Chapter 10 - Hear no Evil, See no Monkey

"Ron!"

"Don't worry KP, I got this!"

And across the slick steel floor, between the half-finished machines of Doctor Drakken, he lunged at Shego. The two became a whirlwind of swept legs and arms, a flurry of missed strikes. Shego ducked, Ron flipped, Shego shot plasma and Ron pivoted on her arm. Both of their strikes took out pieces of the machinery around them, sending parts or molten pieces flying. Their fight carried them from one end of the room to the other, always with Shego moving backwards. At one point, Ron cornered Shego, but Shego simply leapt over him and their battle was rejoined. She was holding her own, but only just.

"Ron, stop!"

Then one of Ron's kicks caught Shego in the stomach. She flew into a wall, but landed in a crouch and bounded back. Another kick from Ron and she went flying behind a pile of half-built machines and spare parts.

Ron waited a moment, then turned, grabbed Kim's hand, and ran for the hanger exit.

Kim felt things happen in a fog. Her legs jerked like stilts underneath her, each step feeling like a sledgehammer that shook her legs to the bone.

"Ron..."

Behind them came a feral scream and the walls turned green. Ron swung Kim around until he stood between her and Shego, who charged, fists blazing, her face scowled and full of fury. And her leg's bandage loosening as she did.

"Shego, don't!"

Ron jerked back towards Kim for just a moment... which gave Shego the split second distraction she needed to land a punch. Ron went sliding along the floor.

There was finally a break in the fighting. Shego's shoulders rose and fell with her breathing, her feet planted in a wide stance next to Kim.

"Well?" Shego said, staring at Ron picking himself up. "Aren't you going to join in?"

"We can fix this."

"Right," Shego said. "I guess now that your boyfriend is here, this is the end of our little cooperation."

"What?"

Shego charged towards Ron without responding.

"Shego, your leg!"

Ron was back on his feet. A spinning kick, and Shego crashed into the opened crates Kim had gone through when they arrived. They toppled and their contents spilled out, burying Shego underneath.

"Ron, stop! She's hurt!"

Ron glanced back to where Shego had disappeared and then went back to Kim. "Kim, listen to me. I know you're in there. You gotta fight this."

"What? Oh- Ron! I'm not brainwashed!"

"Wade," Ron said, "do your thing. Figure out what's wrong with her."

"On it." From Ron's pocket, his old Kimmunicator grew a helicopter blade and whirled towards Kim.

"Wade," Kim said, swatting at it, "I'm not brainwashed."

"I'll be the judge of that," Wade said. The Kimmunicator emitted a blue light that swept it's way over her skull. "H-uh... weird. I don't see any obvious signs of of brain alteration... but I won't know without a complete analysis."

"Two hours?" Ron said.

"Try a day," Wade said. "And Drakken could have developed a new form of mind-control that's not detectable. We'll need to get her in observation right away."

"ALRIGHT." Green plasma exploded outward from the other side of the room, sending debris and flickering wisps of energy tumbling outward. "Someone's dead!"

Kim groaned.

Ron held out a hand. "Kim, stay back."

Kim's thoughts swirled in a dizzying tornado. She had to save Ron. But she was working with Shego. She had to find out what Umbra was up to and prove her innocence. But Ron was her friend and her boyfriend. Probably. If he even still wanted to be together after this was all over.

Ron and Shego's fight carried them around the room again, and Shego slowed more and more while Ron showed no signs of letting up. Then, a punch made her take to a knee. Another felled her completely. She laid, groaning, trying to pull herself up, her arms shaking.

"Wait." Kim ran forward, leaping over machinery despite her aching muscles from her hike up the mountain. She gently held Ron's fist when she reached him. "Wait. Ron..."

"KP...," Ron said, "I can't... I can't trust what you say right now. Just go with me. Alright? We can fix this."

Kim sniffled. "That's my line. Ron... I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Tears filled her eyes. And suddenly it was all too much. She collapsed in Ron's shoulder and sobbed, tear streaming hot and wet down her face.

"Kim... it's alright." Ron stroked her hear and put an arm around her waist. "It'll be alright. We can make everything right again."

She cried for a minute longer and then just stopped, though her shoulders still shook. "I-I know. I know. Ron... I just... I can't involve you in this. I'm sorry. Okay?"

Ron looked confused for a moment and luckily didn't see Kim's fist slam into his chin, knocking him out cold. He crumpled.

"I'm sorry," Kim said. She turned. "Shego, get up! We have to go! He won't be down for more than a few seconds."

