It wasn't a big apartment, but it was big enough for Shego. It was clean and the other tenants were pretty nice. That is to say, none of them had openly said something hurtful about her green skin yet, though some had probably already thought it. Renting it hadn't been much of a problem either. The family was pretty rich, after all. Well, they had to be, if you wanted to afford a huge tower, a private jet and lots of technical stuff that Hego insisted was vital. Compared to all of that, a Middleton apartment barely showed up on the bank account.
Shego sat in her comfortable green-and-black chair and looked out the window at the world outside where, as it turned out, someone was walking his dog on this fine, sunny day.
Life could certainly be weird sometimes, she reflected. Little more than a week ago she'd considered breaking away from Team Go and hooking up with the first super-villain she could find as long as it wasn't Aviarius just to spite Hego and because it would definitely be a lot more fun. And now here she was, feeling reasonably excited about working for a bunch of other heroes who were totally and completely average. OK, sure, one of the primary motivations for that decision had also been getting away from Hego but that wasn't all there was to it.
But perhaps the primary motivation had been Kim, who had that kind of cool competence Shego could respect. And she could fight.
Damn, could she fight.
Of course, when she wasn't being a hero and was just another average girl, she'd been all flustered all the time, which was kind of cute. Especially if she, Shego, was responsible for all that flustering.
Shego grinned to herself. Maybe she ought to invite Kim over for a little ‘Welcome To Middleton’ kind of dinner thing.
Hmm, but then she should probably also invite Ron and that black girl… what was her name again? Did she even ever get her name?
Well, whatever. Not important.
Shego stretched herself lazily and smiled.
Yeah, she was probably gonna like Middleton.
Kim rang the doorbell and waited patiently for someone to open the door.
“Ah, hello, Kim,” said Ron's father. “Nice to see you.”
“Good to see you too, Mr. Stoppable,” said Kim. “I came to see Ron. Is he here?”
“I think so. I'll go call him.” Mr. Stoppable walked down the hallway to the foot of the stairs. “Ron! Kim's here!” he yelled.
“Is it for a mission!?” Ron yelled back from upstairs.
“Hold on, I'll ask!”
“Yes, it's for a mission,” said Kim.
“Yes, it's a mission!” Mr. Stoppable yelled.
“Me and Rufus'll be right there!”
Mr. Stoppable walked back to the door. “So, Ron tells me there's a new member on your team.”
“Kind of,” said Kim. “She just transferred.”
“That's good,” said Mr. Stoppable. “Safety in numbers and all that.”
“I like to think so,” said Kim.
“Alright, I'm ready,” said Ron, vaulting down the stairs. “Later dad.”
“Bye, Mr. Stoppable.”
“So, what is it this time?” Ron asked as he and Kim walked down the driveway.
“Drakken,” said Kim. “Apparently he's been shipping a lot of technology to his secret island lair.”
“What for?” Ron asked.
“Don't know,” said Kim. “Knowing Drakken, it's probably for some robotic army.”
“That would be bad,” said Ron.
“And that's why we're going to stop him,” said Kim. “Come on. I already called Captain Sullivan to fly us there.”
“Aren't we going to go pick up Shego first?”
Kim froze for a fraction of a second, before putting her foot back on the ground and continue walking. “Oh, right, yeah, we should. But I don't know her address or her telephone number and I don't think we have the time to find out.”
“Yes you do,” said Ron. “I distinctly remember her saying ‘if you feel the urge to drop by, my place is at 56 Overnight Street. Oh, and you can call me anytime at 555-2945, Princess’. You know, when the two of you came walking out of the gym building.”
“Right,” said Kim. “Heh. I forgot.”
Ron amiably patted Kim's shoulder. “Don't worry. That's what I'm here for.”
Shego looked around the inside of the plane and then briefly glanced out the window to see the clouds rushing past below them. “Pretty sweet ride. But isn't it a bit too big for just the four of us?”
Captain Sullivan, sitting on a bench against the opposite wall, took his cigarette out of his mouth and shook some of the ash off its end. “Well, it's supposed to house a battalion of paratroopers. So normally you might say it's a bit crowded.”
“Impressive,” said Shego. “So what'd you do to get this ride?” she asked, turning to Kim.
“Oh, nothing much,” said Kim.
“Nothing much?” said Sullivan. “Hah. If it hadn't been for Kim, our airbase would have sharks swimming through the hangars.”
“Really, it was no big,” said Kim. She was looking solidly at the floor and could feel herself starting to blush.
Shego raised an eyebrow and could feel a smile tugging at the end of her lips. “You know, my Team Go never did that kind of thing.”
“Well, not to be bragging or anything,” said Ron, “but Kim and me do a whole lot more than worry about bird fetishists.”
“Hey, Aviarius isn't our only foe, alright?”
“Team Go?” said Sullivan, his cigarette moving quickly from the right side of his mouth to the left and back again. “I heard of them. You'd be Shego then, yes?”
“That's right.”
“I heard of you too. Prone to excessive violence, they said.”
Shego crossed her arms in front of her chest. “I was dealing with a lot of frustration at the time, alright?”
“If you say so,” said Sullivan. “But I know I wouldn't like to be anywhere near you when you were feeling… frustrated.”
Team Possible carefully climbed up the dark hill towards the laboratory standing on the top.
“Excessive violence?” Kim whispered. “You never said anything about that.”
