Chapter Text
Chapter 3 - Still Deceived With Ornament
…
“You’ve been quiet,” Shego said. “Stop it.”
“Easy for you to say,” Kim said. “You didn’t have your whole life just taken away from you.”
Shego wagged a finger at her between strokes. “Ah-ah. It wasn’t was taken. You left it.”
Kim groaned and kept paddling in sync with Shego. It turned out there weren’t any other boats left on the abandoned private island so they had been forced to use the lifeboat. Kim had made a couple oars out of debris found on the island and helped Shego row the boat south, towards Cuba. Between the rowing and the motor, they would arrive at the airport and be ready to leave by the time that Señor Senior, Junior landed.
“Face it, Princess,” Shego said, “you’re one of us now.”
“Hardly,” Kim said. “This is all just a misunderstanding.”
Shego laughed. “Yeah, how many ways can you interpret a giant hole in your military base?”
“Are you going to be like this the entire time we’re together?” Kim said.
“Oh yeah,” Shego said.
The sea was fairly calm and they had little trouble going along at a good pace. In fact, Kim already saw land up ahead. Her arms were starting to hurt, though.
“You would think,” Shego said from the opposite side, “that with all the high tech gadgets Nerd Linger sets you up with, you’d have a better lifeboat.”
“His name’s Wade,” Kim said, “and this lifeboat is powered by a tiny trilithium power cell. It should last for a month going at this speed.”
“Woo,” Shego said flatly. “So what are you planning on doing, anyway?”
-o0O0o-
Kim sat stiffly on the couch and struggled to maintain an awkward smile. Across from her, Junior sat in a recliner and looked slightly confused. Bonnie, in the recliner next to him, sat with crossed arms and glared. Shego, on the opposite side of the couch Kim was on, draped herself lazily across it. Strangest of all, however, was Señor Senior, Senior, who sat in a plush chair between Junior and Kim.
“Thanks so much for the ride, Junior,” Kim said to break the silence.
He held up a hand to wave her off. “It is no trouble,” Junior said. His eyes kept making passes between Bonnie, Shego, Kim, his father, and back again.
“So, Kim Possible,” Senior said, “it seems you have finally decided to join the forces of evil. I must admit, this is most unexpected.”
“Oh, you know,” Kim warbled, “I’m just full of surprises.”
“Indeed!” Senior said. “Perhaps I will get us some refreshments to celebrate your new life of villainy and give you some time to catch up with Junior and your old friend.”
Bonnie glared at him, but Senior didn’t seem to notice. Instead, he stood and walked towards the back of the luxury jet, leaving the three teenagers (and Shego) to themselves.
Bonnie scoffed. “Doesn’t he have, like, servants for this sort of thing?”
“Father believes in what he calls a ‘hands on approach,’” Junior said in a tone that told Kim he’d heard this line from his father many times. “Honestly, I do not see the appeal of such things.”
“And that’s why I like you,” Bonnie said with a satisfied grin. “What are you smiling at, loser?”
Kim, perked a brow but smiled. “Nothing. I was just thinking about how the world being invaded by aliens doesn’t seem to have changed you much.”
“Whatever,” Bonnie said. “It’s not like there were a lot of them. It was just some freak show couple and their toy robots.”
Kim ran her fingers into her hair and laughed.
“What’s so funny?” Bonnie said. “It’s not like you have much time to be laughing, what with the whole supervillain thing now.”
That brought Kim back down. She smiled, if a little forced. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Shego giving her an odd expression Kim couldn’t place. “What did you hear?”
“Oh nothing,” Bonnie said. “Just that you broke some supervillain out of prison and ran off with her.” Bonnie took a glance at Shego. “So you’re like some loser supervillain team now?”
Kim opened her mouth but Shego sprang sideways across the couch and draped an arm across Kim’s shoulders.
“Oh yes!” Shego said. Kim almost cursed. “We’re going to set the world on fire together!” She laughed, again that high pitched, squeaky laugh.
