Anne stopped her fork halfway to her mouth and stared at Shego, who mumbled something under her breath and moved the food around on her plate with her fork.
She dragged her eyes over to her daughter only to see her putting away food with great gusto, apparently having missed the interchange with Shego.
I think I'm beginning to fully understand now. They're each completing the other. I've never heard of Shego being this calm before. Hell, I've never seen Kim this way before. If she's recovered enough to have control at this level…
She cleared her throat.
“I think I understand why Shego's so devoted to your relationship, Kimmie. But I have, no, we have to have something to keep GJ happy. You don't need to keep explaining her side. What about yours?”
Kim winced, sighed, and put down her fork.
I always knew she'd never be satisfied.
Glancing over at Shego, who shrugged, she started up again.
“You're right. Looking back, it was more about the sex and the whole new relationship thing.”
Shego looked down at the puddle of red hair Kim's head made on her naked stomach and sighed.
She hadn't been conscious for more than a few hours. Just long enough for a decent meal and a bath before Kim had literally dragged her into the bedroom.
It was probably the most mind-blowing sex she'd ever experienced…all six hours of it.
Kim had frantic in her need to prove something to her, bringing her off again and again in what ended up as one long release. Upteen earth shattering orgasms later, she had finally collapsed on Shego's stomach. She was sure that, with all the noise they were making, the entire lair was keeping count.
This was leaving her with wanting to know what had been going on but not able to actually get up and do anything about it. Not because she didn't want to move Kim, but because she was fairly certain that she couldn't walk.
She trailed her hand absently over the head attached to the puddle, eliciting a contented mumble and small snuggle from Kim.
She moved Kim gently over and swung her legs over the side of the bed.
“What was that Donovan? I missed it.”
Donovan scowled at Shego. It hadn't been a full day and he already missed Kim at the helm. Rules were rules, however, and Shego was “back” in charge again.
“While you were…out…the Crimson Shadow managed to put us not only in the black, but turned this assignment into a plum choice. We have a waiting list to get hired now.”
Shego stared at the man in shock. She leaned back in the chair and looked at the ceiling.
“You mean to tell me, ME, that in ten weeks Kim not only got into the villain business, but turned a profit AND expanded the operations? Ten weeks? Who in the hell was helping her? And don't tell me any of you nincompoops did either.”
Donovan cleared his throat before replying.
“She read both the ENITIRE membership contract AND union rulebook in two days. She paid all of us for two months in advance AND got us a better medical plan to boot. She initiated a new training regimen that Henchco has been trying to noodle out of us for months. Every single one of her ops has gone off perfectly…no casualties. We've had a pay increase for the first time in years, plus completion bonuses. Help her? My God woman, everyone here would take a bullet for her…” he trailed off as Shego jumped on the desk, hands igniting “…not meaning it literally, but you get the idea” he finished lamely.
He continued “She gave me this envelope to give to you when you assumed command again.”
He turned to leave and shot over his shoulder “She's something special, that one. You should know that if she goes, we go with her.”
The door rattled as it shut.
Shego turned the envelope over in her hands, looking to see if it had been opened and resealed. It hadn't.
Ripping off the end, she slid the lone paper out and began to read.
Shego,
Per Section 1, I hereby relinquish command of the facilities and personnel.
You'll find the complete mission and after-action reports, including financials, in the computer in a folder named “Drakken's Chicken Recipes”. A copy of the current training regimen is also there.
With the exception of operating expenses, salaries, and payment of outside contracting services, the entirety of the remaining money will have been transferred to your numbered Swiss account within an hour of your receipt of this notice. I realized no income from this as my shares were spent bringing our labor practices back in line with union rules.
Proper notice has been sent to union headquarters and to the central authority of your recovery.
Working out how to get Section 22 to work, since I gave you my word I wouldn't try to escape, proved something of a challenge. Donovan will fill you in.
Donovan has the remainder of the relevant materials and has been placed in temporary command pending your completion of the resumption of command under Section 13 rules.
the Crimson Shadow
Shego rolled her eyes. This was just about insufferable. She sat down and the computer and began to review.
Kim had been dressed and waiting when Donovan came to take her down to the holding cells.
She could tell that he was unhappy. Nothing she could do about it now.
Shego sat back and rubbed her temples. She had been reading the same files for the past three hours, trying not to read what was there.
She should have known…it was obvious, yet she had spent the last hours attempting not to see it.
Kim was a better villain than any of her so-called “enemies”. Period. What made it most frustrating is that she made money selling BACK the merchandise to the very people from whom it was stolen in the first place.
She had checked her Swiss account. She had to call up the transaction records to re-verify the totals. Three months and she had exceeded the previous two years, combined, income that Drakken managed to accumulate.
She had reviewed the training regimen. Twice. As Drakken's henchmen went, even she was never able to pry them away from a taco, much less train. What Kim had them doing would make Henchco's top trainers shiver.
She had even taken a look at the current assignment waiting list. Six pages. Six. Last year, Drakken couldn't even get a temp, much less trained henchman.
Shaking her head, she shut down the computer and headed for the lower levels.
Shego looked though the small slit in the door at Kim, laying with her back to the door, asleep.
She had taken her time getting down here, making stops around the lair to see how much had changed.
It made her uncomfortable to see how much.
