercise wasa good way to loosen up her empathy and allow her to be more sensitive to what emotions were trapped in places. So, Shego stepped away from the couch and sniffed the air again. If there was anything at all still in Kim’s apartment, she would be able to sense it. Shego started walking deeper into the apartment, her mind open to the chaotic soup of trapped emotions being radiated form all the objects around the room. She sensed contentment, comfort, frustration, anger, happiness, sadness, and – something else…
Shego froze mid-step and inhaled again, savouring the emotion that she hadn’t tasted in four years.
Excitement.
And not just any excitement; Kim’s excitement. It was normal for the same emotions from different people to feel a different way, but for some reason, Kim gave off emotions that were always so much richer and fresher than those of anyone else the villainess had encountered. As far as Shego was concerned, comparing Kim’s emotions to the worlds was like matching Swiss chocolate against a smarty.
Shego’s eyes fluttered closed as she lost herself in the delicious scent, drinking in the fragrance that she had been waiting four years to find once more. “That’s the Kim I know.”
She slowly made her way down the hallway, still high on the excitement in the air. While she had worked for Drakken, she had constantly berated herself for craving this emotion so much. She was supposed to hate Kim Possible – destroyer of her life, but she couldn’t help but love the girl’s emotions.
Stopping in the doorway to Kim’s bedroom, she cast out her senses and could feel the other emotions, all too faint to identify. In fact, the chocolate-and-lilies taste of Kim’s excitement was overshadowing everything, emotions that Shego had come to see. The emotions trapped within Kim’s bedroom would tell Shego more about Kim herself – maybe even if the girl was aware of her own secret desire.
Shego stepped into the room and breathed in the bittersweet scent-flavour of anticipation. Instinctively, she moved over to the closet and opened it slowly. That scent, that aura of anticipation grew a fraction stronger, and Shego looked around the large walk-in closet. Where is that coming from? She spotted a short, white clothing box and reached for it.
Before her hand had closed on it, however, Shego was sideswiped by a wave of guilt. What am I doing? She drew her hand back from the box and felt a little tremor of excitement hidden under that bittersweet anticipation. This is wrong. I shouldn’t be snooping around here. This isn’t fair to her.
She suddenly felt childish for her hesitation. I’m a thief; she narrowed her eyes and reached for the box again. When have I ever played fair? It’s the name of the game.Her fingers brushed the white cardboard box, and she felt Kim’s anticipation and excitement shoot through her like lightning. She sensed the emotions were deeply sown into this box, which meant Kim had picked up this box far more than once and every time she did, she was either anticipating something, excited, or both. The emotions weren’t sharp, though, so Kim’s excited anticipation wasn’t normally that strong. I wonder what’s in here, Shego thought, shifting the box so she could get at the lid.
“No,” Shego pushed the box away again suddenly and stepped back away from the open closet. “I won’t do it – not here, not now.” She closed her eyes and turned away from the plain white box that she knew was important to Kim. After all we’ve been through, it seems a little low – reaching in and taking answers that I’m too scared to ask the questions for. She deserves better.
Shego stepped even farther away from the closet and looked around the somewhat tidy bedroom This was an unusual feeling, she realized. To stand in the home of her greatest enemy and not only have no urge to steal anything, but to be utterly ashamed at the thought of disturbing a single white box.
Suddenly feeling drained, Shego moved over to the bed and sat down without thinking of the emotions she sensed emanating from the bed sheets.
As soon as Shego sat down, she was hit by an intense needle of sadness, like a knife-blade to her heart. She shot back to her feet, “whoa!” For a moment, she just stood and stared at the empty, innocent-looking bed, stunned speechless by the unexpected sour taste in Kim’s home.
What is that?She looked around the room, seeing it all differently all of a sudden. Turning back to the bed, she carefully placed a gloved finger on the pale green sheets and ran it silently up towards the pillow. For the first time in years, Shego hesitated to surrender herself to the sadness that was trapped in the sheets. Even though it had only been for an instant, she had only ever felt that horrible once in her entire life, and that event was now seven years distant. She had absolutely no desire to feel so hopeless again, but she sighed and lowered her mental defences all the same.