"That's not a truck, Dr. D," she mumbled. "That's a frigin' wreckin' ball."

"Shego," Kim said.

Shego blinked. "Kimmie?" She glanced at the floor where Ron lay. "I didn't do that." She looked lazily back up at Kim and some of the cloud lifted from her eyes. "... oh."

Kim sniffled and flushed. "Com'on. We need to get out of here before he wakes up."

Shego wobbled as Kim helped Shego to her feet. She draped an arm around Kim's shoulders and Kim hefted with all her aching muscles were worth.

Shego pointed behind them. "Uh, Kimmie?"

Kim heard it; Ron picking himself back up. She groaned and her stomach did a flip. She wasn't looking forward to fighting Ron.

"Sorry Kim," Ron said. "I can't just let you go. I need to help you. Please. Just let me help you."

Kim sighed and barely registered Shego's horrified look before Kim looked at Ron. Then she broke out in the worst cold sweat of her life.

Ron was glowing blue.

Oh.

... Oh no.

"Shego..." Kim said.

Ron took a step towards them.

"Shego!"

Shego pushed Kim to the floor and unleashed a torrent of green plasma. It melted the metal tiling and the surrounding machines and the heat seared the edges of Kim's hair.

Kim was horrified. "Shego!"

"He'll be fine!" Shego said, extinguishing her plasma and pulling Kim roughly to her feet. "He can take it!"

"How do you-" but almost as soon as she said it, there stood Ron, looking fine as ever, covered in a blue glow and looking... he looked...

... murderous.

"Shego," Kim said, "run. Run now!"

Shego swung her arm around Kim's waist and flung Kim around so Kim could ride on Shego's back, arms around her neck. A few running leaps, and Shego twisted, flinging a bolt of plasma behind them. It flew through the air and exploded against the main weather machine, sending sparks flying.

There was a whirl, and suddenly the room was a hurricane, winds traveling out from the machine, sending papers and small devices flying while speeding them along. Ron, on the other side, held up an arm to block the wind, being pushed from the other side of the machine.

"How'd you know it'd do that?!" Kim shouted over the gales.

"I thought it'd explode!" Shego turned her head and grinned. "This is better! Hang on!"

Shego brought her arms forward and blasted the door she had melted when they had arrived, making the hole a bit wider. They leapt through and made their way towards their hovercraft, Kim still clinging to Shego's back. Kim tried to let go, but Shego's clamped her hands over Kim's wrists.

"Aren't you the injured one?!" Kim said.

"Not the time!"

They reached the hovercraft in the next moment. Kim collapsed on the floor while Shego started pressing buttons. The hatch that hid the base started to crank open. It had seemed so fast before, but now it seemed to be the slowest thing in the world. And in the hall the had come from, a blue glow grew brighter.

"Shego, the hallway!"

"Got it!"

Shego turned and fired several bolts into the wall above the door. Chunks of rock groaned and fell with a thunderous crash that send shock-waves through the floor, sealing the door to the main chamber.

"That won't hold him for long!"

"I know!"

Sure enough, sounds of rock being shoved out of the way soon followed until Ron appeared in the middle of the rubble, still looking deadly serious and still cloaked in his ghostly blue glow. He ran for them.

"Shego, go! Go! Blast the roof, just go!"

Shego grimaced and lifted the hovercraft up. They wobbled for a moment, then Kim was thrown back to the floor and nearly overboard as they shot straight for the barely open hanger door.

"Shego, blast it! It's not wide enough!"

"I got it!" Her arms shot forwards and an explosion of green plasma surged in front of them. Blasted rock and metal swept by them as they dove straight through the thick billowing smoke, unable to see if Shego had been successful. Their craft scraped against rock and steel, lurching dangerously to the side. They were tossed forward as the craft caught again... then they were flying into the clear skies, a column of smoke growing behind them.

Shego collapsed against the controls, slumping to the floor and holding her head. The hovercraft was still climbing at an alarming rate.

Kim scrambled her way up the slanted floor and took the controls. "Shego, help me; I don't know what any of these controls are."

Shego groaned. "The black... stick thing... it's big. See it? Push it forward. Gently."

Kim did. Or so she thought. Suddenly, they were careening down towards the face of another nearby mountain.

"Back back back back back!"

"Got it!" Kim pulled it back, but sent them into a steep climb.

"Kimmie!"

"I got it this time!"

She pushed the lever forward and this time, the craft leveled out, still climbing, but at a much slower rate.

