“Tara.”
The single word echoed in the silent space of the huge room of the museum as Kim stared at the tall, wiry thin blonde standing over her and Shego with a confident… arrogant sneer on her face.
Tara King had certainly grown up in the four years since they'd last seen each other; that much was clear in the way the young woman held herself. The girl that Kim had known from the Cheer squad had always been one to stand proudly before the world, unashamed of anything that might be said about her, true or false, but most often when she was standing alongside any of the stronger, more forceful, and supportive personalities that she had known. It had usually been Bonnie who filled that role, but Kim had helped Tara to crawl out of her shell from time to time.
That shy – and even somewhat timid – girl was gone, replaced with a woman who held herself up boldly without help, and who even seemed to be acting like the world turned on her whim. There was a wild fire in her eyes that Kim had never seen before, and it made the young blonde look angry, furious…almost bitter. It was as if Tara was under the impression that the entire world was set against her and she could count on no one but herself.
Life had obviously not treated Tara well, but when her eyes turned from Shego to Kim and back – clearly not recognizing the redhead – the arrogant smirk that twisted her features grew a little and it seemed like her worldly problems were set aside. ‘Yes,’ Kim thought; ‘here is a creature that lives truly in the moment so she doesn't need to think about how life has screwed her over. How she's been dealt such bad cards – I don't know, but I'm a curious girl, aren't I?’
“Oh,” Tara grinned spitefully, “look what we have here,” she spoke slowly, as if she relished every single syllable that passed through her lips as she turned her attention back to Shego. “I'm surprised you remembered my name, Shego, but telling your little friend 'bout me? I suppose I should be flattered, but I'm really not.”
Kim watched Shego's hand clench into a tight fist and fall from its place on her lap, flopping to the floor to start melting into the dark marble tiles as her plasma-emitting hands encountered it. “I don't really have to dignify that remark with a reply, do I?”
Kim started to reach out to lay a comforting hand on Shego's arm – like she'd done back at Chez Cora's to keep Shego from outright tackling Dr Director – but the villainess was up on her feet before she could move. ‘Oh, crap…’
Before she could stop herself, Kim had reached into Shego's agitated, insulted, and infuriated mind and taken out one of her partner's thoughts to read. ‘I should rip you a new one for your colossal arrogance you stuck-up, no-talent excuse for a –!’
Kim slammed her own mental shield up, cutting off the outside thought. ‘Sorry, Shego…’
“Ooh,” Tara took a single step back from the seething green-and-black clad villainess. “Looks like Pretty Kitty's got claws,” she slashed out with one hand and made an exaggerated imitation of a cat's hiss. “Better watch out, Pretty Kitty,” she sneered, slipping the fingers of her left hand down to hover over a familiar looking, shimmering silver bracelet on her right wrist, “or I might have to pull out my own claws, and we both know what happens then.”
“Yeah,” Shego scoffed, “mass property damage that somehow gets blamed on me.”
Tara shrugged carelessly, “it's not my fault I'm breaking walls to get to you.” She ran her fingers along the bracelet and it began to glow with a dull, bronze light.
Shego almost snarled and Kim looked fearfully from the one to the other. ‘Anger, fury, rage –everything you used to feel for me, Shego. Something really big happened between you two, didn't it?’ Right then, Kim resolved to grill her partner for all the juicy details as soon as they were away from the museum.
“Hey, Brat.” Shego was growling at Tara now, seeming very much like a wild animal, “get a freakin' clue – you couldn't even hit me if I was standing still, so why don't you get some training, and then try and stop us?”
“I've got all the training I need right here,” Tara tapped the glowing bracelet on her right wrist. “So, shall we?” Tara took an aggressive and severely flawed attack stance. “I haven't had a chance to kick your ass for over three years; what happened – did I scare you into dropping out of sight?”
Shego made no move to adopt any kind of fighting stance. “Say,” she drawled casually, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes, “where's your sidekick?”
For the first time since she'd interrupted them, a worried look of compassion entered into Tara's expression. “He's…”
“I'm coming, Tara!”
Kim heard a loud crash as someone ran into the suit of armour she'd seen in the other room and both of the women with her groaned wearily. Kim on the other hand, couldn't help the broad, happy smile from appearing on her face. ‘Some things just never change,’ she thought fondly.
And indeed, the cacophony of clashing medieval iron and steel plating actually got worse instead of getting better. When the cause of all this god-awful noise finally came into view, ever-accompanied by his own personal percussion section, Kim wasn't at all surprised to see that both arms of the fallen suit of armour had somehow detached themselves from the main suit and had latched onto the tall blond boy with – unsurprisingly – iron grips; one had him by the tail of his familiar black mission shirt, while the other had grabbed onto the back of his tan cargo-pants clad knee. With every step the now 22-year old boy took, the two complete and severed arms banged against each other, the tiled floor, and against their captive prisoner, drawing a yelping cry of pain from the young man.
“Aow!”
With a final high-pitched yowl, and with all three women looking on in silence – one in stunned disbelief, another in speechless embarrassment, and the last in delighted contentment at reawakened memories – Ronald Stoppable, childhood friend of Kim Possible, collapsed at Tara's feet with a deafening clang from his two unlikely attackers. Groaning, he rolled over onto his back and gazed up at the other blonde.
“Hey, Tara –.” He spoke in as conversational a tone as he could, as if nothing was wrong; he reached down and tried unsuccessfully to pry the metal arm off his leg. “A little help, please?” He stared up at her with a hopeful expression.
Tara made a noise like a leaking tire, but she bent to help free Ron from the metal arms anyway. “I swear, Ron, I really don't know why I put up with you.”
Ron climbed up off the floor and brushed himself off, “is it 'cuz I'm cute?”
Tara scowled, but Kim could see the softness in the blonde's eyes and it was so familiar to her – it was like the old Tara was still there in the woman before her, but she would only allow that girl to bee seen by Ron – her last link to that past, as it were. The gentle inner Tara that Kim had known was sheltered and hidden from everyone else, protected by her newer, bolder, arrogant personality.
“I hate when you do that,” she muttered, almost pouting as she turned her attention back to Shego. “So, Shego – we meet again, and this time you've brought a playmate for Ron.” She turned a bored half-smile on Kim. “Seems to me like she could use a little more training, thought; her fashion sense is horrendous.“
Kim glanced over at her partner and narrowed her eyes, concentrating. ‘Shego,’ she thought, wondering if this would even work.
Standing a metre or so away from the redhead, Shego flinched as if she'd just been slapped. ‘Damn that was loud – whoever heard of loud thoughts?’
Lowering her “voice”, Kim tried again, ‘Shego.’
Shego's eyes narrowed instantly and she turned her gaze to meet Kim's narrowed eyes. ‘Kim,’ even mentally, the taller woman managed to make her voice sound like a growl. ‘What have I told you about rooting around in my head?’
Kim made sure not to let her smile show through her passive mask. ‘Shego,’ she thought to herself, ‘you're so possessive of your own thoughts. It's kind of cute, really…’ ‘Relax, Shego – I'm not looking; I just wanted to be able to talk to you without her hearing.’
Kim watched Shego's head twitch in a slight nod before she could stop herself. ‘Okay, but only as long as you don't go digging deeper without asking.’ Shego looked back at Tara. ‘What do you want?’
Kim nodded her head to the heroine, ‘let me take Tara first – we've got some catching up to do.’