She smiled, a thought occurring to her.
I think I'll let her stew for a few days.
Kim rolled over and glared at the door for what she thought was the thirtieth or fortieth time. She had completely lost track of time, but she was pretty sure it had been more than just a few days, just over a week maybe. Surely Shego would've relented by now. She hadn't even seen the guard for awhile.
She hadn't had a meal for what seemed like forever and her stomach was growling pretty regularly now. She had tried banging on the door and yelling. She even disconnected the security camera to entice someone to come down.
Nothing.
She would have to have a talk with Donovan about searching prisoners later.
She pushed her reserve lipstick laser from her ponytail and began working on the lock.
The lock hit the floor twenty minutes later.
Kim slowly made her way out of the detention block, taking note that someone had tripped the silent alarms. She got nothing but static from the security station monitors and no one answered the com signal at central security.
She spent several minutes switching monitor settings and trying different stations but found no response or just more static.
Moving over to the cabinet, she retrieved a stunner, restraints, and some flash-bangs.
She had summoned the elevator and was making a quick check of her gear when the door opened. She whirled back around and fell to her knees as the smell hit her and her eyes found Adam slumped against the rear wall of the car.
She retched. Adam looked like his internal organs had tried to crawl out through his own skin. His head lolled obscenely, tongue bloated and black. Kim retrieved a breather mask from under the security panel and stepped back inside long enough to hit all the floor buttons and slip back out as the elevator made it's way upwards once again.
She was going to have to take the hidden stairs upwards.
Kim slowly moved the hidden panel behind the bookcase in Drakken's old lab aside, slowly. No one had been in here for months and she was pretty certain that whoever was responsible for the current state of the lair would have taken one look at the drop cloths and dust and moved on. Judging by the undisturbed dust, she was right.
She moved to the door and cracked it open a few inches. The hallway in that direction was clear. Easing herself out slowly, she slunk down the hall towards the med lab.
The condition of the lair's upper levels was pretty bad. Plasma burns peppered the walls, broken lights swung from their wiring. The low light level meant she tripped over the next body: Donovan, only recognizable by the lone collar pip of seniority.
The older man was lying face down in a dried pool of some dark substance, the direction in which he fell indicated he was on his way to the elevators. Kim didn't bend down to find out what it was, only made a mental note and moved onwards.
The hall began to curve as she approached the med lab. The evidence of fighting was more pronounced here than before.
She crept around the final bend and found the floor literally littered with bloated corpses. It looked as if this group had made a final stand at the entrance to the medical lab. Whatever had killed Adam seemed to have killed them as well. Hands still clutched at their assailants, also bloated in death beside them.
The door to the lab was off-track and slightly ajar. The lab was completely dark. She reached into a pouch and activated a glow stick and tossed it into the room.
More bodies littered the floor, most of them in the dark black uniforms of the assailant force. Nearly all of them showed evidence of plasma wounds.
She put her shoulder into moving the door open further and managed to get it open just enough to squeeze through.
Her search of the lab and it's adjacent rooms was short and nauseating. Whoever had assaulted the base had decapitated Drakken's unconscious body and his head was missing.
Kim stopped in front of a wall, blank except for a carving of the universal medical symbol. She quickly pressed a sequence of letters from the scribed motto and stepped back as a portion of the wall sunk inwards and moved aside.
Moving silently into the safe room, she waited for the heavy door to whoosh shut behind her before removing her mask.
“Theo? Shego?”
Dr. Theodosia Kay became aware of two things. First, she was no longer in stasis (as evidenced by the howling pain her bladder was in) and second, a very pissed Kim Possible sat in an office chair next to her bed glaring daggers at her.
The first she could handle.
She heaved up and shot to the bathroom, passing Kim's attempt to grab her arm, locking the door behind her.
As she felt her eyes roll back in her head in relief, she realized that she didn't really want to unlock that door.
Kim snatched at empty air, Theo's move surprising her, and didn't quite catch up enough to keep from the bathroom door from being closed and locked.
She barely kept in a snarl of frustration.
A few hours earlier, she had walked across a carpet of bloated corpses to reach the safe room expecting to find Theo and Shego holed up inside.
Instead, she found Theo, her expression locked in a rictus of horror while she stood in the stasis tube, and a note penned in Shego's flowing script taped to the glass.
Pumpkin
Know you're going to find this, hope sooner than later. Managed to seal off detention and dump security computers before they broke into the base. Going to get Adam and get out. Theo's hidey-hole is not on any blueprints, so she should be safe. Theo's on a timer. Use the counteragents from the kit before you come back out.
Love You Forever
Shego
She had re-read that note over and over again while the timer on Theo's tube ran down.
As best as she could piece together, the attack happened the morning the day after Shego came out of it. Which would explain why she hadn't seen a guard or a meal for several days.
She balled her fists in frustration, glaring at the bathroom door.
Theo finally opened the door when it was apparent that Kim wasn't going to rip it off its hinges.
She found Kim still in the same chair, still looking daggers at her. She carefully maneuvered around and sat on the opposite edge of the bed. A note was shoved in front of her face and she read it.
“I'm guessing you want to know what happened?”
“You have such a gift for understatement, don't you? I found Adam in the elevator. It looked painful. Was it nerve gas?”
Theo nodded. She closed her eyes and began.