Mind, body, and Soul

The Present: Paris- Marie Renard’s House

The quiet click of the front door bounced off the marble floor of the elegant hallway and echoed down the pristine wooden panelling of the corridor that smoothly trailed into the distance.

The figure that walked in adjusted her overlarge Panama style hat and then glanced around. The brim hid her eyes in deep shadows, but couldn’t hide the gleam of intelligence inside them. The figure glanced around, waiting for a reception party, and then tapped an impatient foot.

“Hello?” Her voice, smooth and strong, echoed the same way as the click of the door had. Scowling at the lack of response, the woman strode down the corridor towards the double doors at the end. “Marie? It’s Carmen!”

The sudden crash of breaking glass from behind the doors she was heading for, had Carmen frowning and crouching before sneaking forwards. As she reached the doors, Carmen blinked at the murmur of voices behind the wood and quietly leaned her ear against the surface.

“Shego, you cannot keep doing this!”

“Sh… shure I can! You’ve got a really biiig cellar!”

Carmen blinked at the name of her friend’s apprentice. It had been years since Shego had left Marie, left while both Mentor and student were angry with each other. It had taken months for Marie, once she had calmed down and realised what she had done, to put herself back together. Now, it seemed, Shego had return-

Another crash. “Mon Dieu! Not the Delacart fifty six!”

“Whoops… heh heh, I bet th… that was expensive.”

“Only thirteen hundred a bottle.” Marie’s voice was a curious mix of shock, horror and fascination. “I doubt the people who crafted such a wine intended it to be drunk like tap water.”

Unable to resist any further, Carmen cracked open the door a few inches and blinked at the sight in front of her. “Good god.”

“Hey!” Shego, her usually sleek black hair a tangled mess, wearing what looked to be half torn jeans and a lurid green T-shirt, turned to grin, her face flushed with alcohol, with delighted affection at the woman peering through the door. “Carmen!”

Next to her, sat Marie. The French woman glanced up at her fellow thief with a look of absolute misery, her hands cradling a slightly dusty bottle, now totally empty. Beside her, sat a corkscrew, propped on a wooden case holding more dusty bottles, these ones full.

“Shego, I never thought I’d see you again.” Carmen smiled at the green thief and blinked in shock as Shego stumbled towards her, picking up a huge wineglass, half full of red wine, as she did so. “Nice to see you came back to us.”

“Yeah,” Shego chuckled, draining the half full wineglass in two huge gulps and making Marie wince. “Nvr thought I’d come back… but I lost e‘vrythin. Even Kmmne!”

“Kimmie?” Carmen titled her head. “Who’s Kimmie?”

To her further shock, Carmen watched Shego suddenly burst into tears, an act that had Marie groaning and rubbing a hand over eyes that her friend could see were filled with sympathy, but mostly with exhaustion. Feeling very unsure of herself, Carmen patted Shego on the shoulder.

“I’m sure it’s not as bad as all that, Emmy.” Her eyes flicked over the empty wine bottles that she could now see peeking out from the maisonette kitchen bin. “Um, how much have you been drinking?”

“You mean today?” Shego sniffled, wiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “Cause, I think I’ve had ‘bout… ten?”

“Ten glasses?” Carmen asked, fascinated. “You must be steaming.”

“No, she means ten bottles.” Marie muttered, her tone filled with dismay. “Ten bottles of my precious Antiage vintage!”

“Ten?” The hat covered thief turned to stare at Shego, who shrugged and staggered across to where a second bottle lay half hidden under some magazines. “What the hell’s been going on?”

Finding the bottle empty, Shego scowled and then shrugged. Glancing at Marie, a drunken smile on her lips, the green woman wandered, her path wavering, across to where the French woman still sat on the sofa, head back in her hands.

“Maarrieee…” Shego whined, poking her mentor gently. As Marie looked up, a resigned expression on her face, the green thief put on a pleading expression. “pllleaseee?”

With a deep sigh, Marie reached into her pocket and pulled out a key. “Here.”

Triumphant, Shego wandered across to the door that led down into the wine cellar, and vanished through it. With her gone, Marie groaned and her head fell back into her hands, muffled French swearwords just audible.

“I take it, that things aren’t going to well right now.” Carmen managed, trying not to laugh. Her friend glanced up from the sofa and scowled. “Woah, woah… I’m just saying.”

“You think this is funny.” Marie stated bluntly.

“Well sure. I’ve never seen Shego drunk before. Well I have, but not steaming drunk. Not to the point where she’s acting like a teenager. It’s kinda funny.”

Marie glowered at Carmen. “In the past week, dear friend of mine, Emerald has managed to go through nearly forty thousand francs worth of wine. In a week! And that was my normal supply… now she’s raiding my precious rare vintages!”

“She has? How?” Carmen imagined trying to drink that much and shook her head. She couldn’t. “God, Shego really is steaming. And I bet it’s been quite a trying week for you too.”

“You have no idea…”

Sighing, Marie shuffled over and her friend slid alongside her, before sweeping off the huge hat. Here, alone, Carmen was comfortable to show her face to the one person who knew her so intimately.

“What is worse, is that if I were in her position? I would be drinking myself into a stupour as well.” The French thief leaned back on the sofa, her eyes staring into nothing. “To have risked everything for your lover, only to then step back… to walk away in an attempt to make her life easier, that is a terrible burden.”

“I don’t understand…” Carmen admitted, tilting her head. Spying a half full bottle of wine, she filled a discarded glass and proffered it to the redhead sitting next to her. Marie stared at the crystal clear white wine and, shrugging, took the glass. “Wanna tell me about it?”

“No, but I think I will have to… for I’m going to need your help more than ever, my friend.” Marie turned to Carmen with a pleading expression. “I need you to help me work out how to make Shego go back to the woman she loves, and more… I need us to work out how to stop her being arrested on site by Global Justice when she does.”

Carman blinked. “Global Justice is still chasing Shego?” As Marie nodded Carmen sighed and poured herself a glass of the same wine clutched in her friend’s hand. “Great… I think you’d better fill me in on the details while I have this, and maybe another couple of glasses afterwards.”

“Where to begin…” Marie tapped her fingers against the elegant stem of her glass. “Perhaps when I went to aid her in procuring the cure to Kara’s horrible little gift.”

---

12:30 PM Middleton: T- Minus 3 days and counting.

Jack Hench leaned back comfortably against the suede leather of his stretch limo and casually kicked off his hand tooled loafers. Pouring himself a whiskey and soda out of the bar at his elbow, he sighed and closed his eyes, letting the ice he’d placed into the drink cool his brow.

He loved going to the yearly meet and greet at the Mayor’s home, the highlight of the Middleton social calendar. You met such interesting people, rubbed shoulders with some really significant people and also, for him alone, to be entertained at the sight of Middleton’s chief of police glowering at him over the prawn cocktail.

Yes, he had thoroughly enjoyed himself tonight. Now, all he wanted to do was go home, slip into a hot bath, maybe a nightcap and then sink into be-

The urgent ring of his mobile phone had the owner of Hench Co. sighing in dismay. After all he’d been through this morning to clear his schedule enough to go to the party tonight, whatever was happening had better be important.

If it was a lackey, passing on another of Dementor’s demands that he update the stumpy German idiot on his decision to purchase of a new type of plasma regulator, then he’d fire him… before telling Dementor where he could shove said device.

Annoyed, Hench pulled out his phone, flipped it open and listened. “Hench.”

Fifteen seconds later, the whiskey glass rolled onto the limo carpet, spilling single malt whiskey and ice, totally forgotten.

“Lock down the entire building! Yes, you heard me, the whole damn place! Activate the defence network, for all the good it’ll do, and arm the men with heavy ordinance! The stuff we normally let them carry’ll only piss her off.”

He listened.

“Her, you idiot! And if you don’t know who I’m talking about, then what the hell are you doing calling me and running the security section of my company! When I say her, I mean that green psychopath!”

Growling, Hench tapped the glass of his driver’s cabin and motioned to the man inside. Well trained, the driver twisted the wheel, causing the limo to scream across the road, and shoot back along its original route, heading for Hench Co headquarters.

“Station them outside the vault, she’ll be heading towards there. I’ll be arriving in a few minutes, so be ready.”

Snapping the phone shut, he stared out the window for a few seconds, before opening it once more and dialling a second number. When the phone clicked, he grunted in annoyance at the female voice.

“Your call has been routed to voice mail. Please hold.”

Hench leaned back, tapping his fingers impatiently. The mobile phone he was calling had been a small part of the package he’d agreed to sign when-

There was a high pitched beep and the second voice had him bolting upright in horror.

“Hi. Doctor D can’t come to the phone right now… because I’m too busy pummelling his blue ass. If you’re Jack Hench, then I’ll be coming to take back something that I need. Anyone else, leave a message… though I doubt the owner of this phone gives a damn at the moment.”

Throwing the phone onto the carpet, Hench hit the intercom to the driver. “Steven, double-time it!”

The Limo roared with power and increased speed, with a lurch of complaining suspension.

---

Hench Co.- Approx 35 mins before,

The infra red camera quietly whined into the night as its tiny motor trundled the gaze from the lens across the dark and shadowy spaces of the park. With its advanced technology, not even the animals that came out at night, racoons, squirrels and more, could hide from the cool gaze.

But then not everything that came out at night was an animal.

Her body pressed tightly a tree trunk, her tight suit pressed snugly against her bodies curves, Shego watched the humming camera with narrowed eyes. Not only was the thing protecting the doorway to the fire escape, but it was also covering something far more important.

The green thief glanced across to where her friend and mentor lay crouched under the foliage of a leafy bush. The black cat suit that The Fox wore was an excellent camouflage against the camera, considering that Marie had ensured during its construction that a molecule thin internal layer of thermal reflective material had been applied.

The same had been applied to the mask, and advanced filtering ensured that the spent air that Marie breathed out was purified and adjusted to match the ambient temperature. It was, as with all of The Fox’s tools, elegant, advanced and nothing more than an aid to her own incredible skills.

Marie glanced across to where Shego lay pressed against the wall, the red line of the sensor flashing slightly as it adjusted for the darkness. The thief held up her hands and swiftly drew a series of symbols in the air.

“Thermal camera… not ultrasonic. Jam, evade or other solution?”

Shego pursed her lips, watching the camera continue its passive sweeps. She made her choice, knowing that for Marie, this was an operation between equals and as far as her mentor was concerned, Shego knew Hench Co. better than she did. The green woman weighed her options.

They could evade the camera, true enough. However, if Hench had recently re-examined his security, he may have beefed up the defences to the little hidden access hatch that Shego knew about. A hatch that didn’t show on any schematic but was very useful if you wanted to get illegal or suspicious materials in, or out of the building.

With a quick set of hand signals, Marie nodded and the thin red beam of her goggles sensor system flashed into blue. The camera on the wall jerked for just a second, sparks skittering across the metal surface and a quiet humming of distressed electronics, before juddering back into its usual swing from left to right.

Her eyes hidden by the goggles, Marie pursed her lips as she slid a small palmtop sized computer from the small pouch on her belt. Nimble fingers tapped a few buttons and she examined the scrolling information that her mask’s display provided, next to the more basic data scrolling down the palmtop’s tiny LCD screen.

With a chime, Marie watched as the schematics of the network controlling the camera she had just jammed neatly outlined itself for her, including the various options to control this, and the surrounding cameras.

She glanced across, hand darting once more. “Just this camera?”

Shego nodded. “Yes, it’s a decent system with decent guards. The more of them we screw around with, the greater the chance of detection.”

Inclining her head in agreement, Marie flicked a hand into another pouch and gently yanked out a thin wafer of plastic. Sliding this into the palmtop, she selected the camera Shego was interested in and linked its feed directly to the small computer. With a few button presses, confirmed by her masks display, the plastic wafer she had inserted began to run a basic simulation of the camera’s viewpoint. There would be no chance accident of a guard seeing a flicker of pre-recorded and looped display as he sipped his coffee.

Sliding the wafer free from the palmtop, Marie glanced across at Shego and nodded. The two friends shot forward, feet silently pushing into the soft ground, and ran for the building, blending with the shadows, invisible in the darkness.

Reaching the thick concrete slabs that formed the base of Hench Co. towers, Marie followed her student closely behind as Shego headed for a specific set of the slabs. Her booted feet sliding to a whispered halt, the green thief crouched like a cat, her pale face so close to the concrete it almost looked like she were sniffing them. Which, it turned out, she was.

Keeping watch, the redhead quietly observed as Shego silkily prowled along the slabs, darting forwards here, tilting her head suddenly there, and always sniffing gently along the concrete. Even as she watched, however, Marie’s ears were tuned into the background noise of the building they stood next to, and the gentle tapping of booted feet coming closer had the French thief stepping into Shego’s viewpoint, hand darting curtly into one symbol.

“Danger.”

Shego growled, quietly, and rolled to her feet. Long green legs tensed with muscle as she leaped silently at the wall in front of her, the talons on her gloves flicking into green flame silently. Secure against the wall, she glanced across with professional interest as Marie’s body silently joined hers, the French thief suspended by two slivers of metal that had sunk into the wall as quietly as Shego’s talons.

Both thieves watched quietly as the tapping grew louder, revealing itself to be a guard on his patrol route outside the building. As the two women watched, the guard paused and coughed for a few moments, before reaching into his uniform and pulling out a pack of cigarettes. Shego wrinkled her nose in distaste as the guard lit one, the smoke drifting into the night air, covering the two women unseen above him.

Great… I’m going to smell like a damn ashtray once this idiot moves on! Scowling, the thief shook her head, a movement that had Marie’s masked face tilting in obvious amusement, regardless of the way the mask hid her features from view. Yeah, ha, ha… considering you’re protected with a filter! Geez, he smokes Camel… figures.”

The guard glanced around idly, still ignoring the area above his head, and continued to puff on the cigarette with the devotion of an avid smoker. The sudden crackle of his radio had the guard cursing and quickly chucking the cigarette on the floor and crushing it under his boot.

“Twenty-twelve, come in!” The radio voice crackled into the night, the tone annoyed and weary. “Damn it Steven, you can’t have a sodding fag on duty! Especially not on patrol! If Mr Hench finds out, you’ll be fired.”

Marie rolled her eyes and adjusted the mini backpack, designed to hold stolen items and anything just that little too large for her belt pouches, into a position that was slightly less painful.

“Yeah, yeah!” The guard scowled and clicked the receiver. “I only stopped for a damn minute!”

“A minute that you weren’t supposed to take! Come on Steve, get with the programme and buck your goddamn ideas up!” The radio crackled for a second. “Just… keep an eye out for the green bitch, she’s always sneaking in! Don’t try to confront her on your own either… call for damn backup!”

“Whatever.” The guard clicked off the radio and snorted. “Oooh, I’m so scared of a crazy green freak in a slutty catsuit. What a bunch of cowards.”

Slutty?

Walking on, the guard never noticed the angry, blazing emerald eyes that silently watched him walk around the corner, nor did he see the way Shego’s entire body tensed violently while her face contorted with rage, stomach muscles bulging under her suits smooth fabric. But Marie did, and she had to be impressed at how controlled Shego remained despite her anger.

Ah, my student… you were born for this life, this profession.

As the tapping of the guard’s boots faded, the two thieves dropped silently to the concrete and Marie glanced across at Shego, who bared her teeth, scowled and then stuck her fingers, raised in a sharp V sign, at the corner where the guard had slid from view. The quiet giggle that managed to escape from the French woman had a small smile curling around Shego’s lips, the anger vanishing as quickly as it had come.

“Watch the area.” Shego signed, earning a nod from Marie.