From the floor, Shego groaned. "You're gonna want to keep the craft low. Learn the controls so you don't smash us into a field, then fly as low as you can; we'll avoid most radar."

"'Most?'" Kim said.

Shego shrugged, then looked like she was going to be sick. "Can't win 'em all, Princess."

Still sitting on the floor of the craft, Shego explained what each lever and dial did. It was a bit unlike any other vehicle; Drakken said he could design a better control scheme "than any primitive engineer," Shego told her. That sounded like the Drakken Kim knew.

Eventually, Kim felt comfortable enough to fly the craft fairly low through the mountains. She flew south - not quite sure where she was going, but trying to stay as out of sight as she could in a lone hovercraft traveling through the Rockies.

At her feet, Shego rested her head against the control console. She was even paler than usual.

"You look bad," Kim said.

"Haven't ever used that much energy," Shego said. "Not at once. Took more out of me than I thought it would."

"It's not just that." Kim glanced down and pointed towards Shego's leg. "You were fighting on that this entire time. It's gotten worse. You probably pulled all my stitches."

Shego lifted an arm to wave Kim off, but her eyes rolled up and she slammed, head-first, into the floor.

"Shego!"

Kim nearly dove straight for her, then remembered the controls. Shego didn't mention where the throttle was and Kim wasn't about to try to figure it out now. She lifted the nose of the craft and set it to fly straight through a valley, high altitude or not.

Taking to a knee, Kim hesitated, then gingerly rolled Shego onto her back, checking her head. There didn't seem to be any bleeding, so Kim moved on to Shego's leg. Sure enough, the stitches were pulled and the wound was bleeding. Kim used what she had on hand and cut her jeans mid-thigh, using one strip to wrap the wound again.

There was little else she could do, but Kim patted her pocket, which, sure enough, still had the prescription bottle. She set it inside what seemed to serve as a glove department in the hovercraft, then used the second pant leg she cut to create a makeshift pillow that she laid under Shego's head.

Back at the controls, Kim lowered the craft again, swerving around mountainsides and using the sun to make sure she was still heading roughly south, least she start circling back around. Best to put distance between them and Ron and whoever might be helping him. Surely someone must have seen the smoke by now.

Evening turned to dusk and dusk to night. Still Kim flew on, following mountains when she could and staying as low as she could when she couldn't. It was several hours into the night when Shego finally stirred.

"Whazzat?"

"Shego?"

Shego was propped up on her elbow, other hand held to her forehead. "Where are we?"

"I uh... I don't... know, exactly? I think we're in Central America, though. I'm pretty sure."

"Central -" Shego grunted and pushed herself up, grasping the sides of the craft.

"Easy," Kim said, offering a hand that Shego just swatted away. "You've been out for hours."

"I can see that. Just how long?"

"Maybe... nine hours?"

"That explains why I'm about to hurl over the side of this thing."

"Ew, gross?"

Shego laughed, once, then turned an even paler shade than she already was and bent over the side of the hovercraft. Kim cringed.

A moment later, Shego knelt down and draped her head over the side. Kim flew on, apparently not getting directions from Shego any time soon. They must have been going almost a hundred miles an hour, and the wind whipped at Kim's hair with a fury. Her face felt cracked and dry, her eyes like lizard's skin.

They were low enough that the land beneath them was a blur of brown and shadow, their craft skimming scraggly trees and low outcroppings of sharp rock. Kim had been flying for over an hour without the cover of the mountains now. Now there were low, squat mountains hugging the harsh landscape like thin dollops of unbaked dough, but none were tall enough hide them. The cordillera didn't pick back up until the Sierra Madre mountain ranges in Mexico.

Shouldn't they have been there by now? Maybe Kim was flying in the middle of the Occidental and Oriental ranges. She shook her head. No use worrying about it; she knew her geography, but navigating it was something she usually left to someone else.

"The hell?"

Kim nearly jumped overboard. The craft tilted a little, but Kim quickly corrected it.

Shego didn't seem to notice. "Why did I pack this?" She had apparently recovered enough to dig around in a box that Kim hadn't noticed at first.

"What?" Kim said, trying to sound calm.

Shego spared her a glance, rolled her eyes, and tossed Shego's original green cat suit, still torn and battle damaged, brain washing shampoo, and a can of Pop Pop Porter's every flavor freeze dried chicken nuggets.

"Ah ha! Found it!" She rose up, apparently too quickly. She held her head and teetered forward. Kim stepped forward to steady her and for once, Shego was too dizzy to notice. She did, eventually, and shooed Kim away, slapping a round compass on the sloped dash.