Shego looked from Tara to Kim. ‘Deal, but let me do the talking.’ Shego turned back to the impatiently waiting blonde. ‘And don't forget to us your gadget guy's microburst emit-a-hoozits to reprogram her suit; then we'll switch and you can have some time with your bosom buddy.’
‘And if she doesn't deploy her suit?’
Shego's mental laughter was a very pleasant thing to hear, and it seemed to invade Kim's mind, piercing the outer layers and suffusing every single neuron with a strange, tingly sensation that, while incredibly fun, wasn't distracting in the least. ‘Against you?’ A wide, cruel, and familiar smirk appeared on the taller woman's face as she silently – casually – gave the still-waiting Tara a disappointed look. ‘If she can't even touch me with that suit, how do you think she'll do against you?’
Shego stepped away from Kim and Tara. “You know what, Brat?” She kept her cruel, taunting smile on her face. “I really don't think my Princess is ready to be your boyfriend's playmate just yet,” she paused dramatically, taking another step away, “she's yours.”
Tara's eyes widened in surprise and a huge tidal wave of anger erupted from her mind, slamming into Kim's mental barriers, which fortunately held up against the onslaught, “what the Hell is this?” Tara stared at Kim, still clearly not seeing who she was, “what makes you think your pathetic, worthless mini-you can take me?”
“This,” Shego sneered, “is the height of my disrespect. You and I have reached an understanding, and that is that you're a blatantly obvious waste of my time. Stoppable and I have never had a chance to test each other because you're an arrogant, talent-less wannabe who's always hogging the spotlight. Now Princess, on the other hand,” she glanced at Kim and her sneer softened imperceptibly, “she's quite easily my equal in every way, so she can easily beat you to a pulp, even with your sad, sorry excuse for an armoured suit.”
Tara narrowed her eyes as she stared at Kim, obviously trying to figure out just who she was. “Okay, Shego – I'll play your game, but first you're going to tell me what you want from this museum; there's nothing here to interest a thief like you.”
Shego's smirk was probably infuriating to the blonde Global Justice agent, but all Kim saw was her partner in her prime and enjoying herself. Beautiful… “Oh, there's something that interests me here, all right, Brat; I just don't think I have to tell you what it is.”
With that, Shego turned and sprinted out of the room, “don't be too hard on her, Princess!” She tossed the words over her shoulder.
And then she was gone.
Kim knew where her partner was running off to of course; she was going to retrieve the armband they'd left in the other room. Tara, however, was probably under the bizarre impression that the extremely wanted criminal was cutting and running, dropping her apprentice behind to act as a distraction – cannon fodder – the traditional role of the sidekick.
But Kim Possible was no one's sidekick.
“Ron,” Tara didn't even turn to face him as she addressed him. “I'm going after Shego – take care of her little groupie.” She turned to follow after the retreated green skinned super thief.
“Sure thing, Tara – leave it to me,” Ron stepped up to face Kim and promptly tripped over his shoelace.
Smiling and rolling her eyes, Kim leapt over Ron's prone, struggling form and grabbed Tara around the wrist, twisting and throwing the blonde woman straight into the marble pillar she and Shego had been lounging against only minutes earlier, winding her quite effectively, “oh no you don't.” Then, turning to Ron, Kim allowed herself a small smile, “you mind giving us a little privacy, Ron? Tara and I have some catching up to do.”
He hesitated for only a moment before rolling to his feet and loping off. “I'm going after Shego, Tara – okay?”
“Idiot,” the blonde woman wheezed softly, slowly regaining her ability to breathe; Kim noticed it took Tara a great deal more time to do so than Shego did when she'd done the same move on her. Tara straightened her stance and shook off the brief spell of dizziness. “I swear, when I get my hands on him –.”
“You'll what,” Kim interrupted, growing tired of her old friend's new attitude, “alienate one of the few friends you have left from the old days?” At Tara's shocked stare, Kim sighed and stepped back to adopt a very relaxed defensive posture. “What happened to you Tara?” She fixed the blonde with a measuring, questioning expression.
The short blonde gasped as understanding suddenly bloomed in her eyes – as if someone had just ripped a blindfold from her face. “Kim?” Her voice was quiet, doubtful.
The redhead raised the cloth from her eyes for an instant before resettling it on her face. “Surprised?”
“Very.”
Without another word, Tara exploded forward, catching Kim across the left shoulder with a punch so hard in seemed to come within only a handful of Newtons from dislocating it.
‘Holy…’
Kim spun away from the suddenly whirling woman. “What is your deal, Tara?” Kim reached up to rub her shoulder even as she ducked under a rather clumsy left hook. ‘My goodness,’ she thought; ‘Shego was right – you’ are ‘worthless.’ She lowered her hand from her shoulder and back-flipped away from her childhood friend to watch as she snarled and just rushed her. ‘The only reason you were able to hit me that once was because I wasn't expecting it.’
“You!” Tara's voice was nothing friendlier than a hostile growl. “You're my deal!”
“Right, right,” Kim rolled her eyes and brushed aside an incredibly juvenile high kick, “like that makes it all so clear.” She stepped to one side when Tara tried to tackle her. ‘She's a berserker,’ she realized suddenly. ‘All she does is attack…attack until there's nothing left.’ “Why don't you tell me some more?”
“You killed Bonnie!” Tara kicked off a display case nearby, coming at Kim with a backhand that, while it had a lot of power behind it, was lacking the control that would truly make Tara a real fighter.
Kim decided to get a little fancy and swayed out of the path of Tara's backhand, snapping out one of her arms to catch Tara around the wrist as she spun past. Using her new grip on the blonde, Kim twisted on one foot as soon as Tara's feet touched the ground, sending Tara spinning away to trip over her own feet and stumble over the two severed arms that had formerly attached themselves to Ron, raising a deafening crash for the handful of seconds that Tara was kicking them.
Tara's last words made Kim reluctant to follow up her counter to Tara's backhand with any kind of attack. There was something she needed to know here – something important. “Exactly how did I kill Bonnie, Tara?” Kim stepped back and studied her replacement in the hero world as the blonde dropped into an aggressive fighting stance and glared at her. “She was fine when I left Middleton.”
Tara threw herself at Kim, going into a more complex combination of punches and kicks that were actually very well-executed. Shego was definitely right about Tara's moves; she was good – and she could quite easily become even better, but she didn't have the same passion for what she was doing that Kim and Shego had possessed and breathed every day of their lives – that very same passion that had driven the two of them to rise to a whole new class that was light-years above the rest. Without that fire, Tara's moves were so heartbreakingly juvenile; like she'd pulled them straight from the textbook. Admittedly, that was exactly how Kim and Shego had begun their careers, but their heated competition, as well as their love for the adrenaline rush and the thrill that came with hand-to-hand combat, had driven each of them to push themselves and their skills had quickly evolved into their own unique style that was difficult to predict for anyone but the other.
As Tara's blows were effortless blocked on after another, it became increasingly evident that Tara's job was nothing more than that to her – she came in to work, punched her card or whatever, and she got paid. The fighting skills she needed to hold onto that job were so obviously rehearsed, as if she practiced the same routine over and over in her spare time.
In fact, what had at first seemed like a single woefully ineffective combo in the middle of a losing fight was now clearly seen as only a small part of the greater, giant combination that made up Tara's entire attack plan from start to finish. It was like a program in the blonde's head – like a “fight mode” – and Kim could see that while there was a lot of potential, Tara's abilities were only trained to the bare minimum that would allow her to stay with Global Justice – only good enough to take down synthodrones and henchmen.