Crouching once more, Shego prowled around the concrete slabs once more, her booted feet scuffing the surface quietly. Inhaling once more, Shego moved from one slab to the next, before pausing in front of one that looked identical to all the others. Another quiet sniff around the edge, and the green thief grinned in triumph.

Ahh… the sweet, cool, and above all, pressurised draft of air conditioning. I spy, with my sexy emerald eye, the hidden hatchway that I was looking for.

Popping open her ankle-pouch, Shego quietly withdrew her own slim palmtop computer and a set of electronic lock picks. One of the few advantages of working for Drakken, the bastard, had been that she’d blackmailed him into enhancing her basic tools. With access to stolen military tech, and his own twisted genius, Drakken had excelled in his job.

Gloved hands quietly probed the slab for weaknesses, and found none. They searched across the surface for a hidden access panel, and found none. Which as far as Shego was concerned was fine, as it narrowed the ways this block could be moved to two possibilities.

Either this thing opens via a remote panel, requiring radio… or it’s a closed system and therefore can only be opened internally, which means I’ll have to pop the panels open. Now, which is it?

The tiny palmtop was slid onto the smooth concrete and Shego glanced around for a second before placing her thumb against a metallic panel on its surface. Green plasma shimmered for a moment, only to be absorbed by the plate. The computer lit with an incredibly faint glow and Shego grinned. When Drakken had suggested that her plasma power be the way the computer was accessed and also kept charged, she had laughed in his face. Now, after months of using the tiny device, she had to admit that he had been right.

With a few smooth keystrokes, Shego watched in satisfaction as the tiny screen flashed with scrolling access codes, the military AI chips inside it hacking Hench’s security network like a knife through hot butter. Suddenly, the codes vanished and a three dimensional image of the building behind her, plus access tunnels, appeared on the small screen. Next to it, counting down slowly was a timer.

Jackie, I’m impressed. You don’t know how I keep breaking in, or how I get past your security systems, but you’ve encoded a few failsafe measures now, eh? Well, they’re not going to work against this baby.

Working fast, Shego scrolled through the blueprint of the building, selecting the access way as it flickered into view on the screen. Thumbing the data, she pressed another set of buttons and the device hummed quietly, working to break the access code. It didn’t take long with the power her little computer contained, and Shego smirked as the concrete slab suddenly swung silently upwards on hydraulic rams. Underneath, a steel ladder vanished down a smooth tube, small and powerful lights illuminating it as the rungs descended.

Glancing up, Shego caught Marie’s proud expression and flushed. Her mentor, her friend, was proud of her and it felt good. So very good, and Shego realised that for years she’d missed that feeling. Waving a hand, the green thief slid smoothly into the concrete access-way and slid rapidly down the sides of the ladder, her boots hissing quietly along the metal.

While Marie clambered down after her, Shego glanced around the smooth metal and concrete corridor both in front, and behind, her. There were no guards, but her skilled gaze took in the various cameras that were sweeping the space with their fish eyed view. They were being watched, and if it hadn’t been for her little hacking actions earlier where she had uploaded a simulation of the corridor that was currently running constantly, there would have been nowhere to hide. Especially from the guys with guns that would have come running.

Now, effectively not existing to the system, mentor and student stood together in an empty and silent corridor, where only the hum of the air-conditioning kept them company.

“Very smooth.” Marie murmured softly pushing the sensor goggles up to expose her face Her French accent played and rolled the o’s into an obscene purr, making Shego quiver every so slightly. “You always loved to play with security, the more complex the better.”

“What can I say? I’m a pervert when it comes to tough nuts like this.” Shego grinned and Marie shook her head. Glancing around, the green thief indicated the corridor heading towards the building.

“Hench’s vault is this way, and be careful. We’re in Hench Co’s dirty little secret. A secondary access way right into their main R&D vault. A corridor that isn’t on any blueprint. They use this to sneak that illegal technology in and out under everyone’s nose. Hence, the necessity to have this access to the security vault. Though I’ll lay twenty to one odds that there’re plenty of measures to the alarm system that we can’t shut off which’ll bring guys with guns. Add in patrolling security guards and we have quite the run. Now, here’s what else to look out for.”

Marie patiently listened to Shego go through the list of various triggers they could expect to meet, frowned as Shego outlined ways to dodge or avoid them and stared as the green woman began to go into detecting them. This was when she raised a single finger.

The dark haired thief trailed off, staring at the finger, and the redhead smiled. Saccharine sweet. “Would you like to hold my hand as well?”

Shego blinked and, slowly, a smile curled across the green woman’s face. “Depends…”

“On what?”

“On how out of practice you are, considering that you’re kinda close to being an OAP, Marie.” The smile slid into a smirk, the challenge evident. “Of course, I could be wrong… but I’m usually right.”

Marie sniffed, her eyes flashing with insult. “I think I can push my senility to one side long enough to cope.”

“Well, it has been a few years since you were active… stuff’s changed a lot.” Shego’s smirk widened and her eyes gleamed with amusement. “I tell you what; I’ll keep an eye on you.”

Her hands sliding to her hips, Marie waved a hand. “I would suggest, student of mine that you keep both eyes on yourself, and I shall do the same.” Turning away with a sniff, Marie slid the goggles into place once more. “Children today… never any respect for their elders.”

“Children toda… Hey! You’re only a few years older than me!”

Shego blinked as The Fox shot at high speed down the corridor, before turning and breaking into a back flip that shot her elegant and muscular body over a humming red laser beam.

Scowling, Shego pumped her leg muscles and shot down the corridor after her mentor, forcing her body into a straight overhead jump at the laser trigger, and then rolling into a smooth forward body tuck which brought her up, still running.

Ahead of her, red ponytail snapping from side to side as she scanned the corridor for traps, Marie felt herself smile with elation. Their mission was serious, true, and Marie herself had no intention to fail her student in assisting her, or the young woman who, she had to admit, had saved her home from those giant robots. But it felt so good to be working with one of the few women who could appreciate the thrill of such things that she was enjoying herself.

Plus, the other reason for this little display was that it was time to remind Shego of who taught who. Emerald always could be a little… overbearing.

A second set of lasers, this time shooting downwards to form a rotating grid, had her pausing for only a few seconds. Judging their motion, Marie snapped her body into a tight roll to the left, shooting past the first grid with inches to spare. The second grid was met with a body slide, one shapely leg guiding the rest of the redhead past it as the beams swung to the right with a hiss. Again they missed, but this time by millimetres.

“Be careful damn it!” Shego hissed, her own body tensing and leaping into a sideways jump, claws sinking into the wall, before pushing away to roll upright between the two revolving grids.

Marie stood smoothly, leaning against the wall of the corridor and tilted her head as Shego’s green eyes glared at her. “I am. You are the one still in danger of setting off the alarm.” She said softly.

As the grid behind her began to swing back on its path and the one in front rotated towards her, Shego glared at her mentor, the thief inside her timing her jump. “You did this on purpose!”

“Yes,” Marie replied, watching as her green friend fell to all fours and rolled along the floor, dodging sideways and then leaping to her feet. As the grid swung backwards, Shego span on the spot, dodging sideways and then jumped at the wall, leg outstretched, so that she rebounded off it, coming to a jogging stop next to the French woman. “One of your flaws, Emerald, is that sometimes you can be so overbearing, you need a good hard slap to make you realise it.”

“Right now, I don’t give a damn about my flaws! Don’t do that again!” Shego snapped angrily, the image of Marie triggering the device by accident playing through her mind. “Damn well not now, not here! Not when Kimmie’s life is at stake!”

“I have no intention of doing anything to prevent us getting what we need to save Ms Possible.” Marie stared at Shego mildly. “However, you asked me to help because I trained you, you know what I can do. You claimed you needed my help, so stop treating me like a poorly skilled student. I helped train you. Trust me to know what I am doing.”

Shego opened her mouth, and then paused as her mentor raised an eyebrow. She thought back to just before the laser grid and sighed.

“I…” Shego looked away. “Sorry. I’m sorry about the whole giving orders thing. I’m a little stressed.”

Her expression softening, Shego’s mentor gently touched her on the shoulder making the green woman turn. “You trust me?”

Shego bit her lip. “You saved me from… that life, taught me almost everything I know, and gave me advice on how to improve the ones I’ve taught myself.”

Marie squeezed her shoulder. “Then trust me now.”

“If I didn’t, you wouldn’t be here and I’d never have asked you to help me.” Shego sighed and then smiled wryly. “This is what happens when everyone you hang around with is a moron. You insult people who you know are smart. “You could have just told me I was being an ass!“

“An interesting form of apology.”

“I know a hidden dig when I hear one, Fox. I suck at apologies, and I was joking, okay? So, basically, you can bite me.”

“Perhaps that is part of your charm.” Marie smiled, warmly, and Shego felt the tightness that had been growing in her stomach ease. “Now, we have a vault to find, a serum to liberate and your young woman to save. Shall we?”

Together, the two thieves ran down the corridor, both now keeping an eye out for traps, alarms and other systems and trusting the other to alert them in time.

Laser grids that triggered due to the detection of motion were effortlessly bypassed by both thieves. Athletic back flips, rolls and slides along the smooth flooring allowed each woman to effortlessly bypass detection from devices that would catch anyone else.

Heat sensitive systems were not a problem for either of them either. The Fox’s suit was designed to self insulate and make Marie’s heat signature completely undetectable. For Shego, her own suit had been enhanced at her request, so many times by various underground laboratories, that it also carried various layers of synthetic fibres to make her undetectable. The only danger was her plasma, and she had no intention of using it near any such device.

Touch sensitive sections of the corridor, often with humming, and illegal, laser cannons set into the ceiling, were no obstacle. For Shego, the simple solution was to launch herself sideways, digging her talons, along with the super strong fingers inside the gloves, into the metal wall, and then clamber along it like a human spider. Marie had a similar technological solution, again provided by her lover, in the form of coverings to her gloves that acted very much like the hairs on a spider’s leg. Thousands of tiny, super strong, filaments that dug and locked into the surface of the corridor, allowing her to match Shego in her sideways crawl.

And then of course, there was the smooth teamwork between them. It was Marie who pointed out a hidden pressure pad to Shego, allowing the green woman to flip neatly over the device. It was Shego who yanked Marie out of the way of a blue green laser beam that suddenly shot across the corridor, triggered by the subtle rise in air temperature. Neither gave thanks, knowing that thanks were not required. They were professionals, and it showed.

At an intersection, Shego paused and then pressed herself against the wall, Marie following suite. Both thieves could hear the regular thud of military style boots on the concrete, as well as the metallic clink of the assault rifle that the security guards carried.

Shego glanced across at Marie, and then turned her head upwards. The corridor was oval in shape, and the rounded walls at the ceiling were far closer together than at the base. The sight of them gave Shego an idea to avoid detection.

Glancing at her mentor, Shego jerked her head upwards silently and Marie nodded in agreement. Cupping her hands together, and also interlinking the fingers, Marie crouched slightly and jerked her head in one sharp motion. Now.

Judging that they had roughly fifteen seconds or so before they were discovered, the green woman placed her boot into the cupped grip and pushed into it with as much force as she could muster, launching herself upwards with Marie’s assisting boost. Her strong arms slammed into either side of the corridor ceiling, swiftly followed by her green and black booted feet wedging themselves into a triangular shape.

Swiftly, Shego swung the top half of her body downwards; catching Marie’s proffered hands with her own and, with superior upper body strength, hauled her upwards. As Marie reached the pinnacle of the swing, her own feet slammed to either side and wedged in place, both thieves now silently suspended.

Three guards stomped around the corner, all of them carrying rifles as well as steel batons and even tazers. Shego and Marie watched them silently, the green woman frowning at the ruthless expressions many of them carried. She had forgotten how superior Jack’s henchmen were to the ones Drakken employed and thanked any god listening that they had been able to hide before getting involved in a messy, and possibly delaying, battle.

Still, would be fun though… I bet Kimmie would have enjoyed herself if she were here.

As the men strode up the corridor, Marie let out a quiet sigh of relief and glanced over to where Shego gazed back. “You take me to such interesting places, Emerald.”

The bright green eyes flickered. “Yeah? What about my third little outing with you? The Newbreckt museum in Germany? ‘A simple job’, you said. ‘Easy and swift’, you said.”

Marie rolled her eyes. “I wasn’t to know they had placed new security into the building.”

“New security that involved us in a fifteen minute fight and flight to freedom. Good job I was wearing black and a mask that time. Fine way to begin my thieving career, screwing up a simple snatch and grab.”

Marie sniffed as they both dropped to the corridor. “It built character, and showed you the dangers of the profession.”

“Doy!”

Both mentor and apprentice continued to work their way along the access way, dodging every single trap, alarm and device that Hench co. and many other security companies could think of, until finally reaching a huge door at the far end. Clad in steel and with a blinking biometric lock inset into the side, it was quite imposing. Both of them stared at the door and Shego glanced across.

“This’ll gain us access to the vaults security station. What’s the bet that means more heavily armed idiots inside?”

“Let me see if I can detect anything.” Marie calmly adjusted her sensor goggles and then scowled in frustration. “No… I cannot see anything on the other side. There is an impressive amount of shielding on this thing.”

“Great, which means we do this the old fashioned way and-“

“Ah,” the redhead waved a hand. “Give me a few moments, oui?”

Shego watched as her mentor reached into one of her belt pouches and pulled a slim wedge shaped object from it. Her green eyes widened as Marie unfolded the wedge into a thin plastic and metal disk, and then let it magnetically secure to the doors surface. A tiny raised square surface in the middle contained a black button, and The Fox gently pressed it.

Reaching to her belt once more, Marie pulled out her own palmtop and pressed a few buttons, smiling suddenly at the image on the screen. She held it to the side and glanced across. “Voila. Regardez.”

Shego stared at the small screen.

On Marie’s tiny palmtop lay a blue silver image of the room beyond the door. Circular in design, with four doorways like the one they were in front of, could be clearly seen. Shego could also make out the five figures, along with the outlines of pistols and machine guns, despite the faintness of the image itself. She grinned widely, professionalism warring with sudden childish delight. “Oh, that is so cool!”

Her friend smiled, amused by the way the green woman next to her had squealed the words in delight. She knew from what little Shego had been willing to tell her, that her childhood had been, well, not much of one. Shego had been given few toys and even less love from her parents. So if, the green woman she was now, found Marie’s technology as exciting as a child would a new toy, then the redhead saw nothing wrong with that. In fact, it was pleasant to see her apprentice have such a reaction.

“Ultrasonic radar, in a way.” She tapped the plastic disk and smiled as Shego’s enraptured face turned to her. “Something new from David, my boyfriend before you ask. He’s always been a bit of a technical expert, even when I knew him at Paris University.”

Shego frowned and decided that once their break-in was over, she would have to confront Marie about this man. After all, Shego cared for her more than she wished to admit, even to herself. Any man involved with Marie would have to size up to Shego.

“Well, I have to admit this is damn cool. And it’s shown us an obstacle. Now then, I wonder what’s the best way to get them out of the way?”

“We will need uninterrupted time with said vault door. Considering we have armed guards and no way from here to distract or incapacitate them, I am open to suggestions.” Marie folded her arms. “I am a thief, not a combat specialist. And considering how quickly we had to move, I have no prearranged plan to cope with such forces.”

“And what about everything I taught you while you taught me? I know I managed to teach you Judo and some Tai Kwon do.” Shego grinned. “A co-operative guard is an unconscious guard. If you watch my back, I can take these bozos, Fox.”