Bonnie’s eyes just darted between them.
“Would you,” Kim said as she pushed against Shego, “just get off?”
Shego let herself be pushed back to the other end of the couch and held her sides in laughter. She was enjoying this far too much.
“Is she going to be alright?” Junior asked as Shego fell off the couch and collapsed on the floor. Still laughing.
Kim gave Shego a dirty look. “She won’t be in a minute.”
“W-w-wait. Just — ahaha!” She doubled back over, still on the floor.
“It wasn’t that funny,” Kim grumbled.
Shego looked up at Kim and stopped laughing. Then she laughed even harder.
Kim put her face in her hands and closed her eyes.
“You two,” Bonnie said, “are so weird.”
“Yeeees,” Junior said. “I think I will join my father in gathering our drinks.” He got up.
“Oh, you are so not leaving me with these two little freaks,” Bonnie said and followed Junior towards the back.
Kim heard them leave and Shego’s laughs ebbed. For a time, the only sound was the droning of the engines.
“It wasn’t that funny,” Kim said quietly.
Shego wiped a tear from her eye and hopped back up to the couch. “Oh, it was to me, Princess,” Shego said. “Oh, but it was even more fun to watch you squirm.”
“I just thought… that maybe, since I rescued you, we might —”
“Oh no,” Shego said. “Not happening.” She jabbed herself with her thumb. “I’m evil. Remember? I don’t do the goodie-goodie act. I’ve done that; I wasn’t impressed.”
“That was with Hego and your other brothers,” Kim said. “But if we —”
“Not. Happening.”
Kim narrowed her eyes. “So why are you following me to Paris, then?”
“I’m not following you,” Shego said. “I’m using you for a ride. Besides, Paris has better shopping than Cuba.”
Kim put on a sly smile. “Fine, fine. You don’t have to get so huffy about it.”
“I am not huffy!”
“You so are.”
“Am not!”
“Are,” Kim singsonged. She turned her head so Shego wouldn’t see her grinning, though she thought she’d heard the sound of Shego’s hands igniting.
“Um, ladies?”
Kim looked up. The two Seniors and Bonnie had returned with drinks in hand, Senior, Senior in the lead.
“I would ask,” Senior said, “that you do not light my personal jet on fire. Melted planes are far too much paperwork for an old man such as myself.”
“But father, you had me do that paperwork last time.”
Senior rested a hand on his son’s shoulders. “Not now, my son.”
Kim decided not to ask and was rather pleased when the green glow on walls of the plane disappeared. They each took their seats again and Kim was handed a glass flute which smelled suspiciously like alcohol. She promptly tried to hand it back.
“Oh don’t bother,” Shego said when Senior insisted on her accepting. “International waters or not, the princess here couldn’t do something as risqué as drink even if she wanted to.”
Senior sighed. “Ah, well. A sober villain is a cunning villain, as they say.”
Then Kim downed half the flute in a single gulp and the rest in the next.It burned her throat on the way down and she grimaced.
Shego’s grin could have sent even Dr. Director running in fear.
“Normally,” Senior said, “champagne is not — what is the curious American phrase — chugged. But, seeing as you are the topic of the celebration, I believe etiquette will allow.”
“Just turned supervillain and already drowning her sorrows at the end of a bottle,” Bonnie said.
Kim smirked. “Still full of your usual charm, huh Bonnie?”
“Whatever.” Bonnie turned away from the group and sipped her glass.
Kim’s glass was refilled, but she left it where it was on the table centered in their circle. The minutes that followed were filled mostly with awkward silence with occasional light attempts to start a conversation. As the minutes ticked by, however, Kim felt herself rather content and despite herself, rather sleepy. She was quickly realizing that a few hours of sleep on a lifeboat after two and a half days awake was not going to cut it.