And God knows how many synthodrones one Kim Possible was worth.
Kim could actually pinpoint the exact moment when Tara's over practiced super-combo ended because her punches and kicks instantly became hesitant, probing, as if she was suddenly unsure of how to proceed. Kim surmised that at this point in her fights, Tara expected to be the last one standing – all of her opponents were supposed to be on the ground, but Kim wasn't going to fall for it.
“So,” she threw a punch – intentionally slowing it down to a point where her opponent should have been able to block or avoid it – and she nearly choked on the absurdity of it all as her fist simply breezed right through Tara's defence without encountering resistance. My goodness, she thought, feeling mildly insulted. ‘This is the best Global Justice has to offer? That is so weak…’ “Tell me how Bonnie died – I thought she went to Boston or something.”
“She did,” Tara grunted as Kim's second punch made contact with her ribcage, “but that wasn't the Bonnie I knew – you killed that one.”
Kim stopped herself from rolling her eyes again as Tara seemed to press her own reset button and went back to the beginning of her silly, overused, and totally ineffective attack program. “Okay – see,” ‘this has gotta stop,’ she caught both of Tara's fists and slapped them together so hard that it was unlikely that she would be trying to punch her again very soon; her index fingers and thumbs were already starting to swell up in a very painful-looking way. “Forgive me for not catching the hint, but what part did I play in killing your best friend?”
“It was your leaving that killed her,” the raw fury in Tara appeared to cool somewhat with the pain her hands were now in, but her eyes still burned with hate and the desire to destroy the focus and the cause of that hatred. “Back when you were at Middleton High, she lived to harass everybody – but she loved to insult you most of all.”
Tara shook out her hands, wincing as the pain persisted. “I doubt she ever told anyone, but she knew you were her equal in so many ways, and because of that, she always pushed herself to be better than you. That fire, that intensity brought out everything in her that I admired. Her passionate anger at everything you did made her so exciting to be around.” Tara's eyes closed lightly as she thought of better times.
“But you,” her eyes flew open and her tone grew unbearably harsh, “you had to go and destroy her, didn't you? You just couldn't resist the temptation – and I thought you were a good person.” She looked like she wanted to punch Kim in the face, but the injuries in her hands prevented that.
Kim stepped away from Tara and thought about what she was being told for a few long moments. “Nope – sorry,” she finally said, shrugging helplessly, “but I'm still not seeing it.” She leaned back against the dark pillar, “I thought she would have been only too happy to see me go.”
“Oh, for the first few weeks, she was.” Tara glared at Kim with an uncomfortable intensity. “When you graduated early, Bonnie thought it was her freakin' birthday.” She looked away, shaking her head slowly, “but as time went on, and there was no one who could compete with her – no one who could hope to make her fight for her place on top, she started to die. That passionate and confident young woman I admired had started to fade away and I couldn't stop it.”
Kim thought about it a little. At least Tara's accusations were starting to make sense now. ‘But, then again…’ “But if all she needed was someone to stand up and challenge her, why didn't you do it?”
Tara snorted, laughing humourlessly. “Do you really think I could have taken your place, Kim? You and Bonnie were Titans; no one at Middleton High could even come close to you. If I'd even tried she would have incinerated me and then gone back to her angry brooding, only this time she would have been down a friend.” She sighed wearily, “Without you around, she just…died, wilted, faded away. She withdrew from the world and took to sitting alone with this ugly scowl on her face like someone had shot her dog. She stopped eating lunch with anyone, she became brash and bitter, pushed everyone away; she even dropped out of the Cheerleading squad.”
“What?” Kim almost fell over in her shock, “she quit the team? But she would have been captain without me there.”
“That's just it, Kim – ‘without you there’. Without you making her push herself,” Tara's frown deepened, “without you to fan that fire that made Bonnie, she just stopped trying because everything was suddenly so very easy. When she didn't have to share the top of the mountain with you, the world was just handed to her and it killed her.” The shorter blonde looked at Kim with a sad, tragic look now – that fury and hatred that had burned so hotly within her eyes was almost completely dead. “You were her opposite,” she continued, “and no one knew that separating the two of you would destroy her.”
‘This still doesn't make sense,’ Kim thought, being certain to keep an eye on the blond; this could, after all, all be an elaborate ruse. ‘I did fine without her, didn't I?’ As understanding dawned on her, Kim felt like she could kick herself. The reason Kim hadn't been destroyed the same way that Bonnie had was because she was Bonnie's opposite – not the other way around. Now that she thought about it, her opposite was all too clear:
It was Shego.
Shego was the one who pushed Kim to be her best – but their relationship was built on a time when they'd only see each other for about an hour three times a week – at best. So, the separation of the one from the other wouldn't hurt either of them quite as quickly since their encounters were many-but-far-between to begin with.
It would have happened eventually though, now that Kim thought about it. They had just spent four years apart and – looking back – Kim could now see the signs of what Tara had said Bonnie had gone through. She hadn't seen them before because it had been such a gradual transition.
The first sign had been the colossal boredom with the pitiful training sessions that she'd been reduced to, and then there was the dulled enthusiasm and cynicism with which she'd begun to view the world.
Before Kim could think further on the similarities between her relationship to Shego and Bonnie's relationship to her, something in the tone of Tara's voice caught her attention.
She looked into Tara's eyes as she realized what she was hearing. “You loved her,” she stated simply.
Tara nodded unhesitatingly, “like the sister I don't have.” She suddenly looked away, “but it hurt so much when I watched her fade away and I couldn't do anything to stop it.”
Kim sighed; ‘I certainly didn't expect any of this on my first mission.’ “For what it's worth, Tara – I didn't mean for any of that to happen.” She paused and thought about what it would have been like to watch Monique fade away like that. It wasn't a pleasant image, “I'm sorry.”
Tara snorted, smiling bitterly up at Kim, “fat lotta good that does, four years later.” She met Kim's gaze with her own, strangely calm and serious. “But, it does mean something to hear you say that,” she slowly looked around the dark exhibit room in which they found themselves, “too bad that still leaves me Bonnie-less,” she finished in a mournfully.
Kim hesitated for a second before stepping away from the pillar she was leaning against and moving to stand face to face with Tara. “You know,” she thought about the situation as it had been explained to her, “I don't think her spirit's completely dead, Tara; she was too strong to lose it just like that.”
The shorter woman smiled wistfully, “that's why I always loved watching the two of you fight – it always made both of you seem so invincible, indomitable.” She cocked her head to Kim, “you clearly were, but your confidence came from somewhere else, didn't it?” Tara glanced the way both of their partners had run and then brought her gaze back to the S on Kim's collarbone, her eyes sparkling. “Shego?”
Kim nodded, but something was still bugging her, “what are you doing, Tara? I thought you hated me right now”
Tara looked down at her boots guiltily, “I did.” She looked back up to meet Kim's curious smile with a regretful frown, “until I realized you had no idea what had happened to Bonnie. After seeing what your leaving did to her, I thought you'd left Middleton to hurt her, but that wasn't really how it was, was it?”
Kim relaxed a little, finally understanding that Tara still considered her a friend, regardless of where everyone stood with respect to the law. “You know,” she leaned back against the pillar once more, “there comes a time in everyone's life when you have to stop saving other people's dreams and start working towards your own.”
Tara smirked a little knowingly, “so, is that why you're a villain now – you dreamed about joining the dark side?”