Rolling her eyes, the redhead shrugged and gently placed her ear against the lock of the massive door. “Personally, I think there is another reason. I think you just want to relive some tension.” She watched Shego shrug. “Still, if this is the only way into the vault, I suppose we have no choice, as I am certain we both have no desire to be here longer than necessary.” Pulling off the metal ultrasound disk, The Fox slapped a tiny shaped charge onto the door. “Five seconds.”

“Right.”

With a swift press, the device flashed a dull red blink of confirmation, while Marie and Shego took position against the wall on either side. The green thief hummed silently, checking her nails, until the charge detonated with a muffled, gentle, thud.

Inside however, the guards were covered in clouds of acrid smoke making them choke and gag. With watering eyes, every single guard staggered around trying to find something, anything, to tell them where in the room they were. The sound of the metal door being forced open on warped hinges had them staggering towards it, muttering choice swear words.

There was a sudden intense roaring sound, and the guards were blinded by flashes of intense green light. Green light that slammed into the rifles they carried, blasting them out of their hands with painful speed.

“Hello boys,” The voice was smooth, deep and wry with amusement. Every single guard turned and stared in horror at the smoky outline of a female figure. Their horror intensified as the figures hands suddenly began to glow the same bright green. “Guess what, today is so not your lucky day!”

“It’s her!” One of the guards screamed, fumbling for his radio. “Someone call control! Shego’s here! I repeat, Shego is here!”

“Yeah, I am.” Striding into the room, Shego glanced around, eyes bright. “And that radio isn’t gonna do you any good, considering I’ve jammed the frequencies, Now then… let’s play fellas.”

One guard, leaning against the wall to steady his spinning head, growled quietly at the sight of the green woman and crept forwards. His steel baton shot out of the murky, foul smelling smoke silently, intending to collide with the back of her head. So, it was to his great surprise as he swung the anodised metal towards the dark tresses of her hair, that his target easily side-stepped the attack. He was even more surprised as, without looking behind her, the thief reached backwards with a gloved hand and effortlessly disarmed him before smashing a foot backwards into his crotch…

As he collapsed with a horrible gurgling sound, Shego stared at the four guards both in front and to the side of her with a small smile. Her right hand slapping the metal bet gently into her black glove with a quiet, terrifying, thud. Two of them pulled out their own batons, one trying to still the shaking of his hand at the sudden anticipatory smirk that played across the green woman’s lips.

The third, just to the right hand side of her, screamed even louder into his radio for assistance, yanking a can of mace from his belt and gripping it tightly. Shego angled her body slightly, the muscular curves smoothly rippling under her suit, and grinned. “Well? I haven’t got all night…”

“She’s just a two bit thief with a whore’s body!” One man growled through the smoke. “Bitch, thinking you can walk in here!”

“Oh, now that was the wrong thing to say entirely.” Shego replied, her voice worryingly smooth, as her head angled to where the words had come from. “Whichever one of you said that, let me show you how wrong you are!”

The first guard who had pulled out his steel baton snarled and charged her. Six foot tall and built like a quarterback, his body displayed effortless power, swinging the two feet of black metal at Shego’s face like it was a feather. The thief brought her own baton up in a countering arc, but the guard smiled evilly. Her arms were half the thickness of hers, there was no way she would have the muscle power needed to match him.

So, when her baton smashed his aside and continued to fly upwards in an arc that smashed into his face, the sound of bone and flesh snapping and cracking in response, he was too surprised to feel any pain. That came as her lithe body span into an arc, a single long leg slicing out to smash a slender green boot into his crotch. There were more terrible fleshy sounds, and he fell to his knees, blood spilling down his ruined face, as he glared at the woman, the pain in his balls growing swiftly in size and intensity.

Crouching, Shego stuck one finger against his forehead and grinned. “Word of advice bud, body size means dick if you know where to place the power you do have. Maybe now that I’ve kicked your balls up into your throat, you’ll remember that. And yeah, everything you heard about me being an uber queen bitch? So, so, true!”

There was a flash of green light, and the guard slumped forwards, unconscious. Standing, Shego cricked her neck. “Next!”

The guard who had trembled while drawing his baton came next, with a battle scream so high pitched it had the thief wincing inwardly. To her surprise, even as she shifted to meet the attack, Shego felt his baton glance off her shoulder, the shockwaves jittering through her skeleton yanking out a snarled curse from between her lips. Though less well built than the other guard, the fact that he was surprisingly fast compensated very well.

“Why you little prick!” She lashed out with a gloved claw, but the guard danced backwards and whacked her hand with his baton, making her swear in pain.

Fast little bastard. Shego thought, adjusting her fighting style to compensate. The next swift blow was met with a counter attack subtly light and fast. Shego wasn’t going for power behind her style, having switched to defence, but instead concentrated on deflecting the baton coming for her body time and time again.

A shift in stance along with an adjustment to the way she held her own baton, causing her opponent’s baton to slide along it, had the energy deflecting easily away from her body. Each time the guard attacked, no matter how fast, Shego continued to counter, simply concentrating on defence time and time again.

The rhythmic clang of metal on metal grew in volume as her foe realised his attacks were not getting through and, with the strength provided by growing desperation and adrenaline, increased the power of the blows against Shego.

“Oh, come on!” Shego thought, trying not to yawn as she casually deflected a blow that would take anyone else’s head off. “Princess is so much more fun!”

As the attacks became more and more desperate, and her hearing picked up the increasingly frantic breathing of her opponent, she smiled. It was what she had been waiting for.

With her opponent beginning to rapidly tire, Shego shifted styles for a second time. Her attacks lessened in speed, but the strikes gained strength each time until, with a cry of pain, her final blow slammed down against the guard’s hand, causing his baton clattering to the floor. Her other hand, the claws at the tip of her gloves gleaming in the light, smashed across his face in a powerful punch, sending the guard sprawling across the floor.

Groaning, he managed to lift his head from the floor for just a few seconds, before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell back with a thud. Grinning, Shego turned to mace canister, and the grin became a smirk.

“You realise you’re gonna need so much more than that.”

The guard holding the canister smirked back, surprising Shego for a few seconds, before dropping the small aluminium can and yanking the pistol from his belt. “How about this?”

“Nope.” Shego snarled all pretence of her amused and playful manner suddenly gone. “Not even that’s gonna stop me.”

“Fine.” The guard snapped at her, and pulled the trigger.

Shego, for all her years as a superhero with her brothers, then as a thief, and finally a sidekick, had faced guns and the possibility of violent death from them. The reason she was still alive was not, as many agencies had presumed, due to her healing ability if she was hit, but more to the fact that her other gifts from the comet, coupled with her own incredible reflexes proved more than a match for gunfire.

So, the guard was shocked that, as he pulled the trigger, Shego, her emerald eyes fixed with terrible clarity on the gun, and her ears listening for the click as he pulled the trigger, had already worked out where the guns muzzle would discharge the bullet, and was already stepping swiftly out of its path.

The bullet slammed into the wall behind her, but the green woman was already moving, a green blur. The guard fired again, snarling and cursing as he did so, only to blink as Shego again pre-empted the actual discharge and had her head ducking even as the hammer slammed into the casing’s firing pin. The second bullet fared as well as the first, pock marking the concrete behind her.

Even as the guard tossed the gun to one side, falling to his feet and scrambling for the canister of mace, she was upon him, her foot catching him in an upward swing that had her foe letting out a grunt of expelled breath and pain.

And what’s really scary is the Kimmie is even faster than me! Add in those gymnastics moves of hers and you soon work out why guns, even rifles and machine guns don’t faze her. Plus of course, she’s young and has that sense of… immortality in a way. Heh, much like I was all those years ago. Of course, that was before Hego, before Kara… before my life changed.

Wrapped in her own thoughts, Shego never noticed the guard she had initially disarmed, drawing his own pistol and sneaking up on the green woman as she stood over her foe watching him trying to draw in breath. The smile on his face was terrible as the muzzle swung up to aim at the very back of her dark tresses.

It was quite a shock for him to suddenly feel an agonising pain in his spine as a hand, covered in a dark red glove, gripped him swiftly round the neck, while a second hand slammed into the base of the gun, forcing it up and away, jamming the trigger with its small finger. Sweating, the guard felt soft lips press against his ear.

“Ah, ah. That young woman happens to be as dear to me as a daughter. I really do not appreciate your actions.” The hand tightened around his neck, and more pressure was put on hs spine as the unseen person bent him further backwards. “I really do not appreciate them at all.”

The clatter of the gun onto the floor had Shego, who had picked up the coughing guard and pressed her thumb to his forehead, to turn. The guard watched as her emerald eyes widened in surprise, realisation and then anger. “Fox?”

“I promised I would have your back, Emerald. This young man was just about to apologise to you, for attempting to shoot you in the back, yes?”

The guard swallowed as Shego’s free hand flared for a second, and the guard in her grasp slumped. Had she killed him? Had she! Frightened as Shego dropped his colleague, and especially as her hands twitched, he nodded. “Y…yeah.”

“Good. Now, bid her goodnight.”

“Wh… what?”

The young man in her grip never felt the press of the cool studs of the tazer Marie pressed against his neck. He only felt the sudden jolt as his body shut down, zapped into unconsciousness. As she let him fall, the redheaded thief glanced across and blinked at the look of infatuation Shego was giving her. “What?”

“God, you’re so… cool when you do stuff like that.” Laughing, Shego turned to the huge gleaming vault door and her eyes widened. “Now that is a thing of beauty!”

Both gazed at the huge vault door in front of them and the green thief’s mentor glanced across as her student shivered with delight. Rolling her eyes, Marie adjusted her utility belt and stared at the massive disk.

“A class twenty six armour plated vault door. Timed lock, magnetic restraint system, thermo plastic core, titanium and ceramic underlay. Release mechanism is a fifteen point authorisation set.” Marie nodded, impressed despite herself. “This Mr Hench really must have some very special things in there to use this sort of protection.”

“Oh yeah, he never skimps on the tech if he considers it necessary. Sometimes I really love this guy! He provides the best challenges for me to get through.” Shego forced the warped door back into place and, with a flicker of green energy, began to weld it shut.

Still frowning, Marie glanced around. “I was just wondering… how much have you stolen from this man?”

“Anything Drakken wanted me to… and your point is?” Shego asked, frowning.

“Have you noticed the devices, the security, have been improving each time?”

“Yeah, so?” Shego, satisfied that her welding would prevent them from being disturbed, turned to the vault. “Look at this thing. Top of the line, yet Jackie is just as lax as usual. To have only a few guards looking after it? Please.”

“Mmn…” Marie commented, glaring at the vault door. While her student began to examine it for weaknesses, the French thief turned and stared at the corridor they had made their way along to get into this chamber. Doubt crept into her voice as she began to examine the vault room with the full sensors of her mask. “Mmmn… very lax. Perhaps too lax. Shego, I’m picking up some very intense power readings in this room.”

“Well, considering all the security systems I’m not surprised. After all, what good are guards if someone reaches this point? Don’t worry about it. Now then.” Shego tapped the door with a clawed hand, listening to the resonating clang. “I’d use my plasma, but… well.”

“It may not trigger the security system, but the detonation could trigger the fire alarm. Next to the vault, that would be bad enough.”

“Yeah, so first things first. Any idea how to unlock this damn vault door?”

“Let us both apply our skills to this problem.” Marie murmured, pulling various small and devilishly clever devices from her belt and even her boots. “It will take both of us, with such little time or preplanning, to crack this vaults impressive security.

Nodding, Shego slid her own lock picks and palmtop free of her ankle pouch, before picking up a few of the devices that Marie had laid out on the floor. “Let’s crack this baby open.

For the next fifteen minutes, both women crouched or stood in silence, fingers deftly sliding across the metal, attaching probes, picks and other tools into and around the vault system. A small square of plastic-like material was slid into place where the huge titanium bolts keeping the door secured were housed.

Shego’s face was passive, her entire being focused entirely on cracking the biometric locking system while Marie concentrated on the time lock and bolt retracting steelworks. It was the biometric lock that was the first to show any sign of their tampering. It flickered for a second, and then dimmed as the screen began to scroll internal commands instead of the glowing palm print.

This was quickly followed by Marie who, after finessing the position of the metal pick lodged into the tiny hole she had laser bored into the huge door, twisted it so that a metallic clicking was heard and, with a sudden rotation of the restraint clamps securing them, the locking pins slid out of their housing.

Shego grinned, winking at Marie’s masked face as the door groaned and swung open, only to frown at the sight of an identical doorway on the other side, bisected by a tiny little corridor.

A cool female voice suddenly echoed out. “Good evening, Mr Hench. Additional verification required as per your orders. Please place your palm on the reader and enter your ID code.”

“What?” Shego scowled and strode into the corridor while Marie shook her head in disbelief. “This is bullshit! All that and we’ve got more to crack. God, talk about being anal over security.”

“Shego…” Marie began, and then gasped in shock as the sensors in her mask went haywire. “Get out of there! It’s reading your bio signs!”

“It’s what?” Shego began, only for the corridor she was in to suddenly go dim.

“Access denied. Bio-patterns do not match authorised personnel and update disk not inserted. Power to internal door deactivated as per Mr Hench’s orders. Please contact central for confirmation and reactivation. Have a nice day.”

Both thieves stared at each other, and then Shego growled, kicking the dim controls inside the inner corridor before backing out. She glanced across at her mentor who quietly proffered her palmtop. “Shall we try to reactivate it?”

“Screw that. I’m not letting a few yards of tinfoil get between me and Servus.” Shego snorted. “So, if we can’t get in with elegance, then we’ll go with power.” Lighting her hands, her suddenly determined face bathed in their green glow, Shego motioned to Marie. “Get out of the way, Fox.”

“What?” Marie stared. “Are you serious? What about the alarms? What if the inside has vibration or pressure sensors?”

“Hey, that things cut power to the area, so the fire alarm’s not going to be a problem. As for the door, it’s only armour plating about a foot thick… nothing my powers can’t handle.” Shego concentrated and the flickering glow around her fingers suddenly began to twist and curl around them, the glow intensifying into a vibrant stream of plasma. “As for the stuff inside the vault? If I’m careful, and I’ve judged the power I need for this, there’ll be no vibrations or even a temperature shift to set them off.”

Marie had never seen it in the flesh before, but she had seen the way Shego was powering up a charged blast of her energy on the television. The plasma began to ripple into a ball, the energy dangerously concentrated.

“This is not a good idea, as he seems to know that you might come. I smell a trap.”

“Marie, there’s not time!” Shego snapped the words, and Marie noticed the sweat beading her students’ brow. Sweat from fear, but not for herself. “We need Servus, I need Servus… for Kimmie! There’s no more time for pissing about! No more days to spare! I can cut through the metal in a few minutes… and what we want is on the other side. Simple, so… out of the way!”

“Wait, just… wait a second.” Marie urged, spreading her hands across the second door and tensing as Shego scowled. “What if it’s less resistant than you think and you end up cutting through not only the door, but also the case containing Servus?” She watched the green woman blink. “All this will be for nothing if the cure is vaporised. Can you tell me, with certainty that the blast you are powering up will be only sufficient to melt through the door?”

“Yeah, I know what I’m doing.” Shego shrugged at her friends’ expression. “Fox, I know what I’m doing.”

“Very well, but be very careful.”

Nodding, Shego held up a hand and discharged a ball of plasma far smaller than the immense charge she had been building up. It crashed into the metal of the second inner door and melted a good portion of it. Or it would have, if not for the sudden crackling snap of ozone and the shimmer of a red shield crackling around the huge doorway. The plasma ball streaked off the red energy with a snarling whine, and shot backwards towards Shego and Marie, who both rolled or flipped out of its path.