"I was wondering where the compass was on this," Kim said, picking it up. "Let me guess, this is part of Drakken's 'superior design.'"

"You got it, princess," Shego said, hands on her hips. "Where are we?"

"Uh, Mexico?"

"Nuh-uh," Shego said. "We're not nearly far enough south." She leaned forward to pick the compass off the dash and laid it in the flat of her palm. A moment to let the needle settle later, she peered off turning in place with a hand to her brow. When she finished, she pondered a moment, then pointed to the right of the nose of the craft. "Head that way. There's a mountain range not too far away, I think."

"Sierra Madre Oriental?"

Shego shrugged. "Uh, yeah, sure."

"Shego..."

"I don't know, alright?" Shego said, throwing a hand up. "I just know there's a mountain range that'll hide us. It's not like Drakken and I stopped to ask directions. ... believe me, I tried."

Kim snorted. Then she immediately chided herself for laughing; this wasn't the time.

Shego groaned - not at Kim, but her own body - and slid back down to the floor. Silence again reigned, but a few minutes later, out of the corner of her eye, Kim saw Shego open her mouth to speak, then shut it, only to do it again, then finally settle on facing the back of the craft, her head lolling on the dash with every bit of turbulence.

What was she going to say? She knew Kim needed to know what Umbra was up to. Maybe that was it. Kim had even considered asking Shego about it again, but each time, the questioned died on the tip of her tongue, certain that Shego would just shoot her down again.

The hovercraft flew on, and the night felt very quiet, despite the rush of air. That's all that Kim could hear, really, even if the craft somehow damped the sound; apparently Drakken's design was good for something.

Perhaps an hour of standing at the controls later, Shego suddenly spoke.

"You could have just left," she said. "Done your mission without me."

Sparing a glance from the darkened land in front of her, Kim looked down to where Shego sat. She had her eyes closed, her head still resting on the edge of the console.

"I don't see how," Kim said.

Shego swept a hand through the air. "Shot straight for the hovercraft. Let me fight the moron alone."

"And lose my best partner?" Kim said lightly.

Shego gave her a look between disgust and impatience. She crossed her arms, tapped a finger against her bicep, and looked up expectantly.

"What?" Kim said.

"Come on," was all Shego said.

Kim did a little hop on the balls of her feet. "Why is 'I'm just a good person' not an acceptable answer?"

"Because you look like you're about to jump over the side of this hovercraft." Shego grabbed the edge of the dash and started to hoist herself up, but winced and sat back down.

"Careful," Kim said.

"Stop avoiding the question."

Kim fumed. "I'm not - alright look... the last time Ron glowed like that... he... killed two people."

"Aliens."

"People!" Kim snapped though Shego just stared cooly up at her. "They still thought. They still... felt. They were people. And they were killed. I have never killed anyone, Shego, and I don't... intend to start. But Ron has. That's never going to change."

Shego sat, starting, and slowly leaned back to her original position and rested her head back against the dash. "What'd he say about this?"

"We haven't... we haven't talked about it. It's just... he hasn't mentioned it and..."

"... and you don't want to."

Kim glanced at her, then forced her eyes back against the dark landscape. "... yeah."

The air whipped Kim's hair. Shego leaned forward, as if to sleep, hiding her face behind a curtain of black.

Has she? Has Shego killed anyone? It wouldn't be hard to imagine... would it?

It's probably better not to know.

"Shego," Kim said, "I need to know what Umbra's up to. If we're going to take her down, I need to know everything you do."

Shego's head didn't move. The wind just caught the top of her head, making a stray hair fly backward. Her chest raised and lowered, and Kim thought that perhaps she had actually fallen asleep.

Then Shego looked up, a cat's grin plastered on her face. She huffed. "Come on, this is a gimmie." She waited, looking on. "Nothing? Not even an inkling?" She held up pinched fingers. Still not receiving a reply, she held up her hands. "Fine, fine. You want to know? She's trying to take over the world, d'oy."

A/N: This story seems to have an obsession with these two throwing up. :\

YES I AM STILL WRITING THIS.

Also, I've apparently been nominated for the Kim Possible Fandom's Fannie Awards for Best Author?

Well, okidoki then. If you want to participate in the Awards, head on over to the Kim Possible Discussion forums here on FFNet and browse the "Fannie" stickies. There's currently two posts, one is a reading list of fics and authors up for awards, and another is an elimination voting system. Feel free to go and vote for your favorite authors and fics!

See you soon and thanks (as always) for all the reviews on the last chapter, my pretties. 3