Kim smiled at the thought. “Not really – it seems like I never knew what my dream was until it came and bit me in the ass.” At Tara's curious look, the baby villainess only smiled more widely, “I've only been a villain for about twenty hours now.” She sobered a little, “but about Bonnie; I could pay her a visit every once in a while if it'll make you feel better.”
Tara brightened instantly, seeming more like the young, energetic Tara that Kim had known in high school. “Would you? I know she'll say she doesn't appreciate it and that she doesn't need you, but it might be the only way for her to get back on her feet.”
Kim just shrugged, smiling again. “Hey, if I can get her riled up like that, my job is as good as done.”
Tara laughed, “Yeah, I guess that's true.” She got a little more serious, “but if you want her to keep her Bonnie-ness after you're gone again, you should make it clear that you'll be back or you'll be visiting regularly.” She frowned a little in thought as she tried to plot the rebirth of her best friend. “She never said it outright, but I could tell from the way she acted around you that that she looked up to you; you were like the older sister that everyone hates but envies at the same time. It's like she was always desperately trying to impress you; she craved your respect.”
Kim was about to argue that Bonnie had always had her respect, but then shut her mouth when she realized it was a bald-faced lie. Bonnie had, in reality, rarely ever had Kim's respect, and that was because of their constant rivalry, Kim would look at Bonnie and see a spoiled, bratty, and greedy child, and she would treat her like it, when in fact all Bonnie had wanted was Kim's respect – the respect of her equal. Kim frowned at the very real crime she'd committed against Bonnie, “I guess we were all just one big, happy family at Middleton High.”
“Yeah,” Tara smiled, “a dysfunctional one.” She looked at Kim more seriously all of a sudden. “She loved you, you know – uh,” she stalled suddenly, realizing what she'd just said, “not romantically of course, but the same way I loved her – like a sister. She was grateful you were around because you always brought out the best in her, knowingly or not.” She bounced her fist on her thigh absently, “come to think of it – I think the reason she crashed so badly was because you were gone, like, overnight and she didn't know if she'd ever see you again, so she just didn't see the point in pushing herself anymore if you weren't going to be there to see it.”
Kim nodded slowly to herself as another detail fell into place in the puzzle that was Tara King. “So, I'm guessing the reason you're such a jerk to Wade is because of me?”
Tara looked away again, smiling sheepishly, “he just talks so much about you, and it got on my nerves. Add to that the fact that I hated you for destroying my friend and the techno-whiz wasn't exactly my favourite person,” she smiled faintly, “now Ron – I can deal with him because he doesn't dredge up the past as much – he's content to live almost completely in the moment, and he's also just a really nice guy.” Her smile twisted just a little, “he's a little dorky at times, but he's my dork all the same.”
Kim echoed Tara's smile as she thought back to some of the good times she and Ron had shared – virtually none of which had occurred during their brief time as a couple. “Well, ease up on Wade for me, will you? He sounded like you can really get on his case.”
Tara nodded. “I will,” she motioned with her head to indicate that Kim should follow her. “We should probably go check on our partners – you know, make sure they haven't killed each other.”
Kim followed without reply. ‘I really doubt that Ron could do very much to Shego, even with Monkey Kung Fu,’ she thought. Side by side, the two of them walked in silence for a few moments before Tara's quiet, teasing voice pierced the comfortable stillness.
“So, you and Shego, huh?”
Kim shook her head, grinning ruefully. “She was right there in front of me for three years, Tara – why couldn't I see it?”
“You probably just weren't ready to face it,” Tara's tone was very understanding, “neither of you were ready.”
“Right,” Kim brushed her hand along the smooth glass of a nearby display case as they moved past it, “So what's with your angry, bitter little girl façade?”
Tara simply shrugged, “what can I say – I grew up with Bonnie as my role model and idol – not the most conventional surrogate sister.”
Silence descended between the two of them until an abrupt thought seemed to hit Tara and she stopped in her tracks. “Hey, Kim?” Her voice was tense, unsure.
“Yeah?” Kim flicked a speck of dust or something off her bare shoulder as she stopped and turned to face her old friend.
Tara hesitated, but then pushed forward, her mind radiating her quiet strength and determination. “Why did you turn villain?”
Kim frowned and felt a surge of steel-boned determination sweep through her mind as she thought about the reason for her change in allegiance – the reason that didn't involve a certain green-skinned goddess, the people you're working for are hypocrites and Shego and I are going to destroy them.”
Tara stiffened. “You're trying to take down Global Justice?” She stared at Kim in disbelief. “Why? I mean, I know about Pisces and that they're breaking the law, but I've looked into them and I haven't seen anyone get hurt.” The blonde looked away uncomfortably, “I know you were the world's greatest hero back in the day, but Global takes care of the criminals now, and they're doing a pretty fair job about it. Why do you have to disturb them? You're retired, and they're just trying to work and make a living.”
Kim studied the slightly younger woman's nervous expression with something approaching disbelief. ‘Older and wiser, Tara,’ she thought, ‘but you've still got a nasty naïveté.’ “Obviously, you didn't dig deep enough, Tara.” She held herself back from slapping her own forehead. ‘You've got a lot to learn about Global Justice…’ When the blonde just looked at her curiously, Kim sighed frustratedly, “Did you know that they threaten anyone who doesn't offer payment for the crimes they solve?”
Tara scoffed, “of course I know.” She even looked a little offended at Kim's question. “I'm their top agent after all – I have to know everything.”
‘Apparently not,’ Kim shook her head slowly. “So then I assume you know the reason Ron's stayed with Global Justice even after they've become everything he and I used to fight against?”
Tara hesitated this time, uncertainty clearly etched across her features; it was written in her narrowed eyes, her furrowed brow, her pursed lips… “I have to admit,” she finally said, “I did find it weird that he stayed even after Global changed it's policies, but I thought he was just staying because he knows I need him, whether I say it or not.”
‘Well, you're partly right,’ Kim thought. “Global has threatened someone very close to Ron with life imprisonment on false charges if he doesn't keep his mouth shut and cooperate.”
“What?” Tara's eyes were as wide as Kim had ever seen them, but there was no disbelief in them this time; she knew as well as anyone else that Kim was honest to a fault, a villain though she may now be. If the redhead said Global was into blackmail, it was most likely true, as unbelievable as it seemed for her employers – the apparently Justice-oriented powers-that-be – to be dabbling into shady dealings that they were supposed to abhor. “Who?”
The question was only whispered, as if the blonde woman wasn't really sure she wanted an answer, but there was an odd clarity and growing fury in her wide blue eyes that told Kim she already knew the answer to her own question.
‘I really didn't want you to hear it like this, Tara, but I suppose it can't be helped…’
Giving a sort of mental shrug, Kim felt an apologetic expression spread across her face. “I don't know all the details, but they've got some kind of falsified evidence against Ron's girlfriend, so I guess that means you.”
Tara stared at Kim for a long, silent, and extremely tense few moments, clearly torn between dismissing the outrageous accusation and accepting it. Kim felt sympathy swell within her for the short blonde, understanding exactly the feelings that she was no doubt feeling – since she herself had experienced the exact same thing only hours earlier when Wade had told her about Global Justice's makeover. Betrayal was a difficult feeling to deal with, that was for sure.
Then, without warning, the growing fire of anger in Tara's eyes exploded out of her mind, flooding the immediate area with her incendiary fury and crashing through Kim's unprepared defences, nearly sending the redheaded telepath to the ground. She bared her teeth and let loose a truly inhuman scream of anger and pain even as Kim recovered as quickly as she could from the sudden outburst.