As the ball of energy buried itself into the concrete with a nasty hissing screech, Shego blinked. “Fuck me! That, that’s the same damn energy that Kara had protecting her. The stupid device Stoppable got working! Drakken must have included that to sweeten the deal with Jackie… smart bastard.”

As Shego glared at the doorway, mind wheeling with possible options, the computer system hardwired and embedded into the doorway, un-jammable, followed its programming and tripped a silent alarm. In the main control and security centre of Hench Co. a panel shrieked loudly, causing the five heavily armed guards to jump, the cards of the poker game they were indulging in scattered across the floor. One, staring in horror at the tiny displayed image of Shego, reached for the phone.

“Put me through to the boss! Priority one!”

---

GJ Headquarters

Will Du sighed in relief as he finished typing the last few sentences into his computer. On the screen sat the completed report, all fifty pages of it, which outlined the goals, events and eventual outcome of operation ‘Redhunt’. The name given to rescuing Kim, and even Shego, from Kara Fang’s clutches.

As with all government operations and Global Justice was no exception, the whole organisation ran on paperwork. Page after page of paperwork stating exactly the same thing time and time again, only different in the way each report was worded.

Which was exactly what Will had been doing since nine AM that morning. The remains of the coffee in his mug had gone cold over four hours ago, and the bagel he had brought in and bitten into at lunch now sat forgotten on a plate. He shifted uncomfortably, groaning as the muscles in his rear reminded him how long it had been since he had last stood up.

But, Will thought with a smile, he was finally done. All the reports, every single one, had been finished and every single ‘I’ dotted. With a few key presses, he saved the file and then sent it shooting off into the interdepartmental email system. It was up to the bean counters now, and also the United Directorate of security to study the plans put in place, evaluate them and suggest improvements in the future.

There was also the detailed information on the blood Jade that had been ripped out of Kara Fang’s personal laptop before it had actually, and he still couldn’t believe it, self-destructed. Still, they’d managed to pull over fifteen hundred files, personal ones, from it before it had. Most had been diary entries regarding Shego, but a few had been regarding her own personal province, a section of the planet where Kara’s word was law.

Global Justice was pouring over the information, and Will had included as much preliminary data as the labs could provide, knowing that the bean counters would be looking at cost effectiveness. Especially when it had come down to rescuing a ‘non profit mercenary with minor attachments to GJ’ as they had called Kim when Doctor Director had given him the paper based request.

So, anyway, his work for the day, including overtime, was finally finished. Sighing, Will deactivated his terminal with a few button presses and nodded in satisfaction, picking up his coffee cup.

“Gah!” He managed, eyes wide, as the cold and semi congealed government coffee hit his lips. “Oh, that is foul! Jeez!”

Grumbling, GJ’s youngest fulltime member rose to his feet and stomped to the door of his office, pausing for just a second to grab his coat. Heading down the corridor and into the break room, the coffee mug was slammed into the tiny sink and filled with hot water.

I’ll deal with that tomorrow, right now I suppose I should go home. After all, it’s past… no, that can’t be right! Jeez. I’ve been working through the night. Sighing, Will slipped out of the break room and headed for the main exit. Not surprised though, I mean the Blood Jade! Real! This is just so amazing, no wonder I got hooked on all the stuff we’ve managed to find.

As he approached the lifts that would lead to the ground level transport tubes, Will heard another voice, a familiar voice, exasperated and exhausted.

“We need to examine the situation in regards to why she ran off!”

Will blinked. Doctor Director? He listened to the muffled reply, angry and sarcastic, and found himself wincing in sympathy for his boss’s predicament. He had forgotten, in all the excitement over the Blood Jade reports that Shego had vanished from Middleton Hospital a few days back. When Ron Stoppable had called it in, all hell had broken loose, and it seemed Doctor Director was still getting the brunt of it.

“No, I don’t believe she just left to avoid jail or even to continue her thieving career! Everything she wants is here at the moment. There had to be a reason for it. Shego always has a reason.” Another muffled reply. “Oh please! You know how many times we’ve put her in prison, even those we’ve designed to especially hold her. Nothing lasts where Shego is concerned! She’s too damn smart and powerful!”

Will crept closer and peered into the open office space of his boss. The one eyed woman was pacing the carpet, annoyance on her face. On the screen in front of her, Will recognised the tired face of Doctor Directors own commander, someone he had never met or spoken to, but had been introduced to once and had received a nod of approval.

Now, the commander looked as exasperated as Doctor Director, but not at the one eyed woman. No, he seemed to be glaring at the cold face of the female on the other side of the split screened image.

“Angela, see sense. I agree with Betty. What’s the point of reissuing Shego’s arrest warrant? It didn’t help before, and it won’t now.”

“Shego was and is a wanted criminal. She has a rap sheet as long as my arm, longer if you include all the foreign extradition and charges requests to the ones for the USA. Just because she happened to be involved with revealing the Blood Jade, you two seem to want to pin a medal on her chest!”

“No,” Betty Director stopped pacing and scowled at the screen. “Shego would be the first to acknowledge she doesn’t deserve a medal, but she does deserve some… compassion at this time.”

“Compassion?” The woman snorted. “You claim she helped save Kim Possible, yet there’s no proof of that as far as I can see. She attacked Doctor Possible, then Ms Possible herself… and blew up portions of Middleton mall. All because of this Servus technology.”

“Yes. The same technology that is sitting in Ms Possible’s head right now.” Doctor Director frowned. “When our lab techs ran a probability scan after we found out Shego had vanished, it topped ninety eight percent that Shego had lied about not being able to help and escaped to use thieving contacts she didn’t wish us to know about.”

“Speculation I’m afraid is not hard evidence… I’m sorry Doctor Director and Commander-“ The woman paused as the image of Betty’s boss raised a single finger. “Right, right. Well, regardless of your own viewpoint I cannot in good faith ask the CIA, FBI and any other law enforcement agency to stand down and place Shego’s warrants on hold. I’m sorry but the evidence doesn’t have enough push to do so. As far as the UN security overlord council is concerned, Shego must remain a criminal and you are to withdraw any special deal you were intending to offer.”

“And if Shego ends up curing Ms Possible?” Doctor Director snapped. ”If she ends up saving the life of a young woman who has pulled our joint asses out of the fire more times than I can count? Especially in situations where going in with Seal and SAS teams would have been a bad idea?”

The woman smiled thinly. “We shall discuss that problem when, and if, it ever occurs. Personally, I think Shego is a great threat… and always has been. Relying on the fact she thinks she’s in love with a teenage girl who wants to kill herself, by dealing with things outside her understanding, is just asking for us to end up with a kick in the teeth.” She turned to the man on the screen next to her. “Our orders stand, carry them out.”

With a flicker, her face was replaced with a rotating GJ logo and Doctor Director groaned, before collapsing into her chair. “Damn.”

“It was worth a try, Betty.” Her commander sighed. “Well, what to do about this mess…”

The one eyed woman glanced up. “You can, respectfully Sir, forget me ordering GJ troops to take Shego down by any means necessary. I intend to order my own troops to stop any other agency using lethal weapons against her unless in direct jeopardy of their lives.”

“Wobbly ground here. Could be seen as going against the council. They sign the checks and keep you in the chair you’re sitting in.” Her commander chuckled, wearily. “But you won’t hear any grumbles of disagreement from me.”

“Thank you, Sir.”

“My only question is why did she do it? Why not tell us she can’t help unless we let her walk out unguarded?”

“Would you seriously have authorised that?” Doctor Director picked up a pen and rolled it between her fingers, deep in thought. “Would I? She has been a major threat, pain in the butt, and security risk for a number of years. There’re almost a hundred countries that want her for extradition, Ms Angela was right about that. And yet…”

She paused, and the pen stilled. “And yet I find myself wondering if I would have believed her. Shego’s many things, but I… I could tell she was on the level about Ms Possible. About her feelings for her.” The one eyed woman sighed. “And that leaves me wondering how could I miss such a thing as this? I’ve talked to her many times in jail, often with Kim next to me. Why didn’t I see the interest, the way her taunts became almost… playful with Ms Possible around. Stupid, stupid.”

“Well, regardless… we have a job to do.” The commander scowled. “My orders, Betty, are to keep an eye on Middleton for Shego, incapacitate if necessary and then place her in jail.” He watched the woman shudder. “And if Shego delivers a cure to Ms Possible… I want to hear about it before the young redhead manages to so much as twitch an eyebrow.”

Doctor Director smiled faintly. “Yes, Sir. But may I ask why?”

He grinned. “Oh, maybe one day I’ll explain how a youngish man about to enter his fifteenth year of being a CIA agent had his ass saved in an op by a young, barely teenage girl who could fire green fire from her hands.” As Betty blinked, her commander leaned back in his chair. “I owe her one, and personally I still think that she could be one hell of an asset… with the right carrots dangled her way.”

“Skills that we need… way of the world really.” Doctor Director murmured, earning a grin from him.

“Cynical view, Betty, but true. Only person I know who genuinely seems to give a damn because it’s ‘the right thing to do’is Ms Possible. If Shego really is in love with that redhead, well… Just imagine what could happen if we play this situation right and Shego ends up having Ms Possible’s viewpoint rubbing off on her.”

“And if it goes the other way?” Betty cocked an eyebrow. “What if Shego rubs off on Ms Possible?”

“I think, having watched Ms Possible in action, read her psych evaluations, and met her family, albeit without them knowing who I am, that it may be beneficial. Ms Possible is still a little too naive about some things that Shego has encountered first hand. If what you say does happen, then it may round out Ms Possible and make her more aware of the darker aspects of this life. It will certainly help her if she wishes to join GJ.”

“Yes Sir.”

“So, my orders are to find Shego before anyone else, make her see sense in coming quietly, and then contact me.” The muscular man smiled supportingly. “GJ could use her skills, both as a superhero and a thief. Make it happen, Betty… and I’ll see you around.”

The screen flickered off and the one eyed leader of Global Justice sat quietly in her chair, tapping the pen on her desk. Finally, she groaned and raised her head. “Will, stop lurking out there and step in, would you?”

Will hung his head and walked into the office, taking in the sight of the rumpled pillow and messy blanket thrown onto the sofa in the corner of the room. He glanced up at his leader, and winced at the even more rumpled appearance of someone so usually pristine. Noticing his reaction, Doctor Director grinned.

“Yes, I look like hell. You would too if you’d been working as many hours as possible before you collapse into a heap of wrecked humanity, dosed on too much crappy caffeine, stress, cheap food from vending, and a lack of fresh clothes. Let alone a decent unrushed shower.”

“Yes Sir.” Will managed, blinking as his boss yanked open a drawer and flipped a pizza box out of her desk. Pulling a slice free, she glanced up.

“You want some? Pepperoni… I think.” The one eyed woman watched him shake his head, took a bite of the cold food and then, her mouth half full of pizza, Betty Director frowned. “Will, it’s nearly one AM. What the hell are you still doing here? You finish at five!”

“Finishing up the Blood Jade reports, Sir.” Will stood to attention. “And respectfully, Sir, I don’t see how you can yell at me about overworking, if that is what you intend, when you yourself are showing every sign.”

The leader of Global Justice chewed her pizza thoughtfully, and then washed it down with the contents of her own coffee mug.

“Urgh!”

Will nodded. “Same thing happened to me not ten minutes ago, Sir.” Tilting his head, the young operative glanced down at the stacks of paperwork in front of his boss and then looked up. “I was wondering… do you want some help, since everyone else has gone? We could get through all this far quicker together, Sir.”

“Sucking up for promotion, Agent Du?” Betty watched Will smile slightly. For years he had been one of the most rigid and inflexible agents she’d had. Textbook brilliant, but a total failure at any other situation. After a few days with Kim, that had changed… he had changed and now Betty recognised him as one of her best.

“No, Sir. This is more the offer of a friend than an employee. We’re all worried about Kim Possible, but running yourself into the ground for her, and even Shego, isn’t going to help either of them.” He paused. “Neither is sleeping in your office.”

Betty stared at him, and then sighed. “True, and yes I’d love some help to get this all sorted out.”

“I’ll grab my chair and we can get started, Sir.”

“That’d be a great help, William.” Doctor Director smiled and then waved her coffee cup with a grin. “I’d not say no to a fresh cup of coffee either.”

Will smiled, and took the proffered mug. “GJ agent, super spy, after office hours assistant and now coffee boy. I certainly am seeing all the positions GJ can offer me.”

As he left, Doctor Director smiled. Yes, Kim was the best thing to ever happen to you, William. Just another reason I owe her to sort out this mess.

Sitting down, Betty began to sort through the papers on her desk.

---

Hench Co.

“Emerald, this is dangerous.” Marie watched quietly as Shego slammed her body, claws, even her feet against the metal of the second vault door, exasperated gasps of air shooting from between her lips as she did so. This had been going on for over five minutes, interdispersed with the green woman using every plasma trick she could think of against the shield that protected it.

“Shego…” The screech of her apprentices titanium tipped claws against the metal jarred Marie once again and she groaned. “Shego, enough!”

“It’s not enough!” Her friend span of her heel, sweat pouring down her face, her emerald eyes wide and unsettled. “I have to get in there!”

“We cannot, the door is too well protected and we need to back away. We need to plan, devise, find a weakness and come ba-“

“No!” Shego turned back to the door, attacking it with her claws once more. The metallic scraping echoed around the small room. The green thief had been doing this for so long now, but all she could see for her efforts were ten thin grooves in metal as hard as the tips of her gloves. But she wouldn’t give up. Couldn’t give up. “Kimmie has no time left, Fox! I won’t let her end up becoming… no, succumbing to the… the damn poison Kara shoved in her head. I won’t!”

“We won’t leave her like that, Emerald, but we have to think of ourselves too. We cannot help Kim behind bars! If we stay here, they will discover us, that much is certain!”

“Well, what do you suggest damn it!” Shego span away from the door and stalked towards Marie so quickly, so angrily, that the redhead stumbled backwards, falling onto her rear, and holding up her hands in a defensive posture. It was this last act that had Shego pause, blink, and then visibly begin to shake in shocked horror at her actions. “Oh, for fu…I’m sorry, Fox. I… fuck and damn it all!”

Shego turned away and Marie watched her quietly close her eyes. “Fine place to do this, tell you this, but I always swore I’d never go soft over anyone or anything. Never again! Not after Hego, Team Go, then you and that psycho bitch! I hate being softened by the things that happen in my life, only to have someone or something betray me.”

“Oh, Emerald…”

“You can’t trust other people… other people betray you, even die on you.” Shego’s voice was bitter and choked. “I don’t want to trust someone with how I fee… I mean, with… Oh god. I hate knowing I care so much about her, my Pumpkin, but I do and it screws me up… makes me feel like I’m out of control. I hate that feeling. Why can’t I live my life the way I want it to be?”

“I know, Cherie, I know.” Marie squeezed gently. “However, it seems that the decision has been made for you. Despite all the bitterness, the anger… something has changed, changed inside you. Enough for you to care deeply for Kim, and could give you countless reasons to prove that just because you care about Kim does not make you weak.”

As Shego trembled slightly, Marie sighed. “Because that’s what you worry about, yes? Love making you weak, vulnerable. People attacking you through others.” There was an imperceptible nod. “This explains our little… argument, and why I haven’t seen you for years. You cared about me, Kara’s attempt to kill me forced you to face that, and afterwards I think that made you realise there was a chink in that incredible armour of yours. Caring left you open and vulnerable.”