She considered where she was, a plane filled with people she had a foe or rival relationship with in the past. But Senior seemed to have accepted Kim as a villain and Kim felt no need to correct him. His traditional villainy probably dictated she be accepted and not harmed. Junior had been downright pleasant since finding Bonnie and as for Bonnie herself… despite Bonnie’s sometimes snobbish attitude, Kim still considered her a friend.
That left Shego, her arch-foe for so long. Yet she already had been asleep around her. And Kim wasn’t sure she could last the full 10 hour flight, even if she tried.
“I’m sorry, Señor Senior, Senior,” Kim said after yet another lull in the conversation, “but I haven’t had much sleep in the last few days and I’m about to crash. Could I…” She gestured towards the couch she was on.
“Of course, of course,” Senior said. “A life of villainy can be very tiring sometimes. I’ll have Junior wake you before we arrive.”
Kim smiled and stretched out on the couch. There was just enough room for her to lay down with Shego still sitting on the other end. She pulled a pillow under her head and fell asleep almost immediately.
-o0O0o-
“Kim.”
Kim groaned into her pillow.
“Ugh, whatever,” the voice said. “Sleep through Paris for all I care.”
Paris. France. Running.
Kim snapped awake and sat on her heels. Bonnie was standing just in front of the couch and looked a bit surprised.
Kim stretched, yawned, and smiled. “Morning, B.”
Bonnie put a hand on a hip. “We’re about to land in a few minutes. I figured maybe someone should, like, wake you up or something. Junior decided that preparing his hair was more important.”
“Uh, thanks?” Kim said. Then, when Bonnie didn’t move, “was there… something else?”
Bonnie’s face scrunched up as she seemed to mull something over. She looked to the front and back of the plane, but no one else was visible. “So is it true, then? You’re really doing the whole villain thing now?”
“No,” Kim said. “There’s no way I’m becoming a supervillain. Drakken and the rest have that covered for me just fine.”
“So you didn’t break tall, dark, and gruesomely green out of jail?”
“Well, I did do that,” Kim said, “but it’s not what it looks like. And I don’t think the green thing makes her ‘gruesome.’”
“I know I didn’t go on many of your… world saving missions,” — Bonnie said it like it was a question — “but the whole ‘helping a supervillain to escape’ thing seems pretty villain to me.”
Kim’s legs tensed, and she slid them out from under her. “It’s so not! It’s just a- a misunderstanding!”
“Careful,” Bonnie said with a smile, “you wouldn’t want one of the Seniors to hear you, would you?”
Kim narrowed her eyes. “You’re not going to tell them, are you?”
Bonnie rolled her eyes. “Please.” Then she crossed her arms and looked rather uncomfortable once again. “Just… be careful, K…”
Kim started to smile, but Bonnie cut in before she could say anything.
“Because whatever you do reflects back on all the former Middleton cheerleaders. Try not to be a total loser?” Then she took long strides towards the rear where Shego leaned on the door frame with a hand on her cheek and a pinkie in her teeth. Bonnie paused, then pushed past her.
Shego watched her go, then sauntered over and flopped across a recliner in front of Kim.
“Soooo,” she said, “you and ‘B’, huh?”
Kim cocked her head to the side to leer at Shego. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh come on!” Shego said. “‘Be careful, K.’ And the way you smile at her whenever she so much as looks at you. Ugh! I don’t see what you see, Cupcake — well, besides the obvious,” she made a round, curvy motion in the air, “but I’m sure I don’t want it.”
Kim felt her cheeks flush. “What are you saying?”
“Uh, doy?” Shego said.
Kim continued to glare.
“Oh don’t act coy,” Shego said. “You know very well what I mean. I knew there had to be some reason you kept cheerleading —”
“I liked cheerleading,” Kim said.
“Oh, of course, you did.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
Shego laughed, flipped herself upright, and disappeared into the cockpit.
Kim stretched back out, squished her flushed face into her pillow, and tried not to second guess her thoughts during her high school showers.
-o0O0o-
As soon as the plane landed, Kim’s Villophone rang. She pulled it from her battle suit’s pocket and pressed the green call button.