“Why those lying, scheming hypocrites,” Tara whirled away from Kim and started sprinting across the marble-tiled floor in the direction that Shego and Ron had dashed, “I'll make them pay!”
‘Holy Crap…’ Kim raised her barriers and stared after Tara for only a moment before giving chase. ‘Not good…way to be subtle about taking the scales off her eyes, Kim…’ She cast out her telepathy and made sure to take nothing more than a quick glimpse into the blonde's mind.
Tara was clearly upset, angry – Hell, livid even – that much was clear to Kim without her telepathy; but Kim was shocked by the sheer power of the slight woman's full-blown rage. ‘She's going to kill someone,’ Kim thought; it wasn't really that difficult to see why, though.
Everyone Tara had put her trust in had left her – Kim, Bonnie, the rest of the cheerleaders… everyone but Ron. With no one left but her blond boyfriend to support her and with no real discernible purpose in her life any longer, she had put the last spark of her waning trust in the supposedly altruistic and “judicial” law enforcement agency that Kim and Ron had occasionally worked with. She'd looked to crime-fighting to fulfill the purpose in her life and to fill the void in her heart where her high school friends – mostly Bonnie – had been until they all disappeared and, from the look of things, it had worked…
Until Kim tore the curtain away from Tara's eyes.
Now that Kim had just revealed the lies that Tara had been told, all the girl thought she had was Ron and a now-criminal organization that was trying to pass itself off s the Guardian of Peace and Justice. Now that Kim had uncovered the hypocrisy that Tara had unwittingly contributed to, the blonde suddenly found herself with nothing to depend on, no truth or purpose in which to find her place.
It was definitely not a good place to be when you tried to make a decision concerning the safety of others.
Closing the distance between them, Kim threw herself forward, tackling the fleeing, enraged blonde from behind. “No, Tara!” The two of them landed in a heap and Kim was amazed when Tara recovered sooner than her and started struggling to throw the redhead off. Kim grunted in pain when Tara's flailing fist smacked drove into her cheekbone and she rolled off the shorter woman, reaching up to rub her cheek. ‘Oh, this is’ so ‘not what I want to spend the next hour doing…I've had enough of this…’ Kim vaulted back up to her feet and rolled her shoulder quickly.
Tara didn't even seem to realize that she was no longer pinned, because she continued struggling against nothing for a couple of seconds before she was able to climb up to her feet and turn to keep running…
Straight into Kim's waiting fist.
“Ow!” Tara staggered back, away from Kim, one hand reaching up to clutch at her own face.
Kim stood her ground, resisting the urge to stare at her blue-gloved hand in wonder; she'd barely felt that punch. Then, she remembered what she'd told Shego less than an hour earlier…when she'd thrown that punch, her gloves had ever-so-briefly returned to the solid heavy metal alloy state of the Centurion Project's suit. Kim had just thrown a punch as hard as steel.
‘Oops. Sorry, Tara,’ Kim thought; ‘I just needed you to calm down a little.’
Kim knew that her slightly underhanded tactic had worked when Tara's mind calmed almost as quickly as it had gone completely berserk. Lowering her hand from her face slowly, she met Kim's eyes with a cautious, thoughtful, and slightly fearful expression. “Why did you hit me?”
Kim crossed her arms, staying tense in case the blonde exploded again. “Are you calm enough to talk about this now?” She resisted the urge to apologise as she saw the angry red mark spreading across the entire left side of the shorter woman's face. ‘There wasn't any other way…’
Tara raised her fists, ready to fight if Kim moved toward her in any threatening kind of way. “What's to talk about? They lied to me, Kim,” she growled and took a step forward, closing the distance between her and Kim by a few feet. “They lied to me and I'm taking them down,” she took another step, her eyes smouldering with her controlled but rapidly mounting anger. “You can either help me…” she hauled back with one hand, “or you can get out of my way.” She lunged forward at Kim.
Sighing and almost rolling her eyes at the juvenile strike, Kim sidestepped Tara's incredibly flawed attack and simply grabbed the woman by both wrists, tightening her grip with bruising force and making Tara wince and momentarily forget her anger. “Now,” carefully keeping her own frustration under tight control, Kim bent close to her captive and spoke directly into her ear, “are you ready to listen?”
The blonde whimpered softly as Kim's grip tightened on her wrist, pressing the two long-bones of her lower arm closer together in an unnatural and painful way, but then quickly nodded. “Alright, Kim,” she relented, “I'll listen.”
“Good girl,” Kim released Tara, giving her a slight shove towards a hard stone bench that stood nearby, “have a seat,” she continued gruffly.
She did so, looking up at Kim with wide eyes as she rubbed her stinging wrists, her mind simmering with her forcibly subdued fury. “You want to tell me to forget about it,” she whispered through clenched teeth, “to knuckle under, give in – sell out to a bunch of scheming crooks who have no honour.”
“No,” Kim replied honestly, “no I don't.” She sat down beside Tara and turned to face her head on. “I just want you to think this through before you go rushing off half-cocked on some kind of vendetta.” She paused until she was sure that Tara was listening seriously. “I should tell you that I've already talked to Wade, and I know at least some of what's going on, but Shego and I will need time to figure out the whole picture.” She reached out and laid one soft “leather” gloved hand on the suddenly quiet blonde's shoulder. “What I'm asking you to do is wait.”
Tara looked up sharply, confusion in her eyes, “Wait?”
Kim nodded reassuringly, “Wade promised me that he would have my family covered so I could focus on working to bring down Global Justice and Pisces.” She squeezed Tara's shoulder, trying to offer some form of comfort. “Give me a chance to talk to him and get some kind of protection for anyone that Global could use to blackmail you. It'll take a while because there are only certain times I can talk to him.” She stood from the bench and moved to crouch down in front of Tara, her eyes level with the seated woman's blue ones. “I'll talk to him as soon as I can, Tara, and I'll get him to tell you and Ron where and when you can meet us, but until then, you'll have to play along with Global Justice's people.”
‘I hope you're up to this, Tara,’ Kim thought worriedly, thinking of how many ways this deal could go – many of which were very bad.
Tara nodded carefully, “okay – hold on,” her eyes widened and she stared openly at Kim. “You want Ron and me to join you and Shego?”
Kim smiled again, “at least at first because – I hate to be the one to break this to you, Tara, but you're not cut out to fight a group like Global Justice – not without some training or guidance at least.” She watched Tara's shoulders slump as that truth hit home, and she decided to confront her on this topic right here, right now. “Tara,” she started carefully, “I don't get it; you're clearly not a fighter, so why are you here?”
Tara shrugged and smiled shyly, “when everyone left Middleton, Ron was all I had and he seemed bummed at having retired from crime-fighting with you. Then, one day a couple months after you left, some Global Justice agents came to his house and asked if he'd be interested in signing on full-time with them. He jumped at the idea, but didn't want any of the partners they offered him so he came to me.” She chuckled for a second at the memory and Kim could sense a small amount of sadness in Tara's mind as she thought about simpler, happier times.
Shaking off her chuckles, Tara went on smoothly, “I figured, ‘why the Hell not’ – I mean, it could be fun. So, I leapt at the chance and before I knew it, I was being trained by the best GJ had.”