As her apprentice nodded imperceptibly, Marie chuckled. “Oh, Shego… love is chosen by something higher, or at least I have always felt that to be the hidden truth. If you have a connection to someone, trying to fight it is akin to trying to punch through a solid wall with just your hands.”

“Yeah, except I can actually do that.” Shego managed, a faint smile on her lips. A smile that suddenly faded into calculation. “Fox, say that again…”

“What? Oh, trying to fight your feelings for Ms Possible is like trying to punch-“

“Though a solid wall… or in this case… cut.” Shego finished and her gaze slid to the thick wall they stood next to, and her trademark smirk slowly flickered into life. “Solid concrete… about a foot thick, probably has a lining of solid steel… not exactly a problem for me. Fox, how sensitive would the tremor sensors be? ”

“Inside? I would expect them to be in the low frequencies. Most drills, digging systems, and other cutting tools would end up causing some deep vibrations, why?”

“Hmm, could be a problem… unless, yeah!” Shego purred, cracking her knuckles. “Let’s try something a little more refined. Something really nice and tightly focused into a cutting torch. Fox, I’m gonna burn through rather than pummel. No vibrations that way. Just a lot of acrid smoke, so try not to breathe, kay?”

“Burn through wha-“ Marie began, only to jerk back as Shego’s arms shot out towards the wall and a thick beam of green energy snapped into existence from each palm, combining to form a far thicker pulsing stream that slammed into the concrete and began to chew into it.

Where the beam touched the grey concrete it vaporised with a hiss, and Marie watched in astonishment as Shego began to slowly carve a deep groove into the wall, a human sized hole. Smoke poured from the groove, making Marie step back and Shego hold her breath while all the time discharging even greater amounts of plasma into the incredible cutting edge she had formed.

Finally, the beam faded away, and the green thief slammed her claws into the concrete, faint splutters of green fire showing how far she had dug them in. She glanced over. “I need to concentrate to boost my body enough to yank this out. No talking for a second.”

Nodding, Marie sympathised with Shego’s grunt of exertion as she leapt upwards to slap her booted feet on either side of the circular slab of concrete and then hauled with all her might. The slab groaned and then slid outwards a little, before Shego hauled again and again. Eventually, the circle slid out and Marie helped Shego gently lower it to the ground. With it secure, the green woman groaned in relief and stretched.

“Damn that was heavy.” The green woman glanced slyly at her mentor. “Still, I’ve always loved to make an entrance.”

Marie stared at her and then rolled her eyes, making Shego’s smirk fade. “That is not funny.”

“I thought it was.” As the redhead continued to stare at her, Shego shifted and felt the urge to cough before sulking a little. “Kimmie would have hit me with a comeback…”

“Yes, she obviously appreciates your sense of humour.”

“I’m gonna ignore that little wise ass remark and put it down to you being French… Anyway, better get a move on.”

Both women peered into the hole and the vault beyond. Lit by a series of faint blue lights set neatly into the concrete ceiling, they outlined long shelve units and tabletops upon which stood various devices, many of which the uses for were unknown. Other tables held various bottles and flasks, all neatly labelled with their contents, some of which glowed various faint colours. In the right hand corner, a giant robot stood in silence, shut down, and in the left corner, hundreds of high capacity storage tapes lay neatly arranged, carrying the blueprints for who knew what.

Marie’s eyes widened, as she took in the sight of what she would swear was a pistol sized anti-tank missile launcher. “Merde…”

“You don’t know the half of it. Anything in here isn’t legal, Marie, even for us thieves. Remember that, and try not to bump or touch anything.” As Shego began to climb through the hole, Marie grabbed her arm.

“Wait! The sensors inside the vault!” As Shego paused, Marie pointed to the humming green pattern of sensors along the floor. “They seem to be still active. Just wait a second.”

Taking out her palmtop and scanning the area with her mask, the French thief hummed and then tilted her head. “Strange.”

“What?”

“I expected to see far more security devices on in this area, but it seems all they have is literally the vibration and pressure network. No heat sensors, cameras… nothing.” The redhead exchanged a glance with Shego. “Odd, considering the protection up to this point, no?”

“A little, though maybe Jackie thought all the other protection negated the need for anything that complex in here. He’s a business man, why spend more expense in the actual vault if someone gets past all the rest? Chances are you’re not gonna stop them, so why bother?”

“I suppose so… but it still seems odd to me.” Marie glanced around. “Look there! If we can get to that stanchion, we can flip onto the shelves and try to find the case that way.”

“Great, yet more wall climbing. I feel like a damn spider.” Grumbling, Shego watched as Marie fumbled around inside her belt before pulling out her utility launcher and sliding a grappling bolt into the muzzle. As the bolt zipped into the roof, trailing a short length of ultra strong monofilament rope behind it, she rolled her eyes. “Tarzan too, by the look of it.”

“Stop complaining, Emerald.” Marie swung out on the rope, carefully making sure her booted feet were tucked as high as possible, away from the humming green network of lasers and pressure pads, before jumping onto one of the shelving units. Secure, Marie carefully swung the rope to Shego, who lithely gripped it with one hand and swung across gracefully to land in a catlike pose next to the redhead.

“See it anywhere? It’s a silver briefcase, really ordinary looking, apart from the high tech lock next to the handle and the red hazard bio sign engraved into it. I doubt Jackie’d take Servus out of the case as it keeps the nanites stable, if I remember Drakken’s damn boring rant correctly. So, anything?”

“No… not yet.”

Scowling, Shego glanced around, carefully scanning the shelves. “Doy! It’s got to be in here somewhere, has to be!”

“What if it’s in the main building?” Marie queried, crawling along the shelf top. “He may have sent it up for study, oui?”

“Could have… though I kinda doubt it. Everything even slightly illegal is stored here, even if it’s studied in the main building. The last thing you want is a spot raid by the FBI, CIA, GJ, or anyone really, coming across anything dodgy.”

“I see your point.” Frowning, Shego’s mentor leapt onto an adjoining shelving unit. “I’m going to make my way across to the power box over there and try to short the sensors in here. Should make our life easi-“

A sudden deafening explosion had both thieves spinning in defence. A choking mix of smoke and charred concrete dust billowed into the vault from the circular hole Shego had cut, making both women cough and scowl.

What the hell was that?

“Stay here, keep looking for the case… we may have to perform a fighting escape.” Shego growled at Marie before leaping off the shelf and grabbing the monofilament rope, swinging across the space to a table sitting next to where she had bored the hole.

The sudden stomp of booted feet, accompanied by the rattle of metals and plastics had the green woman carefully dropping into a defensive crouch. The voice that echoed into the vault, however, had her eyes widening in annoyance.

“Congratulations, Shego. A textbook break-in on all accounts.” Jack Hench, still dressed in a pristine suit, quietly walked past the welded door that his men had breach charged and examined the group of unconscious guards around his feet. He scowled for a second, before motioning to the squad of twenty heavily armed ‘Henchmen’ around him. “Get these people to the medical wing.”

Cautiously, Shego peered around the burned edge of her hole, and examined the situation.

Around Jack’s pristine dressed form, ten henchmen flanked their employer, eyes alert and bodies tensed for any attack, or reaction, from her. They wore the standard Hench Co. uniform, along with some form of advanced body armour that gleamed dully in the room’s lights. Around each henchman’s left arm were strangely coloured shields of a transparent plastic, and in the other they carried more of the same steel batons the guards in the vault had been equipped with. On top of that, Shego took in the pistols holstered on their belts, along with some form of tazer.

“So, what brings you back to Hench Co. Shego?” Jack stared at the hole and into the dim space beyond. “Surely you’re not stealing for Doctor Drakken again?”

Shego slid her head back from the hole and leaned cautiously against the wall next to its burned edge. He knew she was here, and so, to buy Marie time, Shego did what she could. “No, I have other interests that need something you have.”

Hench smiled faintly, but his eyes were cold. “Would it kill you to just once actually pay for something?”

“Sure, unless what I’m after is such a fucking abomination that it deserves to be destroyed. After all, Jackie, you know how much I hate mind control. Should have thought that was obvious when you visited Doctor D in hospital to get your money for that jungle lair’s equipment.”

“It did look painful, what you’d done to him. I was unaware that it was due to mind control. Chipped you did he?” Hench thought carefully. Shego was freelance once more, it seemed, and she was one of the best he’d ever known. “Terrible that he’d do that. If you worked for me, I’d make sure nobody had a chance at doing that to you.”

Shego closed her eyes. “Jackie… how did you know Drakken’s device was a mind control chip? Unless you happened to sell him the components that your R&D team speculated could make em. Or did he give you the blueprints in exchange for the lairs equipment. Mmn?”

Jack Hench scowled, and then schooled his face, and his voice, into careful neutrality. “Client confidentiality, Shego. Now then, what are you looking for?”

Shego weighed her options, watching her mentor leap onto another set of shelves, searching frantically. What the hell…

“I want Servus, Jack.” Shego heard the indrawn breath and smiled coldly. “Yeah, Drakken told me who bought that piece of shit. I want it.”

“Well, I’m sure we could still come to some financial agreeme-“

“I don’t intend to give you one fucking penny!” Shego snapped, jerking upright. “Servus is something so goddamn sick that it deserves to be melted into a fucking glassy puddle!”

“I don’t think I can allow that. Servus is just too important a creation to just destroy it.” Hench examined his cufflink, flicking the diamond inset into gold with a sigh. “Shego, I’ve had a few improvements made to my Henchmen’s body armour just in case we ever had the pleasure of your company again.”

“Yeah?”

“Oh yes, my scientists assure me that my troops are quite plasma proof now. Don’t make me have them try it out. It’d be a terrible shame for you to end up injured… helpless.”

The snarl came easily to her and Shego bared her pearly white teeth. “Try me, Jackie and we’ll see who ends up being injured and helpless.”

“If I have to…” Hench flicked a hand. “After all, you probably have a good idea what I want to use Servus for. I can’t allow that, my dear.” As the henchman beside him yanked free a spehical grenade, Jack stopped him for just a second. “Understand me, Shego. This is business, that’s all it is. Nothing personal.”

Rising to her feet, Shego moved to peer slightly through the hole, only to have her green eyes snap to the small metal ball that suddenly came hurtling through the gap, bouncing off the table and dropping to the floor, which lit with a red light and caused a blaring alarm to sound. The green woman ignored the noise, focusing instead on the metal ball with horror.

“Grenade!” Shego screamed, forcing her leg muscles to push her body through the hole, hands bursting into plasma as she did so. It looked as if Jack was going to get a first hand test of his new armour.

As her boots shot through the gap, the world inside the vault filled with white light and a sound wave so intense it would stun anyone, as the Hench Co. Concussion grenade exploded in an ear shattering whoomp.

Shego felt the wave hit her in the back of the head as she tucked into a ball and rolled along the hard surface of the floor, coming up in a smooth battle stance. Hands curled into talons, her plasma playing around her fingers, Shego snarled at the elegantly dressed man, who watched her with a smooth gaze.

“Jack Hench, you asshole!”

“Charming as always, Shego.” Jack inclined his head towards the hole. “I thought a plasma proof door would stop you. Seems I was wrong, and I’m going to have to remember you can do that.”

“Yeah, well you never did plan ahead that well.” Shego glanced around at the armoured henchmen. “So, we gonna do this or what?”

“Before you do… tell me one thing.” Hench leaned forwards. “How’d you stop the Doombot that Drakken sold me? The one with the same plasma shield as the door?”

“Doombot?” Shego blinked, her memory playing over the various machines and objects in the vault. The image of a large and hulking humanoid shape had Shego’s stomach clenching as a ball of ice lodged there. “There was one in there, deactivated.”

“Certainly, until the alarms inside the vault are tripped. Tripped by someone like you, my Dear.” Hench scowled. “Are you telling me that you managed to avoid every single alarm?”

“Pretty much, yeah…” She muttered, her mind thinking back to a searching redhead and the pealing alarms that now sounded. “Oh crap…”

“I’m sorry?”

Turning back, Shego hissed an angry breath between her teeth. “You’d better just turn around, Jackie. Let me take what I want and leave, or someone’s going to get hurt. That someone being you, just in case we misunderstand each other.”

“Johnson, Macneil…. Take her down, but no lethals. I want Shego alive!”

Two of the burly men launched themselves at the green woman, who cart wheeled to the left, and then sprang forwards, her plasma flaring and firing two separate bolts of energy at her enemies. Lifting their clear shields, the world lit with a flare of green light as the energy slammed into the surface.

---

Marie had seconds to act after Shego’s screamed warning. Glancing at the table in front of her, the French redhead knew that it would take a sizable blast. Jumping over the edge, The Fox grabbed the lip and yanked as hard as possible, forcing the table to flip with her, presenting it’s flat surface to the bouncing metal ball behind her.

The world filled with alarms, blaring with a strobing red colour that would have semi blinded her without the sensor mask. Even as she winced at the sounds of their discovery, the world lit with an even more blinding and intense white light and a sound, almost a solid wall of force with the power behind it, had the thief clapping her hands over her ears in defence.

As her masks systems kicked in, filtering the noise to a bearable humming, Marie watched in dismay as various vials and bottles around her shook. Some exploded, cascading their contents around them in violent sprays. Worried, she cast her eyes across to the metal cabinet across from where she lay. The lurid red bio-hazard warning sign gleamed in the strobing red lights and, thankfully, it seemed intact and undamaged.

As the sounds faded, The Fox pulled herself to her feet and glanced around in dismay at the bottles and devices that had been strewn across the vault floor. What a mess… it will take forever to find anything in here now.

Stepping lithely across the mess in front of her, Marie pursed her lips and then glanced across to the biohazard cabinet. Shego had glanced at it once, and then dismissed it… but she wasn’t so sure.

An obvious place to keep Servus, yes. However, this Hench would know of its power from Drakken. The danger that Servus would pose if any active liquid were to escape could be substantial. Maybe not to take over peoples minds, but sufficient to injure them, kill them even.

The more Marie stared at the vault, the more she smiled. Taking a step towards the cabinet, the sudden familiar sound of Shego’s plasma flaring, coupled with male screams, had the redhead whirling in shock. “Shego!”

It was lucky that she turned when she did. Activated from its slumber by the alarm system, the huge red and black Doombot had rolled towards the thief on quiet wheels from underneath its massive feet. Now it stared into the masked face of its target, instead of the ponytail of red hair that its targeting sensors had been preparing to fire an anti personnel rocket into.

It was hard to say who was more surprised.

“Merde!” Marie gasped even as the whine of the rocket’s engine, warhead jutting from the Doombot’s launcher, echoed around her. With a puff of smoke, the small missile shot forwards, streaking towards her.

---

Shego stared in disbelief at the sight of Hench’s men, unharmed and grinning, as the green plasma she had shot at them spluttered and danced across the shields before swiftly dying. “Well hell!”

They came at her, one from either side, and the green thief danced backwards. Her lithe body tensed, dodging a baton swung in from the left and ducking under a booted foot from the right. Taking the gap as the She countered, swinging her own boot across and into the inner thigh of the right hand henchman, and hissed in glee as she felt the impact rock her leg.

“Fucker!” The henchman roared in agony, and Shego was unable to duck in time to miss the backhanded blow to her face. She staggered backwards, momentarily dazed by the impact and felt the warm metallic taste of her own blood fill her mouth.

Spitting a wad of bloody phlegm and peeling her lips away from white teeth, Shego snarled and launched herself at the henchman. He raised the shield, but Shego lashed out with superhuman strength and the plastic skittered along the floor. The baton that swung out in response was gripped before it could hit her and the green thief’s eyes blazed as she reversed her grip around the henchman’s wrist, before brining his own hand across his face in a vicious arc. There was a crack of metal on bone and he fell to the floor, bleeding and unconscious.