Despite the fact that she was ready for it this time, the sheer intensity of Kim’s sadness overcame Shego’s senses. She felt her throat tighten up, and her eyes started to water. A prolonged shudder sent her body into a trembling fit. Despair rose up from the depths of her heart. She felt as if her world had come to an end, but she had been left behind. A sob started to rise in her throat…
Shego tore her hand away from the bed sheet, hardly noticing when all the sensations that resulted from that pure sadness and despair vanished as if they never were – and they hadn’t really. Her vampiric power duplicated the emotions in her mind, but had no control over her bodily reactions to such feelings. But the pain was real enough; the emotional pain was more than real enough.
I don’t get it, she thought, looking around the room yet again. What do you have to be sad about, Kim Possible? And not just once either – you cry yourself to sleep every night, emotionally if not physically. And you’re not sad about nothing; you are sad about something huge.
Sensing something else, Shego brushed her hand across the bed again. Concentrating, she blocked out the sadness that had so mystified her. There was another emotion trapped here; something at least as strong as that sadness, but not quite as sharp. It was there as deeply infused into the bed sheets as the easier to identify emotion. Kim felt it as often as she felt her sorrow, but perhaps not as intensely. This emotion played second to her sadness, but was intimately connected to it – may have even been the cause of Kim’s unhappiness.
Loneliness.
Shego finally identified the cause of Kim’s deep sorrow or at least one of the causes. Kim Possible was alone. In a city of 3 million people, she was alone. She had an entire family that loved her and whom she loved just as much, but they were an entire country away. Kim’s old high school friends were still around, but the pressures and demands of the modern world had pushed them all apart. Kim had no one here to help her, no true friends – only classmates. She really was alone.
And it was tearing her apart inside.
Shego drew her hand back down Kim’s bed and tasted the bitter, dry loneliness. She had never liked that one. Then, she realized only half the loneliness she was feeling was bleeding off from the bed. Pulling her hand away, Shego slammed her mental block back down, and wasn’t entirely surprised to find that a large amount of it remained inside her head. She knew that this leftover loneliness was her own because it had no taste or smell. For as long as she’d been a…emotion vampire – Shego hesitated at the term –, she had never been able to taste her own emotions. It was probably a natural subconscious mechanism to keep Shego sane and aware of what things in her head were hers and what things were someone else’s
What really surprised Shego was not the fact that she was lonely, but the realization that she had felt this way for a long time, years really; she had just been too preoccupied with her professional life t realize it.
Although, now that she thought about it, she’d had brief moments where she would be hit by how terribly lonely her life was. Not long after her accident, Shego had realized that her social life was nonexistent now. She couldn’t get close to anyone without hurting them – not without the protection of her almleti gloves, and she got strange looks when she wore them everywhere. So, she’d simply given up on having a life outside of work, and had buried herself in every one of Drakken’s schemes, eventually forgetting all about her loneliness. But it had always been there, just below the surface. And her loneliness would always come back to the front of her mind in those times and places when everything was quiet, such as just after one of Dr D’s schemes had fallen apart.
Shego’s eyes widened suddenly as a new thought hit her. What if every time my loneliness resurfaced, it wasn’t because I was once again reminded of my handicap? What if my loneliness, my sorrow, is actually a product of having been so close to Kim Possible – fighting, joking – and then being separated again so fast? Does Kim’s absence cause me to get lonely, depressed, and sad? If that is the case, Shego was chilled by her next thought. No. It can’t be…
“Could I love Kim Possible?”
<End Flashback>
Shego returned her attention to the road ahead of her.
She’d fled Kim’s apartment at that question, more determined than ever to win this game and meet Kim, if only to discover if her own half-conclusion was true. She knew that Kim loved her; she had known that for a long time. And as strange as the thought of the girl she’d hated for three years falling for her was, Shego could accept it and move on with her life, whether Kim agreed to take her offer and work with her on the other side of the law or not. But, now that Shego had an ever-growing suspicion that she in turn had fallen for the redhead, this game had just become a little more interesting. Now, Kim’s decision to join her former nemesis or not was all the more important, as it would mean the difference between Kim and Shego working together to discover themselves and Kim and Shego going their separate ways, never to speak again. If Kim took the latter course, Shego just knew that she would end up globe-trotting and philosophizing countless increasingly unlikely “what-if” scenarios once again.
Shego now found that she had invested more than she had originally intended in this little game of theirs, but she wouldn’t back down. There was too much at stake to simply chicken out.