Kim couldn't stop a short, choked-off laugh from escaping her lips. ‘Yeah, right!’ “Then you haven't learned as well as you should have, Tara. I've seen the best GJ had to offer and while I could still beat the tar out of any ten of them at once, they'd still give me far more of a workout than you have so far.” Kim moved back up to sit beside her very new ally. “How did they ever let you out of the training camp?”
Tara grinned, “I guess luck was just in my favour.” She shrugged innocently, “they said they wanted to get Ron back out in the public eye as soon as possible and since he refused to work with anyone else – well, you know…” she trailed off quietly and a guilty smile crossed her fair, young features, “they're still training me to get to your level – or as close to your level as any human could hope to be.” She winked playfully, even as a weak scowl twisted her lips into a distantly attractive pout, “I've never been overly interested in their training drills though, so I've stuck with my own style,” she laughed self-deprecatingly, “my own pathetic, pathetic style.”
Kim echoed the blonde's laugh but reached out to squeeze her shoulder reassuringly, “don't put yourself down like that, Tara; even Shego saw that you've got quite a bit of potential.” She smirked, “you just need the right motivation.”
Tara narrowed her eyes cautiously, “like what?”
Kim's lopsided smile took on an almost evil aura. ‘Oh, I've got the perfect motivator for you, Tara,’ she thought, “I'm altering our deal,” at Tara's unhappy look, the redhead squeezed her shoulder again. “Don't worry – I'm talking to Wad about your family and anyone else regardless, but your part in this play is still another matter entirely.”
Tara let out a relieved sigh, but then she shot Kim a dubious look as her words sank in. “What are you saying?”
Kim sighed and glanced off towards where she knew Shego and Ron were. ‘Was that a green flash of light?’ “Tara,” she turned back to her own unlikely student, “you'd better get interested in what your instructors are trying to teach you, because if you can't even hold your own against Ron by the time everything's ready for you to disappear from GJ's roster, neither of you are leaving Global – Ron because we can't take him without you because of the whole blackmail thing, and you because we aren't babysitters. You have to be able to take care of yourself when you need to.”
Tara nodded her understanding, “now that's motivating,” she remarked dryly, “I don't want to be around those damned sneaks any longer than I have to be.” She grinned up at Kim and nudged her with her elbow. “This is fun isn't it? It's just like being on the Cheer squad again.”
Kim laughed loudly, “Just treat it like that and you'll be fine,” she patted Tara on the knee.
Tara sobered. “Okay,” she nodded slowly to herself, “how much time do I have?”
Kim shrugged, “as much as you need, but if you're interested in a sooner than later kind of time, given the – um – sporadic nature of my communication line to Wade, I'd say it'll take a month or two at the very least to get some kind of protection in place for your family.”
“What?” Tara's eyes grew as wide as saucers. “Are you freakin' kidding me?” She stared at Kim in disbelief, “are you telling me I have to act like nothing's wrong for months?” Her shoulder's slumped, “I'm not an actress, Kim,” she protested in a weak, suddenly quiet voice, “I can't act like that for so long.”
Kim nodded slowly; ‘ah yes – that age-old question,’ she thought. ‘How does one play their role convincingly enough for the audience?’ “I can offer you only one piece of advice, Tara,” Kim paused to draw on what she'd learned in the last four years at her theatre classes in Concordia. “Don't think,” she began finally, “don't stop to think your every action through and no one will know that you've been told what Global's real agenda is.” This of course, wasn't a lesson that they taught in Kim's classes; it was something that had to be learned on the stage – and very quickly.
When standing in the spotlight before an audience, the actresses who choked most often were the ones who over thought their actions on stage because then they hesitated and the illusion of their character was completely shattered. To play her part most convincingly, all an actress needed was to know her character – know everything about it. Because, once she had her lines and notes memorized, if she stopped thinking, she would become her character, instinctively playing out the part that she had studied until her eyes were almost bleeding. That was how Kim had risen to the top few percent of her program; by knowing the true path to flawless acting.
“You've been doing this for three years or more, Tara,” Kim rubbed the blonde's shoulder comfortingly, “you've been working under Global Justice's illusion for a long time now; you've played this part for long enough to know everything you need, so you don't need to do anything more than let your worries go.” Kim stood from the bench and moved to stand over her new ally. “Don't think, Tara, and you'll do just fine.”
Tara nodded, a focused look of determination etched into her features. “I'll remember that.”
“If you two are quite finished, I think the boy wonder here could use some medical attention.”
Kim and Tara both looked up to see Shego come striding into sight, dragging a dazed or unconscious – but definitely bound – Ron Stoppable behind her. The first thing Kim did was look at her partner's hands, searching for the green glow that would tell her that the taller woman was burning through the blond man's leg. There was no glow.
‘I see you switched your gloves again, Shego,’ Kim projected silently.
Shego chuckled and dumped Ron's unmoving body at Tara's feet. “I didn't think you wanted me to immolate your boyfriend, Brat.” She turned a glare on Kim, ‘we,’ she began threateningly, ‘are going to have to have a good, long talk about your free use of your telepathy, Kim,’ Shego thought sourly, ‘as soon as we're safely away from the museum and my all-time favourite brat.’
Kim sighed quietly. ‘Come on, Shego – this could give us a way to speak to each other that GJ bugs can't hear.’
‘Very true,’ Shego agreed reluctantly, nodding minutely, ‘but be that as it may, we're still going to have that talk – it's still so new to me; I don't know how I feel about it yet.’
‘Fair enough,’ Kim turned back to Tara, smiling thinly. ‘Shego trusts you,’ she tried to reassure herself; ‘you just took her by surprise – that's all.’ “Okay, Tara – there's only one more thing we have to deal with before we part ways.”
Tara stood suddenly, shooting a dirty look at Shego after looking Ron over for any injuries. “So, I'm supposed to just let her,” she gestured angrily at Shego, “Leave with you when she's just beaten the shit out of my partner?”
Shego bristled at the accusation. “Look, Brat,” she stepped forward and stabbed a gloved finger into the amateur heroine's chest. “I was going to just tie him up and leave him conscious until he fucking bit me!” She rubbed her left wrist gingerly, scowling down at the bruised body on the floor, “you should be thanking me that I didn't use my plasma on him because I really had to hold back on him; I can't say that my house got the same courtesy from you.”
Kim decided to step in before things got out of hand. “Tara, she's with me so yes, I do expect you to let us leave – both of us…but not before you give me any audio or video recording bugs you and Ron are carrying.”
Tara nodded slowly and reached down to fiddle with the still-dimly glowing bracelet around her right wrist. “All we have is my Centurion suit's recording package; it's used for post mission debriefings and it's been running ever since I activated the bracelet.” She hesitated uncertainly, “but I can't deactivate it and give it to you without raising some serious flags back at HQ.”
Kim glanced down at the bronze-shining band around Tara's wrist. “What are you talking about?”
Tara dropped her hands away from each other to hang limply at her sides. “Global Justice's people down in the tech labs added some programming into every agent's suit that's supposed to help prioritize any calls for reinforcements.” Tara raised her right arm so Kim could clearly see the dully glowing bracelet on her wrist. “Every time I deploy the suit or remove the bracelet, HQ is notified within minutes, and they'll start asking me questions as soon as I report in.” She shook her head slowly as her arm returned to its place at her side. “If you want me to try to blend in and act normal with GJ, you're going to have to let me walk away with this bracelet.”
“Not going to happen.” Kim straightened up slowly, crossing her arms. “Tara – we can't afford to let anyone at Global see or hear what's been said tonight.” She smirked, “but what if I told you I could get that bracelet off your arm without Global asking you any questions that could reveal what you know about them?”