It was a short-lived victory, as a third henchman filled the gap of his fallen comrade.

“Lady, you’d better surrender.” The first henchman, gripping his baton tightly, took a step towards Shego, menacingly.

“Yeah, right. Like that’s going to happen. Jesus, Jackie, where’d you get these guys from?”

“I think that’s for me to know, Shego. I apologise that, unlike Ms Possible, they cannot think of unique threats for you. Saddening I know, for someone who enjoys battle like you do.” Hench waved a finger, circling in the air, and the henchmen began to circle. “Take her down.”

The first henchman shot forwards silently, but Shego was ready and she moved forwards with deadly intent. He was surprised as her smooth, muscular body slid against his, well inside the arc for his baton to be effective. He was even more surprised when gloved talons gripped the crotch plate of his body armour, tightened on it and then twisted. The plate clamped like a vice around his privates, pain swiftly giving way to agony as the gloved hand twisted it further, and made him scream. He wanted to curl into a ball, to coddle his burning crotch, but Shego wasn’t finished. He felt the impact of her fist against his jaw and the world faded away.

The third henchman rushed to aid his colleague, as Shego twisted the codpiece with a cruel gleam in her eye. Desperate to help, he shot forwards, legs pounding, and yanked out a tazer. Shego heard his boots slam into the concrete, but even as the green woman turned to meet the attack, he pulled the trigger. The gun let out a bang of compressed air, sending the two wire trailing bolts of its cartridge into the catsuit gracing her body and the air filled with ozone.

The snap of discharging electricity was nothing compared to the howl of pain that escaped the green thief, her body jerking violently as the voltage ripped into her, sending muscles spasming wildly. His hope that his attack had incapacitated her was short lived, however. A black glove gripped the sparking bolts and yanked, pulling them free from the clothing and flesh underneath. Gripping the bolts tightly, feeling the voltage swirl around her fingers, and mingle with her plasma powers, Shego snarled.

“You seriously thought that’d even slow me down?” Tossing the bolts to one side, the green woman stomped towards the henchman. “All it’s done is piss me off!”

Another group of henchmen ran at Shego, blocking her intended target as they swung batons and tried to use their shields as battering rams. The thief lashed out, claws scoring deep grooves into the plasma proof plastic of two or three of them.

She was holding her own, actually gradually beating them back. And that was when the explosion echoed out of the vault.

“Fox! No!” Gasping in horror at the sound, Shego turned to where the sound had come from, leaving herself open to attack. It was an opportunity that the henchmen took with ruthless precision. A baton slammed into her temple, making Shego reel and scream in agony, while a second caught her on the shoulder and a third slammed into her right knee, making her leg crumple and her body drop.

Incensed and injured as the henchmen circled once more, Shego cried out in anger over her own injuries and in fear for her mentor.

---

Diving between the Doombot’s legs, Marie let the shockwave of the blast wash over her whiel she concentrated on not being crushed by the mass of metal above her. As soon as the sensation of the blast faded into a faint wave of hot air, Marie acted.

Slamming her hands onto the smooth concrete of the vault, the redhead pushed herself into a forward flip, legs arcing over her body in a smooth gymnastic move that had her upright in seconds.

Her enemy turned, metal screeching on metal at the move, while hydraulics and pistons hummed in electronic complaint. The huge robot had not expected its target to move, certainly not as quickly as Marie had done, and now it struggled to compensate with an opponent whose skills were based on speed, agility and cunning.

This was here to intercept Emerald. Wonderful… instead it has little old me to deal with instead. Not much of a competition in power here. Marie thought, quickly running through the inventory her mind had on the devices in her belt, while a third part of her brain plotted a possible number of plans to deal with the walking hunk of metal trying to kill her. It is times like this that I wish I had the same powers and strength as you, Emerald. Ah well, I will have to rely on what I taught you… guile, and a heavy dose of cunning. Well, that as well as speed and agility.

As the robot swung around to get her back in its sights, Marie tensed her leg muscle and lithely leaped onto the out swinging arm. Her suits gloves, and their climbing mesh technology, struggled with the smooth slippery surface of the Doombot’s metal casing as Marie held on for dear life.

The Doombot, its CPU blinking in cybernetic surprise, shook its arm violently, trying to dislodge the French thief clinging to it desperately. On the second shake, Marie let the momentum swing her up and around onto the back of the robots body, her body slamming into the metal with enough force that the air was knocked out of her.

This is what happens when you get phoned by old acquaintances. You end up being put to such inconvenience!

Avoiding the clubbing motion of the other hand, a bow that would have taken her head clean off, Marie scrambled up the Doombot’s body, and finally managed to hook one hand around the lip of its neck joint. She swung there while her free hand scrambled around inside her belt.

“Where is it! I know I packed a few and, merde!” Marie yelped as the robot crashed into the wall, trying to shake her loose. Concrete dust cascaded onto her suit, but she continued to desperately flick through pouch after pouch until, with a cry of triumph, the redhead pulled free a walnut sized sphere of black metal. “Ha!”

Hauling herself up with a grunt of exertion, the French thief slammed her hand into the gap between the robots body and head, forcing the sphere into its workings. “Bon appetite!”

Letting go, Marie dropped to the floor and agilely scampered across to the mess of fallen shelves and debris that had been part of Hench Co.’s vault collection. The Doombot twisted, trying to track her, and the last thing it saw were her booted feet diving into a mess of scattered, broken shelving and papers.

As it turned, hands extending to fire rockets, there was a sudden explosive blast of purple blue light from its neck cavity, and for the Doombot the world went haywire. The metal monster staggered, totally out of control, to crash against the vault door with a resounding and final boom. The glowing red lights of its eyes flickered and then faded into nothing, while smoke seeped out of the various vents and gaps in its body, smoke that smelled of burning silicon and left an acrid metal after taste.

“Electomagnetic pulse grenade… one of David’s better inventions. I really must thank him when I get back.” The Fox grinned, and carefully walked across to the biohazard cabinet. A few seconds with her auto lock pick and the door swung open. Inside, wreathed in cool vapour, sat a case that Marie recognised as fitting Shego’s description to the letter.

“Yes!” Marie whispered, her grin widening, only for it to fade at the sound of violent combat coming from the hole in the wall, swiftly followed by a flash of green plasma and Shego’s voice raised in a snarling battle cry. “Emerald…”

---

“Heh, baby… you’re gonna be in pain tonight!” A henchman murmured, walking towards Shego’s injured body, while holding his shield in front to protect him from any plasma Shego could fire. “My boss isn’t too picky with needing to know any details of how we handle… intruders. Especially pretty ones like you.”

Adrenaline flooding Shego’s system and her leg snapped out, kicking the attacker’s shield off his arm and away. She moved into him, ducking fists and a snap kick with feline grace, before using her claws to pounce onto his body.

“Let me show you how DAMN wrong you are, Asshole!”

The henchman screamed in pain at the feel of the sharp talons sinking into his chest, and he flailed desperately trying to make her let go.

Another ran at the green woman attacking his colleague but, as his baton whistled through the air towards the dark tresses on Shego’s head, the thief pushed away from her victim, her booted foot snapping under his jaw with a crack that echoed around the room. The baton bearing guard overbalanced as his baton sailed past the area where the thief’s head had been.

As he struggled to compensate, his head craned to watch her back flip over his body and a feeling of dread rushed through him as the crack of her boots hitting concrete echoed from a space just behind his spine. He turned, trying to hit her with his plastic shield, but Shego simply braced her body and took the blow against her shoulder. The impact had her hissing in pain, but also put the martial artist into a position to deliver a stunning set of blows against his stomach and kidneys.

As he crumpled, the guard watched in astonishment as she caught another guard, this one running at her with a battle cry and clutching his baton in a two handed grip, under the chin with her right boot. The crack of bone was loud, and his head shot backwards, the impact so powerful that it sent him rolling across the floor until he finally came to a rest at Hench’s feet.

But that was nothing compared to the sight of her grabbing the fallen baton and imbuing it with plasma energy. The metal roiled with a bright green glow, and Shego launched herself across at the director.

Another three henchmen stepped in quickly, shields raised, and the baton bounced off the plastic with a loud cracking noise. Another henchmen swung his baton at the her head, bur Shego danced out the way, coming to a skidding crouch, growling under her breath.

“Come on Jackie… let’s play! Just you and me until you hand over Servus.”

Hench, shocked at the actual attack on his person, craned his neck to look at Shego over his henchman’s protective bodies with a seething and angry expression. Sniffing, he adjusted his tie. “I’m a business man, my dear. I leave the fighting to those who are paid for it!”

A sudden explosive roar, coupled with an intense flash of purple light from the burned hole, acrid smoke, smelling of silicon and ozone, trickling out in a faint wisp, caused the green woman to pause in battle and turn in shock.

“Fox? Oh god… no… no!”

“Problems, my dear? I didn’t know you used hired help.” Jack smirked, only for the semi-smile playing on his face to freeze as Shego turned to stare at him. She glowered, her emerald eyes bright with anger as she almost slipped into incandescent rage

“Hench, I swear to you right now, that if my friend is harmed in any damn way, I’m gonna make you swallow your own goddamn teeth!”

“You’ll find that hard to do with my men’s plasma protection, Shego. You’re good, but without your powers to back you up, even you can be taken down!”

Jack began to laugh, only for a Henchman to tap him on the shoulder. “Uh, Sir?”

“What?” The owner of Hench Co. blinked as the henchman waved a hand at his plasma shield. Across the transparent plastic, thousands of tiny cracks had begun to spread, and Hench watched in disbelief as a huge portion of the shield broke off with a snap. “This stuff was tested to take a damn bullet impact! How…”

“Dunno, Sir…” The henchman glanced anxiously at Shego, who stared at the shield with a feral grin. “But she does…”

Oh… oh! Frequencies, Jackie. You know about my plasma… but not that I can change it to do what Iwant. That last little use… that wasn’t heat… that was kinetic energy. And you didn’t really plan for that… did you?

“Oh, Jackie, Jackie, Jackie…” Her black lips curved in a smile as Shego wagged a single finger.

“The name is Jack Hench!” the man in question snapped angrily at her taunting tone. “And that shield is designed to take ionised plasma! We ran it through hundreds of tests!”

“You really didn’t think my plasma just did that did you?” Shego smiled cruelly, showing plenty of white teeth. “Such a bad idea when it comes to comet powers. You see, you never really know what they can do…”

She pointed a hand and a ball of plasma burst out of her fingertips, screeching towards the plastic shield that the henchman clutched with an audible gulp. It slammed into the four inch thick shield with an incredible explosive detonation, shattering the plastic like china. The energy remaining, unspent, slammed into the huge muscular man trying to shield himself from the scattering shards of plastic. Jack Hench watched in total shock as his employee was picked up and tossed against the wall like a rag doll.

As she watched her enemy slip to the floor unconscious and bleeding from multiple tiny slashes from the plastic shards, Shego smirked and glanced across at the other henchmen.

“But I do…”

There was a shuffling, and Jack Hench began to back away towards the bent and warped exit, his henchmen backing away from the green woman who stalked towards them, stepping over the groaning or unconscious bodies of those who had already fought her. As Hench’s group reached the exit, and realised that they wouldn’t all fit as a group, Shego smiled.

“I guess you really didn’t know what else I can use my plasma for, and that’s just sloppy Jackie… really sloppy.” Lighting her hands and extending them into claws as her body crouched into a feral pose, Shego cocked her head. “Now then, as my plasma powers are once again capable of kicking anyone’s ass… who’s next?”

“Keep her back! Back!” Jack ran through the door, casting a scowl behind him. “You’ve made an enemy today, Shego…”

“Oh, I’m scared.” Snorting, the thief watched as the group regrouped on the other side of the door before turning away and dashing to the bored hole she had made. Forcing herself as quickly as possible into the space, Shego glanced around and tried not to choke on the fumes from a burnt out Doombot. “Fox? Damn it Fox, where are you?”

---

As Shego kicked the remains of the Doombot aside, Jack Hench glared at the henchmen surrounding him. Adjusting his tie and smoothing back his hair, the owner of Hench Co. sought to remain calm.

Taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes and stared at the hole Shego had slipped through. “Call security and get the back up troops down here. Now!” One of the henchmen coughed and Hench turned to him, anger trickling onto his face. “What?”

“Um, we only have another thirty or so on duty. And they aren’t equipped with the anti-plasma shields, Sir.” As Hench stared at him, the Henchman shuffled and volunteered. “But we also have another twenty or so guards available… we pulled them out of the building as per your orders when Shego was detected. They’re waiting for assembly orders.”

“Then get them all into the passage and get them here! Shego’s not going to just waltz past us and away with Servus! Not when I have plans for that technology! Do you hear me? Because if not, your job prospects with Hench Co. are rapidly shrinking.”

“Yes Sir.” The Henchman flipped on a radio. “This is Alpha team. Shego not contained. Repeat, Shego not contained. All forces meet at breach point and secure area!”

---

“Fox?” Shego swore as a hot piece of metal cut her suit material and she kicked it aside. “Come on, Fox, speak to me… please!”

“Shego!” Out of the smoke and darkness, the strobing red-light of the now silent alarm illuminating her grimy and dusty sensor mask, Marie tottered forwards, clutching a briefcase that had the green thief’s heart leaping into her mouth. “Is this it?”

Shego stared at the anodised metal and the gleaming silver words along the side. Servus Mk 1. She stared, grinned widely with glee and Marie let out a grunt as strong arms gripped and hugged her tightly.

“Yeah… god, I… yeah! Yeah! This is it, doy!” Shego opened the case with experienced hands and ran her fingers across various coloured tubes until she came across the four gleaming silver tubes that had been stamped neatly with ‘Reverse: Stage 1’ in black. “This is what we need, what we damn well need, Fox! The second part of Kimmie’s key, and you found it! You found it!”

“Anything for my favourite student…” Marie murmured softly. And of course… someone I think of as a daughter. The daughter I never had. “We should leave.”

“Yeah, before Jackie gets angry about how easily I whooped his butt.”

Shego snorted, and both women turned to walk to the hole. However, as Shego’s head slid into the outer room, the thief gasped in shock and pulled back into the vault just before a hail of bullets slapped into the concrete, raising puffs of dust.

“Jeez, there’s gotta be every single guard out there!” Cautiously, Shego peered into the outer room. “Damn it. He’s got about fifteen more Henchmen and about twenty or so guards from the building and…” The thief turned to Marie, genuine worry on her face. “I think I just saw another two Doombots out there. Damn Drakken!”

Marie frowned. Cornered in the vault and trapped, the Fox’s brain went into overdrive and she hummed to herself. “Can we fight our way out?”

It was Shego’s turn to frown in thought. “I could. Supercharged reflexes and enhanced strength, to say nothing of my plasma power, would get me through that lot. Oh, I’d take a few injuries but I’d make it. And that’s the problem. I’ve got to think about you.”

“I can handle myself.” Marie whispered. “I can cover your back.”

“Not with Servus you won’t. Jackie doesn’t really give a shit about me or you. It’s Servus he wants and if he sees you carrying the case then he’ll stop at nothing to get it off you. I can’t watch my back, your back and also keep an eye on Servus.”

The sudden echoing sound of a polite cough, amplified through a megaphone, made both thieves glance outside the hole. Standing behind the majority of his men, Hench raised his lips to the megaphone.

“I would suggest that you both give yourselves up. Shego, all I want is Servus. Give me that, and your promise to not try for it again, and we’ll consider this little episode closed between us. I’ll even extend my offer to you for employment once again. Your friend too if you want, because she seems to have quite the talent.”