“Is this Kim Possible?” A voice said.
“Um, yes?” Kim said.
“Jack Hench here,” Jack said, “and let me just say what a pleasure it is to have you on board with our other clients. I’m sure you’ll be taking full advantage of our henchmen summer special?”
“Oh, um, I think I’ll… have to… think about that.”
“Of course, of course!” Jack Hench said. "Listen, I’ve taken the liberty of sending your Villophone an updated contact list so you don’t have to dial our operators for common calls. I’ve also upgraded the firmware. The phone is one of our older models, but it still packs a few extra features.
“It’s still older tech,” Jack continued, “but if you lock into a contract now, I’ll throw in one of our latest models for free!”
Shego, who Kim once again did not notice come up, snatched the phone away from Kim and spoke into the pinhead sized mic.
“Hench, your Villophones are contract free,” she said. “I paid for the phone, I get free service for life. That’s the deal.”
Jack Hench’s voice squealed from the tiny speaker. “Shego! I, uh, was just introducing our new contract plans for villains on a budget.”
“Yeah?” Shego said. “Well try to shove your overpriced garbage down Kimmie’s throat again and I’ll make sure I’ll shove my fist down yours.”
“U-understood, Shego.” Jack Hench cut the line, his attempts to sell to Kim forgotten.
Shego tossed back the phone back to Kim.
“Thanks, Shego,” Kim said, a little in awe.
“Don’t thank me,” Shego said as she strode back to the front of the plane. “I just hate Hench. He’s been trying to recruit me ever since Drakken dragged me into that villain convention, and I so despise anyone who makes or uses those Attitudinator things. Later Kimmie.” Without another word, she threw open the plane’s outer door while it was still rolling up the tarmac and jumped out.
“Wha — Shego! Wait!”
Kim jumped up, ran past a very surprised Senior who had just exited the cockpit — “Tell Junior to say hi to Francois for me!” — and jumped out the open door after Shego.
The sky was still dark, and the air was cold despite it being the end of May. The first bits of light could be seen in the east. Kim caught sight of Shego running across the airfield as she ran across the lighted roads into the grassy field south of the runway. Kim sped after her, but even with the super suit’s rocket shoes, she couldn’t close the distance in time to stop Shego from grabbing onto a passing semi-truck and giving a cheery wave before she started to climb on top of it.
The problem was that Shego’s truck went south and Kim’s destination laid further west. A semi-truck blazoned with the Red Circle logo heading that way was approaching and she chewed her lip. The truck began to pass in front of her and she nearly stomped her foot in frustration, but activated her cloak and jumped nimbly onto the truck’s rear. There wasn’t time to call in a ride and she didn’t know who wouldn’t turn her in anyway.
The truck passed through neighborhoods much like any other part of the world, except for the rubble and occasional Lowardian invasion drone that smashed into the buildings. But she supposed that was the same everywhere, too.
Along the way, Kim flipped through the menus on her phone. No x-ray function or brain scanner, but did apparently contain a laser cutter. She’d likely need that in an hour or two.
Eventually, Kim’s stop was coming up and she hopped off the Red Circle truck in a roll. Unfortunately, she fumbled, hit her shoulder too hard, and her tumble went wild. Her head splashed in a nearby puddle as she slid to a stop in front of an alleyway.
“Ow,” Kim said, holding her head. She looked at her hand, but it didn’t come away with blood. Then she realized she was looking at her hand. She was visible again! She tapped the control on her belt couple times, and eventually, she cloaked again. Wade apparently still had some bugs to work out. She was thinking about how she should have made that roll and it hit her; despite the suit, she was weak from hunger. She’d ate some of the rations on the lifeboat, but that was over half a day ago and she hadn’t had anything else since the beach party. She should have had ate on the plane before she left. A quick check of her suit’s pouch revealed she only had a couple twenties in US dollars; her euros were in her backpack at home.