Tara narrowed her eyes at the more confident woman's superior attitude, “then I think I'd ask how you managed to come by this knowledge.”
Kim just held up her dark blue gloved hands, “Wade,” she replied simply.
Tilting her head curiously, Tara smiled faintly after a moment, “you know what, Kim? That boy really is impressive when you don't have a reason to hate him or be annoyed by him.”
The redhead grinned, “There, see? Now ease up a little on him, alright?” Kim lowered her hands back to hang at her side and glanced quickly at Shego. She noticed that her partner was not so gradually losing her patience with their talking as if they didn't have a care in the world. “But you know,” she smiled and gestured calmly to the pale-skinned woman, “I think my friend here's getting tired of this, so why don't you activate your suit and we can be on our way?”
Tara nodded and with one quick, worried glance to Ron's unconscious form, stepped away and moved the fingers of her left hand to press lightly on her yellow-glimmering bracelet. “Armour – activate,” she said into the calm silence, “but I hope,” she smirked at Kim, her arrogant, superior mask sliding effortlessly back into place, “I hope you don't expect me to let you take my bracelet easily; you'll have to work real hard for it.” Her smile widened as the yellow band around her wrist expanded to encase everything below her neck in clean, dark yellow armour. Once that was done, Kim took a few seconds to look her newest ally over.
Wade was right about the modifications that had been made to create the second model of the Centurion Project. While the full suit was still easily recognizable and distinctly armour-ish in appearance, Tara's cybertronic body armour was smaller and lighter by far than the armour that Kim had been trapped in several years earlier. The massive and obvious harshly-coloured alloy plating was gone, replaced with a comparatively thinner, lighter, and seamless neck-to-foot covering that was reminiscent of Shego's green-and-black bodysuit; the only difference, of course, was that Tara's suit was clearly not composed of any kind of clothing-like material. There wasn't any kind of material mimicry program in Tara's CP suit; her armour was clearly made of some kind of metal alloy – but it was also light and thin…easy to move around in.
Kim glanced down at her own gloved hands as she thought about Wade's give to her. There had actually been a hidden motive for her choosing the leather gloves like she did. There had been an altogether too long list of materials that she could have programmed her suit to emulate, but Kim's mind had been made up as soon as she'd read the word “leather” on her VR visor's display. If Kim ever deployed the full suit, the world would see her clad in what appeared to be – and felt like – clean, skin-tight, and smooth leather, coloured in patches of blue and a shade that she had unhesitatingly labelled as “Shego-green” – a colour that was more identical to her partner's eyes than to the older villainess' suit or skin colour, resulting in a dark, dark green that complemented her chosen equally dark blue very nicely.
Oh yeah, Kim possible definitely had it bad for a certain green-skinned villainous mentor and newfound almost-lover.
There was just something about the feel of leather that attracted her – the warmth, the smooth texture; it made Kim feel like she knew Shego looked: dangerous, wild, and – dare she say it – sexy?
‘But enough of that,’ she thought, noticing that a band around her left wrist had started to glow a dull blue. Just like Wade had promised, her suit had detected that Tara's armour was online and Kim's anti-CP microburst emitters had now been activated.
‘Perfect.’
“Are you ready to fight me now, Kim?” Tara's stance wasn't quite as flawed as before, but Kim could still see several places where she could strike and easily brush by the blonde's weak defence. ‘Oh, this is going to be so easy,’ Kim thought, dropping into a rough aggressive pose that combined a basic-but-easily-reinforced defence with a sharper, more powerful offence.
Kim frowned only slightly. “Tara,” she quickly dissected her opponent's stance – her footing, the uneven distribution of her weight, ‘leaning back too far,’ and the intense but unfocused fire in her eyes… ‘power without direction…’ “You don't honestly think you can win this, do you?” Kim gestured at the blonde's abysmal style, “You're not leaving this museum with that suit.”
Tara actually chuckled quietly at the redhead's words, oh, I know there's no way in Hell that I could ever beat you, Kim – but I told you, you'll have to fight me and work to earn my bracelet.” She waved with one hand, motioning for Kim to attack. “I'm ready for you.”
“Are you?” Kim lunged.
Just as the redhead drew close to the clearly outclassed blonde, she felt a jolt of fear explode out of Shego's mind, ‘Kim – look out!’
Kim's head was suddenly filled with a vision of claws – long, sharp claws that were somehow associated with pain and the woman Shego so irritatingly referred to as, “Brat”, and she reacted without thinking.
Twisting suddenly, Kim dropped to the ground in a roll just as Tara's hands swung out, long metal spikes protruding from her armoured forearms as her hands swept through the space where Kim's shoulders would have been without that warning.
‘Thanks, Shego,’ Kim projected, climbing to her feet as Tara stepped back. “Interesting technique,” she commented dryly, wincing at the thought of what those blades could have done to her shoulders. “I'm going to go ahead and guess that those are a modification that Wade didn't design.”
Tara smiled and held her hands up, the long, backwards-curved, razor-edged blades gleaming in the dim light. “One of the perks that comes with working with unscrupulous war mongers like Global Justice is cool toys, also known as personalized armour; I picked the blade-claws but there are other things I could add.” She settled back into her unbalanced defensive stance, “Care to try again?”
Kim considered it. It didn't seem like Tara had any more tricks up her sleeve, but she knew to keep her eyes open this time. ‘Is it safe, Shego?’ She glanced back quickly to see her partner looking on warily.
Shego smirked suddenly, ‘about as safe as picking a fight with a razor blade, Kimmie – but don't worry your pretty little self; the Brat might have claws, but she's still no better a fighter than you are. And I don't remember if she has any other surprises for you…probably not.’
Kim dove in again, ‘I'm still going to keep my eyes on her,’ she promised as she easily moved around Tara's predictable block. ‘Man, she's slow…’ she commented as she drew back her left fist and felt the spark of amazement at her speed arc through Tara's mind, freezing her in place for the split second Kim needed.
There was a deafening clang of metal on metal as Kim's instantly hardened glove slammed into Tara's armoured ribcage, knocking the smaller blonde a metre or two to one side. Tara stumbled over her own feet, threatening to topple over backwards from the force of Kim's punch, but she recovered by turning her fall into a back handspring and landing back on her feet.
‘She's not really that bad,’ Shego thought to Kim, ‘she'll just never be in our class.’
‘True,’ Kim watched the wide, shallow dent she'd made in Tara's armour smooth over as the CP suit repaired the damage. ‘Like you said – she's got the potential; she could be great,’ she dodged another blade-claw swing but restrained herself from attacking, ‘I can see that much from her recovery just now, and her focus; she just needs more training…’
“I don't get it,” Tara commented, punching through air again and breaking into Shego and Kim's private commentary on the blonde's skills, or lack thereof. “My suit's completely active so how come you're still moving too fast for me to hit?” She tried a low kick, which Kim stepped on lightly to unbalance the blonde further. “You don't have anything to help you,” Tara reeled back from Kim's countering spin-kick – it was something Shego could have avoided blindfolded but Tara was something else entirely.
Kim's kick sent Tara sailing through a doorway into another large room – one that had staircases at both ends. She glanced at Shego again as Tara landed on her ass with a scrape, skidding to a stop somewhere out of sight from where they stood, ‘Potential, eh, Shego?’
‘It's there,’ Shego thought, smirking gleefully, ‘…somewhere.’