Shego glanced across at Marie, who shook her head. Nodding, the green thief raised her own voice. “No thanks, Jackie. We’re good in here.”

“You can’t escape, Shego!” Jack Hench lowered the megaphone and glanced around. “If she tries to get out of that hole, I want you to fire everything we have.” As his men nodded, Jack raised the megaphone again. “I’ll give you a few minutes to think it over.”

Shego growled and slid back, propping herself next to Marie. “Suggestions? I’d just fight my way out as you say. But that isn’t going to work here. Doy!”

Marie was barely paying any attention to her. In fact, the French thief gazed across the ruined and smoky vault with a preoccupied attention. A single hand stroked the red ponytail that trailed out from under the mask, while her hand drummed against the briefcase handle it clutched.

Suddenly Marie turned, her eyes bright. “Shego, how many people are in there?”

The thief blinked. “Bout’ fifteen Henchmen and twenty guards, plus the bots. Why?”

“I was wondering, do you think that would be the guard staff for Hench Co itself?”

“Yeah… probably. Most likely the whole night contingent. Why?”

Oh, I was just thinking,” Marie slapped the edge of the concrete hole and tilted her head. “If you can do this to the concrete here…”

“I can bore one into Hench Co.!” Shego whispered excitedly as she realised that Marie was onto something. “A building where there’s practically nobody to stop us walking out. Well, not until they realise we’re in there anyway. Getting out of the main entrance could be tricky. But better than that bloody gauntlet.”

“Leave getting out of the building to me.” Marie murmured. “I will leave you to open us a new escape route out of this annoying vault.”

“Shego!” The booming voice of Jack Hench made the green woman roll her eyes. “Time’s up!”

“Yeah, and the answers still no. Oh, and Jack? You can kiss my ass and forget any chance of me working for you.” Grinning, Shego strolled away from the hole and licked a finger. Plasma blossomed on her fingertips and she glanced at Marie. “Fire in the hole.”

A ball of plasma hammered into the roof of the vault, just above the hole in the concrete and Hench watched in disbelief as Shego’s only exit crumbled and cracked. The concrete collapsed, huge chunks of it slamming into the floor and wall. Dust exploded into the room, choking everyone, even the suited figure who continued to stare.

“She’s gone insane… trapping herself like that.” Hench clenched his hands into balls and turned to the nearest Henchman. “Tell central to get the main power on again, I want that vault door open. Now!”

While the Henchmen scrambled to answer their bosses demand, Marie watched quietly as a thin powerful beam from Shego’s finger bored into solid concrete with a dangerous hiss and spitting sound.

“I recall you showing me your powers. When were you able to extend the time you could use it this way? Last time you used this form of plasma, you couldn’t maintain the beam for more than a minute or so.”

Shego shrugged and nodded. “Still shouldn’t really. Funny thing is, Kara tried to immolate me in a fusion reactor.” She heard her mentor choke slightly and nodded, never taking her eyes off the beam as she reached the three quarter mark for her new hole. “Bitch. Anyway, the weird thing is that the plasma from the reactor kinda slid into me, merged with my own plasma. Since then I’ve had quite the boost in the control over it and strength of the plasma itself too.”

“Permanent?”

“Dunno. I’d like to think so… I hope so, just so long as I don’t grow a second head or anything.” The beam snapped off and Shego grunted, her muscles bulging under skin-tight fabric as she forced the concrete plug out of its new home. “I feel really good… supercharged. Just didn’t think to mention it, sorry.”

The plug dropped with a thud into the room beyond and Shego peered through. Beyond lay a second vault, covered in a network of lasers, the beams glowing faintly in the concrete dust. She sniffed, recognising them as the same laser grid that idiot with the cuddle buddy collection used. She’d had a nasty shock, trying to obtain a Flamingoat and had decided that it hadn’t been worth it. Glancing across at Marie, she shrugged.

“Shall we?”

Both thieves knew that type of grid well, and for most people it would have been impossible to dodge. For Shego, Marie and also Kim long ago, it was merely a minor workout for skills that other people dreamed off.

Another beam of energy and another push against a concrete plug to dislodge it, and the two women stepped into a neatly decorated corridor. Across from them lay a gold plated set of elevator doors. Shego pressed the call button.

“I bet Henchy’s pissing himself about now.” The green thief chuckled and glanced across at her redheaded colleague, who smiled and tapped her fingers against the case. “I wonder how many guards defend this area… usually, I mean.”

“Bout six… last time I visited. Well they’re all gone for now, thanks to Jack’s ‘come save me from the green girl!’ call.” Shego’s black lips flickered into a smile as Marie snorted with laughter. “What’s the bet that he realises he’s fucked up before we leave the building?”

“I’ll offer ten francs he has no idea. Two to one odds.”

Shego snorted, stepping into the lift with her mentor as the doors slid open. “You French lightweight. By the way, which floor do we need for your magic escape?”

“Roof… top floor if not.” Marie sniffed in insult. “I just do not find betting that much fun.”

“Yeah, yeah…” Shego smirked, watching the numbers scroll by.

The lift stopped at the top floor, just below penthouse level for which they would have needed a key. Both women, however, simply strode out and headed for the utility staircases. A few flights of stairs, rapidly jogged up, lead to the roof and the cool night air.

“Ah, perfect.” Marie announced, breathing in deeply. As she sighed, Shego gently reached out and pulled a lump of concrete out of her red tresses. The French woman jerked slightly and turned, just in time to see Shego propel it over the edge.

“Just a little concrete.” Shego murmured, smiling. “Now then, oh Mistress of Thievery, care telling me how we’re going to get away?”

“Hold this.” Marie handed the Servus case to Shego and shrugged, making the locking straps that held her tiny backpack to her spine click free. Kneeling, the thief opened it and began to rummage inside.

“What, you got a collapsible jetpack in their?” Shego watched, amused as a square of black fabric, slick and oily in appearance, was pulled free. She sighed. “Bit small for a parachute, Fox. You know, Kimmie would have a collapsible jetpack in something that size.”

“Oh, do be quiet for a second.” Marie scowled and then turned back to her work, for some reason she couldn’t work out, she felt mildly insulted. “This is something much better than a parachute.”

“Oh?”

Marie clicked a small black square into a tiny plastic holder on the side of the fabric. She glanced up. “Stand back.” With that, the redhead pressed a recessed button.

With an electrical snap, the fabric rapidly unfolded with a speed that had Shego blinking. To her eyes, it seemed as though the black material was alive, twisting and expanding in an almost unnatural way. Frowning, the green thief stared. Where was the framework for this thing? And how was it unfolding?

With a final “zwhip”, Shego found herself standing in front of a one person glider and she couldn’t help herself. “No way!”

“Oh yes.” Marie countered happily. “Something David came up with after watching a movie. I forget which, but I had little interest. Still, I have used this before and it works very well.”

“Great. For you anyway.” Shego peered at the glider. Did the thing really have no framework? Because it looked like it. “What about me?”

Marie grinned and pulled out another square of fabric and a second battery pack. “It just so happens I packed two… if you’re interested of course.”

A few minutes later, a few of the lingering guards, dashing towards the entrance to the hidden corridor, glanced around as a faint, but excited, female scream of joy echoed around the Hench complex. Above them, two inky shadows cut through the night sky and vanished into the Middleton.

---

In the hidden vault room, the vast metal door slid open with a whisper of oiled hinges, and Jack Hench stepped into a scene of total bedlam. The Henchmen behind him, armed with rifles, tazers and handcuffs, all stared in disbelief at the destruction. However, Jack Hench could only stare in growing realisation and anger at the second smoking hole in the wall on the far side.

“Damn it. How many guards are in the central building!”

“Um, none… Sir.” A Henchman spoke up. “You told us to get every available guard to the vault via the security corridor. That’s what we’ve done. I’d be surprised if there was anyone other than Jacob, he’s new, Sir, and is learning about the control systems, in the pubic building right now.

A few of the wiser, and older, men glanced at their employer. Eyes took in the way his hands clenched until they went white, causing muscles to bunch in readiness to flee, only to relax as Hench took a deep breath and swore before sighing.

“Damn it… too late to go after them now.” Kicking at a broken vial, Hench glanced around. “Call containment and get this crap cleaned up. Fix the security corridor doors and seal the hidden entrance. I want this area totally inaccessible by tomorrow. Then call the FBI, and I mean the FBI, only! I don’t want Global sniffing around us in any way. Call them and report a possible robbery. Have our thieving team, unskilled louts compared to Shego and this other woman, break into the vault security system. I want it to look like industrial espionage.”

“Right, Sir. We leave them to catch Shego for us.”

“No, you idiot! I want to be able to report this damage and get it repaired. If I say it was Shego they’ll want to know what she was after, and that’s something I don’t want them to know about!”

“Sorry, Sir.”

“Tell the rest of those idiots to move back to the main building, lock it down, and start a search. I doubt we’ll find them, but we could be lucky.” As Hench watched his men run off, he glared at the hole in the concrete. “I swear to you, Shego. One day I’ll work out how to pay you back for this.”

---

Global Justice Headquarters- 8:30AM.

“And we have fifteen trainees, along with three expert agents, going through the warehouses at the lair. Once that’s finished, I have already requested the concrete required to fill the lair.”

“Good. What about our European office?”

“In hand. Should be fully re-staffed, after the move, by next week.”

Yawning, Doctor Director turned to gaze out of the window and blink sleepy eyes at the sunlight that streamed in. “Good, good.”

Been a while since I’ve pulled an all-nighter like this. The one eyed woman smiled wryly. Ever since I had a certain teenager to keep some of my ‘backlog’ in check, and prevent them from succeeding in any of their schemes.

Another yawn escaped her lips, and a polite cough had her turning back to where Will Du sat with an understanding smile. “Perhaps we should call it a night, Sir?”

“Day, Will, day.” The one eyed woman waved a hand. “And you’re right. Looks like we’ve managed to work through all the paperwork I had too.” Sighing in relief, she placed the last piece of paper in her out tray and stood up. “Tell you what. As thanks, how about your boss buys you breakfast? I know this nice little café not too far from headquarters.”

“Fine by me, Sir.” Will stood too and smiled. “However, I demand that you let me get some sleep, eventually.”

“Sure. Breakfast, then I’m ordering you, and myself too Will, stop panicking, to take at least six hours downtime.”

Together, the GJ agents walked through the semi empty rooms of Global Justice headquarters, heading for the elevators and the ground floor exit. Various staff members, scientists and fellow GJ agents, waved and some called out greetings which both Will and Betty acknowledged with faint nods or a gentle smile.

“Sir, while we’re talking about the Blood Jade incident, any sign of Shego?”

“No, nothing.” Doctor Director stepped into the elevator and watched the numbers slide down to the ground floor. “Every agency, apart from ours, is getting antsy as well. I’ve had a combined total of fifteen requests from Middleton, Go City and even Upperton to allow shooting on site, considering GJ is their local interstate agency.”

“What did you say?”

“I told them what I told the FBI and CIA. On no account is Shego to be harmed unless the agents are in mortal, and I mean mortal, peril. Even so, I doubt that will hold. Everyone is so angry that we had her and yet she vanishes under our very noses.”

“To save Ms Possible.” Will stated, earning a nod. “I still can’t get my head around the fact that someone, who has shown every sign of hating Ms Possible, can then fall in love with her. It’s unbelievable.”

“Is it? Hatred is just as intense an emotion as love, Will. In fact you could call it the flip of the coin.” Doctor Director stepped out as the lift doors slid open, and she and Will strode to the main doors, oblivious to the sudden bustle around them. “I’ve seen too many villains and those who chase them end up needing each other to function as a person. At least, in this case, Shego has turned that to become romantically involved, instead of trying to destroy Kim, and eventually herself, in the process.”

“Do you think Ms Possible feels the same way?” He idly overheard a male agent muttering into his phone and raised an eyebrow at the name ‘Drakken’.

“Possibly. Hopefully, yes.” Betty smirked as Will blinked, moving to step out of the way of a female agent who ran past in a hurry. “Oh Will, don’t be such a prude. If Shego and Kim are in love with each other, then think of the benefits to having a Team Go and Possible. What’s the problem with that?”

“Well, one is a recognised hero and the other a wanted villain. Plus, they could find quite a lot of flack coming their way for being, well, interested in another woman.” Will shrugged as Doctor Director sighed and shook her head. “Not my viewpoint, Sir. I’ve seen so much in my few years with Global that I’m happy to know some of what this agency fights for exists. It’s just I hope Kim knows what she’ll be getting into if she is in love with Shego. Besides, what on earth would we do about her warrants?”

“Something to bear in mind and-“ The leader of Global broke off and frowned as agents pounded past her, knocking her shoulder. “Will, what the hell is going on?”

Will glanced around as his hand fell on the revolving door of GJ headquarters. He blinked at the sight of many milling GJ agents, all dashing around and barking into com-units. “I… don’t know.”

Doctor Director cupped her hands and raised her voice. “I want to know what’s going on in the next five seconds or I’m going to be very annoyed.”

“At once, all movement stopped in the entrance hallway and the mingled sound of voices and computer devices faded into a silky silence. Two agents stepped forwards and Doctor Director recognised one as Agent Ming Cho from Japan. The woman coughed and shuffled.

“Sir, I think you ought to step outside and look for yourself.” The dark haired Asian shook her head. “It’s… unbelievable. Really!”

Staring at her for a few seconds, enough to make Ming even more uncomfortable, Doctor Director stalked out of the revolving door and into the gleaming morning sun. The sight in front of her had even her jaded eye widening in total surprise. Betty Director had never, and refused to even consider, that she had been flabbergasted in her whole life. But the scene before her made her wonder if now was going to be the first.

“Sir, Doctor Direc-“ Will ran up beside her, and as his eyes took in the scene in front of them, his face mirrored her own look of disbelief. “I… oh my.”

“That’s certainly one way of putting it…” Betty managed to murmur.

In front of them, light gleamed off the huge corrugated truck that had been parked in front of GJ’s building. It also gleamed and glinted off the hundreds of machines that littered the parking lot tarmac. Metal and glass, twisted and bent into unrecognisable shapes, jutted out of them at odd angles.

It had been perfect for attaching the hundreds of coloured balloons that floated in the breeze, while the side of the truck had been an excellent place to attach the massive banner.

In gleaming, neon green, the sentence was as baffling as it was outrageously coloured.

‘A present for Global Justice, Love Shego.’

The music that blared out of the Lorries sound system, accompanying everything, was a horrible cheerful tune, almost whimsical considering the situation.

In front of the machines, balloons, and banner, stood a blue man. Face painted white, with a cheerful red nose and multicoloured hair, and clad in the bright waistcoat, baggy chequered pants, and huge floppy red shoes, stood Doctor Drakken.

Catching sight of Betty Director, the blue man walked stiffly towards her, a bright smile on his face and glazed eyes, and she noticed the blinking red chip stuck to the mans forehead just under his wig. The scene was not helped as he placed a party blower in his mouth and let it razzle. Adding in the balloons clutched in his other hand, Betty honestly couldn’t remember seeing anything quite so… sad.

“Hooray and hello, Doctor Director!” The hand containing the balloons shot out, offering a sealed letter. “I am to present this as a gift to you. A gift from Shego.”

Doctor Director took the sealed note and opened it. Inside, the neat, almost copperplate handwriting, was instantly recognisable.

‘Dear Doctor Director.