She didn’t have to dig very deeply to know that she had meant every word of what she said to her former enemy. Shego really did think that Kim would make a great villain. She had everything she needed – a quick mind, sharp reflexes, a killer fighting style, and a whole list of abilities that Shego hadn’t expected, not to mention the fact that the girl was always spouting off that oh-so-annoying quote of her father’s, “anything’s possible for a Possible.” Oh, how I hate hearing that from anyone but Ki-what? Shego snapped her eyes to the road, intensifying her focus on her driving instead of letting it drop in shock. Did I seriously just think that? Okay, it’s official – I’ve gone off the deep end. All Kim needed was a push in the right direction.
And maybe a good friend to teach her the finer details?
Yeah…
One thing was certain – Shego would have to accept whatever decision her former rival made, no matter how much she might disagree with it. She couldn’t force anything from Kim; to do so would completely defeat the purpose of giving her the choice in the first place, and would probably forever destroy any hope of regaining her trust.
Shego looked briefly at the empty passenger seat behind her. If all went well, and luck was on her side, she might soon have a partner to fill that void and share her adventures with. Now, for the first time, she was grateful to Dr Drakken for building herGhost with that second seat. At the time, she’d thought it rather redundant since the speedy bike was supposed to be for her own personal use and she’d been a lone rider ever since the accident in the toxic waste dump. No doubt Drakken had intended the second seat to be for him, but Shego had never shared his delusion that they were an item – especially not after she’d learned the truth.
Of course, if Kim turned her down, Shego would accept it, as much as it would hurt and as much as she would hate to. But, if only to make herself feel better, she would provide one last opportunity to Kim, just in case the spunky redhead ever decided to change her mind. Shego kind of liked this city, and not just because her favourite radio station was here. The people were a little nicer than many other places she’d been to, though Shego had only had limited exposure to them in her three months of living in Montreal. There was also something else here, some kind of feeling to this area that appealed to her.
Not to mention that…other thing that was here, in a museum somewhere in the downtown area.
In fact, she hadn’t told Kim – and didn’t really plan to – but her hotel room was a front, a place to stay until she finalized furniture for her new place. It hadn’t been terribly difficult to secure funds to pay for a small home out in a small town off the island; she had come from a family of wealth after all. And her shifting of various assets before quitting Drakken’s crew had certainly helped. She had a few belongings at the hotel – all of them really – but she wasn’t staying at the Holiday Inn for long.
And as for the rest of her belongings…well, they were in good hands. Kaia had promised to keep some of Shego’s things safe – probably because she’d made Shego promise that she would come back and get them sometime. That kid certainly was a strange one.
So, after their nice long chat, if the younger woman was still reluctant to take Shego’s invitation, the formerly raven-haired villain would be sure to give Kim the number to her cell phone – or, rather, Teri’s cell phone. Teri Nordham was Shego’s only alternate identity, and she was completely clean. What made it even better was that Teri Nordham was a real person, so Shego hadn’t had to go through the pains of creating an entire new alias – only modifying existing records. She’d met the woman once – a kind person, but Shego had no worries that the real Teri would come back and ruin her plans because she was dead now. Some time ago, Teri had gone to Tibet to become a Buddhist monk, and had been killed by a rockslide, which had in no way been Shego’s doing; the villain had already started working for Dr Drakken when that had happened. Because she’d died at the monastery – a primitive, back-to-nature place – her death was undocumented, and the world was none the wiser that someone had taken her name.
Shego was shaken out of her thoughts by flashing lights up ahead – a traffic accident. She eased up on the throttle and let her bike coast to a more reasonable speed. Merging into the growing line of stopped vehicles, she let out a sigh of frustration. This would certainly slow things down, and it wouldn’t do for Kim to show up to an empty hotel room. Shego would never hear the end of the jokes – although…a smile on Kim’s face wasn’t entirely a bad thing. Shego had never consciously realized it until a few hours ago, when she was sharing a nice drink with the redhead, but that self-satisfied grin really made Kim look good, that grin that she would wear whenever she gained the upper hand in one of their fights.
Shego smiled tenderly inside her motorcycle helmet. She would give anything to see that smile while Kim worked side-by-side with her instead of against her.
But that was all in Kim’s hands now.
A/N: And there you have it. Chapter 5, delivered as promised. Perhaps a little boring, perhaps a little out-of-character, but hey – I had fun writing Kaia…
Chapter 6 on its way…”soon”