“Okay,” Kim followed the path Tara's body had taken to find the blonde still lying on her side, panting wearily. “Tired already, Tara?” Kim stepped a few paces away from her opponent's lightly trembling form. “This is why you'll have to stick with me and Shego when we've gotten everything set up and you're out from under GJ's thumb.” She took the defensive pose this time. ‘Let's see how your offence is, Tara…’
‘It's not good,’ Shego replied.
Tara climbed to her feet slowly, “How,” she panted, “how are you beating me without your suit?”
Kim rolled her eyes. “Tara, the Centurion armour doesn't fight for you – it's supposed to help you, augment your natural abilities.” She motioned for Tara to come at her with her best shot.
“What you've got to realize,” Kim kept speaking even as she ducked under Tara's first wild swing, backing up a little, “what you've got to realize,” she caught the blonde's second punch in one hand and pulled, using her grip to spin around and pin Tara up against the nearest wall, twisting her left arm around so her forearm was pressed hard against the shorter woman's throat, greatly diminishing her capacity to breathe, “is that the Centurion Project can't improve what you don't have.”
Before the smaller woman could even begin to struggle against her, Kim reached down with her right hand and pressed her palm flat against her opponent's amber armour-covered abs, silently counting down.
Right on cue, a red burst of energy passed from Kim to Tara, rippling outward from the blonde's abdomen and sweeping across her entire suit like a wave before vanishing altogether. Tara glanced around quickly, obviously confused as Kim simply back-flipped away to land crouched carefully atop the railing of the staircase just to Tara's right.
Cautiously climbing to her feet, Tara stared down curiously at her undamaged armour. “Hey, Kim,” she grinned up at the precariously perched redhead, “I think your pocket-genius made a mistake; my armour's unaffected.” She adopted a lazy defensive stance, as if she was completely confident that Kim couldn't do anything to her now that the former heroine's secret weapon turned out to be a bust. “Well,” she waved to Kim, who remained perched on the stairway railing, blue-gloved hands grasping the bar between her feet, “what are you waiting for – you've gotta attack me if you want to take my bracelet from me.”
Kim tilted her head to one side as she glanced over at Shego; the pale-skinned thief was clenching and unclenching her now-glowing, uncovered fists, growing more restless by the second as she waited for her partner to say the word. It was poor form to attack without warning, after all. “Actually, Tara,” Kim turned her own confident smirk on the short blonde. “I've done my part,” she lifted her blue-gloved hands, her balance on the stair railing not even wavering a single degree. “Wade's super weapon just reprogrammed your armour to repair itself by draining energy from your body.”
Tara gasped and then looked back at Shego, who had calmed just a little as she realized that her time was drawing near. “You wouldn't,” the blue-eyed girl breathed, “you'll kill me!” She backed away, starting to panic, “I thought I could trust you…”
Kim didn't move, knowing that any advance in the blonde's direction would only serve to make her anxiety attack even worse. “You can trust us, Tara,” she reassured gently. “Don't worry – the suit's only going to draw enough power to knock you out and then the armour will just collapse and deactivate.”
Tara relaxed, breathing a soft sigh of relief as she turned to face Shego, “Okay, I just hope Wade knows what he's doing.”
Kim smiled, “he hasn't steered me wrong yet.” Privately to Shego, Kim added an afterthought, ‘although, knowing Wade's practices and knowing just how badly a weapon like this could backfire, I'm willing to bet he tested the shit out of his emitters before he gave them to me.’
A rough growl came from Shego, but her tiny, near-invisible smirk at Kim's thought was clear enough for Kim. “Can I do this already?”
Tara nodded silently and closed her eyes tightly. “Promise you'll talk to Wade?”
Kim grinned. ‘Your family isn't the only thing I need to talk to him about. Most important? Yes, but not only.’ “I promised I would, Tara.”
The blonde sighed softly, “Okay,” a moment passed before she nodded, “hit me.”
“Finally,” Shego charged up and threw a plasma blast at the passive heroine, tossing a similar projectile from her other hand right after. “I thought you two would never stop talking.”
The two burning green balls of plasma energy slammed into Tara's gut, engulfing her lower torso momentarily before dispersing and revealing two identical, shallow craters in Tara's armour. After a moment, during which all three women stared at the glass-shiny wounds that fortunately hadn't gone completely through the gleaming dark gold metal, an odd blue light filled the shallow cuts in Tara's suit and they began to shrink, accompanied by a short, sudden gasp from its wearer as it sapped her body of strength.
Without a word, Tara fell back against the wall and slid down to lie on her side on the marble floor, groaning softly as the two burns in her armour healed themselves over only for the protective suit to collapse on itself a second later, shrinking back into a bracelet within moments and loosening enough for Kim to walk over and slip it off the now unconscious girl's wrist. Before she pulled away, Kim rested one hand on Tara's chest, feeling it rise and fall at a slow, regular pace. ‘She should be fine,’ she thought.
Nodding her satisfaction, Kim stood and pocketed her newly acquired CP bracelet. “She'll be fine,” she replied to Shego's mildly worried expression. “She'll probably just need a lot of rest after she wakes up.”
Shego shrugged as she slipped her almleti-leather gloves back on, and her tenseness vanished as if it had never existed, “so we just got her some sick days. You know,” she grinned and took a few steps closer to the prone body, “she should really pay us for helping like that – she got any cash on her?”
Kim couldn't help but smile at that, “what – breaking into the museum, stealing your stupid armband, and beating up Ron aren't enough for you? Do you have to stoop to petty theft?”
Shego shook her head slowly, “You're no fun – you know that?” She turned away from Tara's unconscious body.
Grinning deviously, Kim pounced on Shego, driving her back against the stairway railing, “that,” she gently – teasingly – drew one finger against the hollow of the taller woman's throat, “would depend on what kind of fun you're looking for.” Her voice was soft enough that only Shego would be able to hear, but it still held as much power as a tiger's cry as she purred the words into her partner's ear.
Shego sighed quietly – frustratedly –, carefully pushing Kim away from her. “Your kind of fun is looking better every second, Princess, but we should really get out of here first.”
Kim glanced around at the dark room around them and laughed softly, “Yeah – this isn't the most romantic of settings, is it?” She stepped away from Shego and started walking away. “So, are we leaving the same way we came in?”
Shego jogged to catch up to her, “It's bad luck to do otherwise, Kimmie.” Once she had drawn alongside Kim, she grew serious as she glanced sidelong at the redhead. “I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to connect with Stoppable.” She looked away guiltily, thinking of the unconscious body they'd left in the other room, “but like I said –.”
“I know, I know,” Kim waved Shego's concerns away, laying one arm across her partner's shoulder in a sideways hug, tightening her grip momentarily as she tried to convey comforting feelings through the contact. “All bets were off as soon as he bit you.” She smiled reassuringly as they reached the administrative offices and passed by the men's room where they'd found toilet-boy, “I can't blame you for losing control when Ron let his primal instincts get the better of him.” She led the way into the office with the still-open window, “personally, I'm impressed you didn't break any of his bones for biting you.” Kim motioned for her pale-skinned partner to exit first.
Shego placed one foot on the ledge and got ready to lift herself out of the room, scowling at a sudden thought.
“I hate Monkey Kung Fu.”
Sorry about the long gap between updates. You know…exams…and other stories that have suddenly grabbed my interest.
Next time: The aftermath of the museum heist. Hiding out after the robbery, trying to figure out wtf this armband is, etc…
Tootles!