“Hey, if you had to deal with Hego twenty-four hours a day, you'd want to hurt somebody too.”
“There are other ways of dealing with frustration,” said Kim.
“Violence works for me.”
“Shego…”
“Don't ‘Shego’ me. Don't tell me you never felt the need to just hit something.”
“Well, yes,” said Kim, “but I don't act on it.”
“You should,” said Shego, “it'd make you feel better.”
“Uhm, ladies?” said Ron. “I know you have a lot to talk about, but could we please save it until after we've saved the world?”
“Ron's right, we should focus,” said Kim.
“I am focused,” said Shego.
“On the mission, I mean.”
And now they were crawling through airducts. Shego could see the sense in that. Of course they should try to infiltrate and of course they should try to avoid traps and guards and everything.
Still… they were crawling through airducts. They were the good guys, dammit. They should be out in the open kicking butt, not crawling around like thieves trying not to be noticed.
“We're above the control room,” Kim's voice whispered from somewhere in front of her.
“Finally,” Shego breathed.
It was but the work of a moment to unscrew the grating and, soon enough, Shego landed on the badly lit control room floor amidst dozens of machines and computers blinking with little lights after Kim and Ron had dropped down. Drakken didn't seem to have noticed the intruders yet, hunched over as he was over what was presumably the main computer. Kim opened her mouth and drew breath to make the standard hero announcement of presence, but Shego put a hand on her shoulder, smiled and shook her head. Kim raised an eyebrow, but nodded all the same.
Shego turned to look directly at Drakken's back and raised a flaming hand. A single bolt flew silently, almost elegantly through the empty air and landed next to Drakken's head, making a monitor explode. Drakken jumped back and turned around.
“Kim Possible! And…”
“Ron Stoppable,” Ron sighed.
“I'm not talking about you,” said Drakken. “I'm talking about the new girl.”
“Shego,” said Shego.
“Never heard of you,” said Drakken. “Not that it really matters, because after this I'll never hear from any of you again.”
“And why would that be?” said Kim, putting her hands on her hips.
“Well, in my never-ending quest to be rid of you once and for all, I considered hiring a henchman. One who could rival, no surpass, you in martial skills and maybe had a few extra perks as well.”
“OK…” said Kim.
“But since I couldn't find one, I decided to settle for quantity instead of quality. Guards! Attack!”
About a dozen men in red and black suits emerged from the darkness above and stepped out of shadowy corners. Worse, the twinkling machines Shego had thought were probably computers of some kind, unfolded and directed their robotic laserbeams at the group. Kim, Shego and Ron quickly formed a defensive triangle as Drakken's henchpeople surrounded them.
“OK, here's the plan,” said Kim. “I'll take out the goons, Shego you destroy the robots.”
Shego grinned, raising both flaming hands. “I'm liking this plan already.”
“And what do I do?” Ron asked.
“While we keep the goons off your back, you try to stop Drakken escaping and maybe shut down his computer or something. But remember…”
“Yes, yes, no pressing big shiny red buttons unless they say ‘Abort',” said Ron.
“OK then,” said Shego. “Let's do it.”
Shego reckless jumped at the line of killer robots. They raised their armcannons sluggishly and fired, but a quick mid-air somersault prevented any of them hitting her. Landing in front of one robot, Shego tore through its breast armour. As the struck robot toppled over, Shego did a backflip and two more robots who had been aiming at her, shot each other.
Shego shook her head. “Too easy,” she muttered.
She jumped, landing on top a robot's head and smashed down into metallic skull. Before it could fall over and explode, she dashed off it, grabbed the cannon of another robot and aimed it at yet another hapless assailant before ripping the arm off and smashing it through the robot's chest.
Five more robots approached in a semi-circle, but they simply weren't fast enough and Shego spent some very enjoyable seconds dogding their poorly aimed shots. As she was about to get at them and tear them into little metallic slivers, the light in their artificial eyes faded and the robots all powered down.
“KP, I think I managed to shut down the robots!” Ron yelled.
“Great!” Kim shouted, tangling with two guards. “Did you get Drakken?”
“Uhm…”
“I got him,” said Shego, spotting his blue form making a dash for a distant door.
She ran after him, through a barely lit corridor to a small hangar, where a strange, circular floating thing was waiting. She aimed another plasma bolt just in front of Drakken's hand as he reached for the door.
“End of the line,” said Shego.
Drakken turned to her and, to her amazement, smiled. “You know, that was a very impressive bit of fighting,” he said.
“Thanks,” said Shego. “Now are you going to come quietly or what?”
“You'd make a valuable addition to my organisation,” said Drakken. “Heck, I'd make you second in command, even.”
“What?” said Shego, dousing the flames.
“Surely you must have considered it,” said Drakken, his voice smooth as silk. “I mean, really, what has the world ever done for you, hmm? With a skin such as yours you must be quite the outcast, just like me. I think you'll find we have lot more in common than you and the rest of so-called humanity.”
“Well…” said Shego. “Ever since that meteorite hit, people have been avoiding me, calling me a freak and basically being annoying asses.”
“Exactly,” said Drakken. “So, please, take your time. Think of all the things you could do.”
“Well now,” said Shego. “The cute redhead or the incompetent mad scientist? Hmm, tough choice.” She suddenly laughed. “Hah, no, what am I saying?” She raised a hand and let it burst into flame. “It's no choice at all.”