Sorry I had to leave Middleton Hospital, but I had places to go, people to see and a Princess to save. You know how it is. By the time you receive this, along with my little ‘gift’ I’ll be trying to get what we need to save Kimmie. Don’t bother asking Drakken, he’s been instructed by me not to tell you anything, and when you disrupt the chip, I doubt he’ll tell you anything for fear of incrimination.

Wish me luck, and take care of Princess for me. Shego.’

The one eyed woman folded the letter up and slid it back into the envelope, before turning to Will, who stared at the clown outfit Shego had forced Drakken to dress in. “William?”

“Yes, Sir?” Will tore his eyes away from the sight. Unable to help himself, a smile flickered across his lips. Doctor Director narrowed her eyes at the sight.

“Agent Du, you will go back into the main hall and assemble that shower of agents into the force Global is supposed to be! You will then get them out here to pick up every machine sitting on the tarmac of our, supposedly hidden, headquarters before anyone else notices the… the situation out here!”

“Sorry Sir. Yes, Sir!” Will stiffened into a snapped salute.

“Then get someone, in fact make it two people, to help Drakken down to the main lab. As I understand it from the progress reports, our scientists have finally managed to create a working prototype of the handheld Silicon disruptor Ms Possible’s brothers created. Use it on him, clean him up, advise him of his rights and then lock him in a cell.”

“Yes, Sir!”

“And then, Will.” Her expression softened. “Then you take six, like we discussed. I’ll be doing the same once we’ve got everything under control.” Betty sighed and nodded as Will un-stiffened and relaxed slightly. “Jesus, Will. What am I going to do? What she’s done here adds fuel to an argument already raving around our law enforcement. And it’s certainly going to ignite as soon as I report it. And I will have to report it!”

“More, Sir, where does this leave us with Shego? I mean, why do this for us? What’s the point?”

“I don’t know… but it certainly gives her points with me and leverage too.” Betty paused and thought back to the letter. “Princess… Oh!” Flipping out her mobile phone, Doctor Director tapped in a number and gripped the phone tightly, even as GJ agents swarmed past her and began to sort out the mess. “Middleton Hospital? Get me Doctor Possible, now!”

---

Middleton Hospital 8:00AM

“Doctor Possible?” The nurse stared down at the long legged, beautiful redheaded woman as she lay slumped on her desk, face stuck to papers and information detailing every detail of her daughters infection with Servus. Clutching a steaming mug of coffee, the nurse tried again. “Doctor Possible? Wake up please.”

“Whuh?” The redhead cracked open an eye and groaned. “Wha t’me?”

“Eight AM, Doctor. Here,” the nurse offered the mug. “I brought you coffee.”

“Oh, yeah…” Kim’s mother sucked at the mug, sighing in relief. “Thanks, Deb.”

“No problem.” The nurse winked and watched as the redhead peeled a paper off her cheek, before blushing slightly. “Oh, by the way, you had a package arrive. It’s that one there… I put it down before I got you the coffee.”

Doctor Possible blinked at the package Debbie waved a hand towards. Wrapped in brown paper and addressed to her in neat copperplate writing, Kim’s mother stared at it. “Who sent it?”

“No idea. It was at the front desk this morning when I arrived. None of the security guys knew what to do with it. We ran it through the X-ray machine… nothing dangerous. Looks like a tube of some sort.”

A tube?” Doctor Possible put her mug down and slid the package towards her. She stared at the writing, neatly addressing the package to her and frowned. “What the hell is this?”

Opening it, the brown packaging gave way to a bright green box, tied off with a bow of black ribbon. Seeing it, Doctor Possible’s heart gave a jolt and almost stuttered into paralysis. “Oh… oh god!”

“Urgh… don’t blame you. What a colour scheme for a present.” Debbie made a face and then noticed the redhead’s hands. They were trembling so badly that the ribbon around the package was quivering in time. “Doc?”

“Oh, god…” Kim’s mother shook herself and tore into the box, praying that what she hoped was in there was real. “Please, please let this be real and not a joke. Promise me that Shego… please.”

“Shego?” Debbie gasped and stared down at the package. “She sent you a present? That’s sick!”

“Only if what I pray is in here isn’t actually there.” Pulling the lid off the green box, Doctor Possible yanked out a tiny white card and stared at the green copperplate handwriting.

‘For Princess… and you tell her she owes me nothing for this. And also tell her that… well, I love her. Please? Good luck. Shego.’

Underneath the card, nestled in black paper shavings, lay a steel tube. Clearly marked on it were the words, ‘Reverse: Stage 1’

“Oh! Oh Shego, I could kiss you for this! Thank you, thank you!” Laughing, Doctor Possible shot up from the desk and grabbed the shocked nurse, dancing around the room with Debbie even as tears spilled from her eyes.

“Doctor Possible! What-“ Debbie managed before being swung around again.

“She did it! She found my Kimmie’s cure!” pausing, the redheaded woman blinked and then a determined expression slid onto her face. “Celebration later, action now! Debbie, call the lab and tell them to get Kimmie’s identity marker out of the bio freezer. I’ll also need the hypodermic device that we recovered from Drakken’s lair.”

“Right!” Debbie ran for the door and paused. “Doc? Is this really going to cure Kim?”

“Shego’s not going to do anything like this to hurt her. Not anymore. No, Deb’s… this is the real thing. It’s going to cure my little girl!”

As Debbie ran for the laboratory, Doctor Possible’s phone rang and she picked it up. “Yes?”

“Ah, Doctor Possible.” The smooth voice of Doctor Director filled the air. “I think you might have received something today, yes?”

Profanity had never been her thing, but it was today. “Damn right!”

---

Kim’s room 10:00AM.

“Are we sure this is safe?” Doctor Possible glanced up at the one eyed woman who hovered over her daughter’s bed. “Could this actually still be some huge plot on Drakken’s behalf?”

“I’m willing to take the chance that it isn’t.” Kim’s mother leaned over the paralysed form of her daughter and stroked the girls red hair. “Kimmie?”

“Mom? What’s going on?”

Kim stared out from her unresponsive body with tear streaked eyes. For days she had dejectedly listened to the various people who had come in to her room talk about Shego. About the thieves vanishing act, about the reinstatement of her warrants… everything. She had listened and despaired, knowing that everything that was happening or going to happen to the green woman from now on, was because of her… was for her.

Along with that, had been the constant ticking in her head. A countdown that she miserably knew she shouldn’t be doing, but couldn’t help. The countdown to the time that she would lose her mind, lose control of her body, and end up screaming and fighting the restraints that held her down as Servus turned her into a robotic assassin.

In short, Kim had spent very few days being able to cope with the pain and stress, and even fewer days getting sufficient sleep. Not that Servus cared, knowing that the portion of her mind not under its control was important.

Now, as her mother smiled with genuine happiness at her, the redheaded hero felt a flicker of hope bloom in her.

“Mom, please tell me it’s good news. It’s Shego, right? They’ve found her! She’s come in and given herself up. They’re not going to press charges and allow her back with me, right? Right?”

“Kimmie, I know you can hear me. It’s great news Kimmiecub.” Her mother held up the syringe and showed her the gleaming silver tube that had been added to the side of the injector, coupling with the red tube on the top. “She did it, Kimmie. Shego managed to find the cure!”

The… the cure? I… I…” The thought was hard to process and even harder to believe. “The cure! I’m… I’m not going to end up being a killer? I… Shego saved me? She did it! She saved me?”

The tears came swiftly. Great sobbing bubbles of grief, of fear, mingled with the sudden blossoming of hope, of happiness and Kim felt her mind wrack with the strength of them. She laughed, cried, sobbed and felt confused.

All at once. It was wonderful.

“Shego…”

“What do you say, Kimmie?” Her father stepped forwards into her line of sight, backed up by a grinning Ron, Rufus, and the Tweebs. As well as, to her shock and delight, Wade. “How about we get that rubbish out of your brain?”

“Sounds good to me, Dad.” Kim slid to her feet and laughed, before screaming in triumph into the darkness. “You hear that, Kara? Servus? You’ve lost! Lost! Shego beat you, no matter how good you think you are!”

Outside her mind, Kim’s body stirred as Servus turned Kim’s head. It stared at the injector and then up at Kim’s mother. “Ill advised. Servus programming recommends allowance for continued control and command. Host is dangerous to Blood Jade and Drakken survival and support programming.”

“I’ll bet.” Doctor Director smiled with genuine pleasure. “Doctor, if you would. I’d very much like to congratulate your daughter on helping us break the Blood Jade’s attempt on this country face to face.”

“Ill advised!” Servus repeated, louder and more insistent.

“Shut up, you’re done with my daughter, and done making me fear what was happening to her in your clutches.” Doctor Possible slid the hypo against Kim’s neck and blinked as her daughter started to struggle.

“Ill advised! Ill advised! Servus will not release primary host! Primary host is needed to defeat Shego! Refuse disablement, refuse shutdown!”

“Shut up and let my daughter go!” Kim’s mother hissed, and pulled the trigger. With a hiss of mixing liquids, the hypo trembled and then shot a pale red liquid into Kim’s bloodstream.

In her mind, Kim felt something fix an angry, outraged stare upon her and an animal roar of bestial levels echoed around her mind. “YOU MINE!”

“No, I’m not! I’m mine! And the only person I’d even consider giving myself to would be Shego!” Kim felt the hypo discharge, and the snarling beast screamed in helplessness. “You lose, Servus… so screw you and give me my body BACK!”

Everyone watched in shock as Kim’s body went stiff, before violently beginning to jerk and writhe. Doctor Director blinked as Kim’s right foot ripped out of the restraint holding it and she was forced to duck, before grabbing the limb, forcing it back onto the bed and sitting on it.

“Doctor! What’s going on? This wasn’t what you told me happened to Shego!”

“I… Damn you, Drew. Shego’s was mark one. This is mark two. He was able to greatly improve the AI programming Servus has in it.” As another of Kim’s limbs shot free, Doctor Possible jumped on it and held it down. “Everyone grab a limb. The cure will work, it just needs time!”

As her friends, family, and colleagues all restrained the screaming, shaking woman, inside her body the two unique proteins that made up Kim’s special cure mixed and combined into a specially shaped form. As they came across the nanites locked to Kim’s neurones, the proteins slipped neatly into the lock on their surface, causing it to slide open. The small robots, despite the ranting artificial intelligence that controlled them, were hardwired to respond.

Inside her brain, thousands began to deactivate, sending the coded signal into the neural net that ordered others to do the same. Servus began to die.

Kim felt the shudder of her tiny world, felt it and the cracks of light, of consciousness that began to spill into her dark corner. Even as the feeling of her left arm came back to her, the oddly comforting warmth of Doctor Director’s bottom filling her awareness, Kim heard the scream of pain and rage that came from the device inside her skull.

“No! error! Servus MUST survive… must… error, primary tables corrupted, primary commands missing, secondary commands missing. Shut down protocol engaged and functioning. NO! Muzzt Surrvive? Mzzzt lzzzzzzzzivvvvvvvveeee! NOoottt. Errrorrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr in zelf tablzzllles!”

The voice became more computer based and slurred and Kim felt the light pick her up and warm her. As she felt her eyes inside her mind close, her lips curved into a grin. “Shego.”

“Look at that!” Ron gasped, pulling the same sounds from Wade and the twins. “She’s crying silver!”

On Kim’s face, rivulets of silvery liquid poured out of the corners of her eyes, covering Kim’s face in silvery streaks that her mother wiped off gently with medical alcohol. She nodded.

“This is Servus. Most of it will be destroyed in Kimmie’s liver, but some is programmed to exit as soon as it can, and her tear ducts are the quickest way right now.”

She smiled, trying not to cry as Kim’s face shifted from its haunting robotic expression and her daughters lips slowly, jerkily curved. Curved as the hand underneath Doctor Directors bottom twitched slightly, making the GJ head gasp and leap off, trying not to blush.

As they all watched, Kim’s lips twitched and formed a word, a word that was whispered so quietly, so softly, that it took everyone straining to hear it. But they did, and it made Betty Director frown even as Ron and Kim’s parents smile.

“Shhego…”

Soft green eyes slid open, no longer lacking humanity, and Kim Possible stared up at the people around her with a gentle smile. “Huaaay! S’ me!”

The words were slurred more than Shego’s name, but Doctor Possible laughed and stroked her daughter’s hair before hugging her tightly and crying. As the tears spilled down her face, the older redhead leaned in close and kissed her daughter on the cheek.

“Hello honey, welcome back.”

---

In the car park of the hospital, Emerald eyes gazed through a set of binoculars and a set of black lips softened into a sad smile. “Hello, Pumpkin. Welcome back.”

Sitting next to her in the roofless red sportster, Marie watched her student fight back tears and she sighed. Clad in jeans and a T-Shirt herself, while Shego had applied some makeup to her green skin to blend in with the locals and also wore jeans and a shirt, the thief tapped a hand on the wheel of her rented car.

“Do you want to go in? I am sure there are ways of seeing Kim without Global Justice knowing.”

“No.” Shego whispered, fighting the longing that was in her tone. “I knew when I started this that I was giving up any chance of being with her.” Sighing, the thief leaned back and closed her eyes. “Even if she were to forgive me for leaving like that, I’m back to being one of the most wanted… and I won’t wreck Kimmie’s life because I want to be with her. Not that way.”

Her mentor watched her face for a second, quietly deciding not to tell Shego that tears were spilling down her face. “So, then…”

“Marie, I… I really don’t want to be alone right now.” Shego bit her lip and glanced across. “I also don’t want Kim to find me, not now. I don’t know what to do… and if I see her, I’ll do something on impulse and that’ll be wrong.” Marie opened her mouth. “It will be the wrong thing! We’re from two different worlds and I wonder what the hell I was thinking it could be different!”

Marie closed her mouth and felt Shego’s pain, heard it in her tone. How couldn’t she? “So…”

“Stop saying that. Please!” Shego pleaded, ordered, almost begged. “Just… let me stay with you for a bit, okay?”

Nodding, Marie started the car. “Of course you may. I just hope you know what you are doing, Emerald. For us to love, we must sometimes take a blind leap of faith.”

“Not now!” Shego snapped, feeling hot tears tug at her eyes. “I want to go. Now!”

“Very well.”

The red car roared off the parking bay and shot onto Middleton highway, heading for the airport. Inside, Shego stared miserably at the dashboard and thought of a laughing redhead, once an enemy, who had sparked her interest, her respect, her arousal and sudden need.

“Bye, Kim.” The words slipped out, rough despite the quietness. And were so sincere it broke Marie’s heart to hear Shego say them.

---

The present: Marie’s Apartment.

“Damn.” Marie’s college murmured her wine glass long since empty, and the bottle sitting next to the two of them also empty and ignored. “So, Shego came here.”

“And has been pining for Kim ever since. She refuses to call her, write to her, even watch the television anymore.”

“What? Why?”

Marie smiled, with no humour and placed her wine glass on the table, before slipping her head back into her arms.

“Because of seeing what Kim said about her in the press conference three days ago.” Marie sighed, the sound muffled. “It broke her heart, so she began this destructive drinking.”

Her hat wearing friend tilted her head. “What did she say?”

Marie shook her head. “She didn’t say anything.” The French woman looked up, and Carmen jolted at the pain in her eyes, pain for her student… a woman akin to a daughter. “Kim did something far more wonderful and painful to Shego.”

”What?”

“Kim told Emerald how much she needed her… and it’s destroying my little Shego to know that!

---

To be continued in MBS The final, final (winks) chapter/Epilogue- A single Chance.

Gasp, what is going to happen? How will this turn out? Can Shego fight her fear of needing Kim to the point of destroying her? Can Kim somehow save Shego from the law?

All will be revealed very soon!