She sighed. Maybe she could find a dumpster behind a bakery somewhere. If there were any not destroyed.
A few blocks of fruitless searching lead her to a long line in front of a delicious smelling building. A soup kitchen. The upper levels had been destroyed and one of the Lowardian drones laid next to it, but apparently, the need for food outweighed the risks of the building collapsing.
Kim took a quick look around the crowded building, then got in line, still invisible. The building was packed with people chatting merrily of their survival. A boy ran through blowing bubbles, a man with hefty camera chatted with an older woman at a table, and someone had started forming napkins into origami. Kim was struck with just how… normal it all was. Above all, however, was the ever present aroma of food. Her stomach growled.
A man stepped into line. He bumped into Kim and looked rather confused for a moment, but kept his distance after that. A few minutes later, Kim was at a stall full of pre-made food trays stacked with gruel and vegetables in varying levels of brown. To Kim, however, it smelled like a feast. She grabbed a tray, gave a loud “thank you,” and almost ran off with it, ignoring the disbelieving stares of the kitchen staff as they watched a tray of food float away on its own.
Kim quickly walked outside and around the corner, not stopping until she was sitting down behind the wrecked war drone, then began shoveling as much food as she could into her mouth. It was only after she had finished more than half the tray that she noticed the man dressed in rags sitting next to her. He was staring at the tray and the food floating off of it as it disappeared into some kind of invisible black hole.
Kim suppressed a burp, passed the half-eaten tray to the man and a cheery “here you go” and fired her grappling hook into the nearest roof. In the distance, she saw the broken remains of the Eiffel Tower. Just a few miles left.
-o0O0o-
Kim crawled down from the roof of the Élysée Palace until she was in front of a window on the shadowed western side of the building. Bullet-proof glass or not, the laser cutter on the Villophone was able to slice through, albeit far more slowly than Kim’s lipstick laser. She slipped through the hole she’d made and landed almost silently in the hall. Hopefully, no one would notice a hole in the window until after she left.
Her stealth mode still activated, Kim stepped lightly through the hallway, avoiding the carpet in case there were pressure sensitive pads under them. Then she found the door she was looking for. Another laser beam, and the door smoothly opened into an elaborate office.
“Merci de me recevoir, monsieur le Président,” Kim said as she let her cloak fade.
“Kim Possible!” the president of France said. “Thank goodness it’s you!”
Kim couldn’t help but sigh in relief; she wasn’t sure if the president would be receptive to helping her or not, but it appeared he, at least, did not believe the news of her so-called fall.
“You sound like you were expecting me,” Kim said.
President Aldric frowned and clicked on a television that had obviously been moved into the room just recently.
“… in addition to the photos from our airport correspondent,“ the English captions below the French newscaster said, ”we now have this video taken by our crews less than two hours ago who were doing a story on life after the Lowardian invasion.”* *The screen flashed to a new image. A distinct, girlish “thank you” could be heard, then a tray of food floated through the air and disappeared through the door of a crowded food kitchen. “It is speculated that this was the invisible alleged supervillain, Kim Possible. If you see any objects floating through the air or a red-headed girl wearing this suit,“ an image of Kim running at the airport flashed on the screen, ”please contact us immediately on our hotline.”
The TV switched off. Kim, who had been groaning into her hand, looked up. “Shouldn’t they be told to contact the authorities? And how do you have electricity, President Aldric?”
The president smiled. “I have, ah, given some orders to wait on an official position on your activities. I cannot believe that the girl in that American video is the same one who helped me with those missing emergency relief supplies and my son last year.”
Kim bit her tongue. “It was no big, President Aldric. Anyone could have lost them over the ocean in a hurricane. And I’m sure your son didn’t realize where he was when that crate went overboard.”
President Aldric smiled. “Modest, as always. As for the power, your brothers sent the plans for their mystery meat generators to every country in the world. We have one in the courtyard that is powering the entire 8th arrondissment. But we do not have much time before my staff comes back. Before I ask you for your help once again, did you need something of me?”
Kim nodded. “You were at the leadership conference in Middleton, weren’t you? What happened exactly?”
Aldric frowned. “Shego, was it? Sadly, I don’t have much to offer. I and the other leaders were separated from the villains, who had their own lunch room. It was deemed safest for all involved. ‘Shego’, however, burst into our room and started blasting away with this green energy from her hands. I believe a few people were burned rather badly, along with numerous other injuries. I left shortly afterward.”
Kim looked down. But Shego had said…. She looked back to Aldric. “Are you sure it was her? It could have been Camille Leon.”
“Camille was in the room when it was attacked,” Aldric said. “The attacker was the same as those in the photos from this morning. The one you were running after? She was, however, wearing a green dress at the conference.”
Kim exhaled through her nose and tapped her food. “Did you see what she was after? What she might have took?”
“I believe it was a large diamond necklace worn by one of the delegates. Ah, Wanda Wong, the Chairman of the Board of the Middleton Space Center.”
“Dr. Wong?” Kim said. “Do you think I could make a call to Middleton?”
“The phone lines to America are currently dead,” Aldric said. “I also believe she left to visit family in China, actually,” Aldric said. “She left in the same group I did and we talked briefly. Charming woman.”
Kim tapped her heel impatiently. She had hoped President Aldric had the answers she sought, but it looked like she’d have to go on a chase yet again.
“Was there anything else, Miss Possible?”
Kim shook her head. “No, I think that’s all. What was it you needed, Monsieur le President?”
He moved back into the office and pulled out a map.
“Almost directly south of here, we’ve been getting reports of strange weather localized around Andorra.” He pointed to a tiny country wedged between the Spanish and French borders. “And just yesterday, I received a report of an older man in Toulouse looking for a satellite dish and various other electrical equipment. Strangest of all, the man appeared to have blue skin.”
“Drakken,” Kim said. “Not another weather generator. Doesn’t he ever get tired of those?”
“I must admit, I’m surprised,” Aldric said. “He gave a rather well-thought out speech on global cooperation in the scientific community at the conference.”
Kim shook her head. “That’s Drakken for you. I’ll take care of it right away.”
“I wish you the best of luck, Kim Possible.”
Kim nodded, hit her belt’s stealth system, and she faded from view. Then the belt sparked, and she reappeared.
“Uh, problems?” Aldric said.
Kim tapped the button repeatedly, but she remained fully visible. “Oh man. This is just what I need. There’s no way I won’t be noticed walking through the city looking like this.”
Aldric looked thoughtful, then walked over to his wardrobe and pulled out a black suit that looked far too small for him.
“My son,” he said, “tends to not take care of his clothes so I keep a spare suit here in my room in case we have a formal function to attend without another suit on hand. He is, ah, still rebelling, I believe, but fortunately without being a stowaway on a supply ship now.”
Kim walked up to where he laid the suit on the bed with an uncertain look on her face and glanced to the president.
He sighed. “Otherwise, I could get some of his day clothes from his room —”
“No,” Kim said. She picked up the white button up shirt and slipped it on over her battle suit. “This is fine.”
The slacks, white button up shirt with black skinny tie, and gray vest were a bit loose on Kim’s frame, but easily covered the battle suit. The blazer had to be left off as it restricted movement in her arms. However, her feet — and the only thing left showing — would not fit into the shoes with the battle suit’s rubberized bottoms. She’d have to hope that anyone who saw her simply assumed they were a fashion choice.
She thanked Aldric, left through the hall without incident, waiting until the coast was clear, then crawled out the window and dropped into the courtyard. All the guards seemed to be trying to stay as far away as possible from the mystery meat generator, and Kim slipped by easily enough. She walked quickly through the old, narrow streets with her face down, and tried to avoid eye contact. Her mind struggled with the new information she’d gathered.
One thing in particular.
Shego had gone south, towards the Pyrenees mountains and Drakken’s apparent new lair.