And You And I

Chapter 08: There's someone in my head but it's just me

It had been a bad week. No, that didn't even remotely cover it. It had been a fucking shit week! After succumbing to the agony of her accelerated healing and screaming her lungs out on Saturday, Shego had eventually passed out in the early hours of Sunday morning; after the process had finished. She'd then slept until mid-afternoon, but even when she did wake, she had felt exhausted and so spent the remainder of the day in bed, watching films on her laptop. While physically back to normal come Monday morning, her mind had been all over the place, distracted by the persistent nuisance that was her little devil's advocate and its new favourite subject; Kimmie.

If she had thought going to work would improve her mood, she had been dead wrong. She had arrived in the main chamber of the lair just in time to witness the explosion that had seen the destruction of Drakken's ultimate-super-hyper-death-ray. To say it had been the spark to set off the barrels of gunpowder would be a gross understatement. Igniting her glow the second the dust had settled, she had started hurling plasma balls at Drakken and yelling at him for being so stupid as to blow up his own death-ray and set the plan back by at least two weeks. However, while her rage had been genuine, the reason for it had been a complete lie. She couldn't have cared less about the mad scientist's latest attempt at world domination. No, her anger had stemmed from the fact that it now meant she would have to wait even longer for the chance to fight Kimmie again.

Stupid Drakken! Shego cursed internally as she crawled through a dusty air vent. The one time I actually care about his plan being ready on time and he goes and blows it sky-high! On Monday, after she had eventually calmed down, there had been no denying how she felt, she desperately wanted to see Princess again. To feel the adrenaline course through her body and the thrill wash over her as they engaged one another in their dance. To exchange witty banter as they tried to out outmanoeuvre each other. And...

"Dammit," Shego hissed through gritted teeth as a sharp piece of the vent sliced through both her catsuit and leg. It wasn't deep but stung like a bitch. Drakken is so footing the bill to get me a replacement as I ain't wearing no patch-job. She pressed on, the exit vent in sight. With the stupid ultimate-super-hyper-death-ray now a pile of slag, she had been forced to revisit each and every facility she'd robbed the previous week to procure the components needed for Drakken to build a new one. Her attempts to get him to come up with something they could pull off that week having failed miserably. She still had three to go after this one and was seriously contemplating working the weekend so as to hasten the plan and her next encounter with Kimmie. Once I'm done here, I can hit that facility in Idaho on the way back and save the extra trip.

"Or you could go home and phone Princess and see if she wants to come out to play. Her number's still in your cell phone. Or, should I say, Miss Go's cell phone."

Shut it, Shego spat internally at her little devil's advocate. After she had accepted that she missed Kimmie, the bastard had been relentless in its attempts to get her to pick up the phone and call her. Choosing inappropriate moments, such as now, to interject with its opinions. The entity was a complete and utter personification; she was well aware of that. However, it served as the only way to put up any sort of barrier between herself and her darker thoughts. To distance herself from those she either wished to avoid dealing with or just downright suppress. Unfortunately, like herself, it had a bad habit of doing what the hell it pleased.

"Look, all I'm saying is, why don't you try talking to her? She had fun last Friday too. The worst that can happen is that she says no."

I said, shut it!

With more force than was necessary, Shego wrenched the grate free and shoved it further down the vent. Attaching an electromagnetic clamp to the roof, she turned it on and slid down a thin cable into the dimly lit room below. Wasting no time, she pulled a small canister from her belt pressed a button and gently rolled it a few meters ahead of herself. Even in the deathly quiet of the room, it would have been difficult for any normal person to hear the faint hiss of gas being released into the air. Slowly but surely a thin mist started to fill the space in front of her and revealed the laser grid. Damn, they've replaced it with an updated model since last week. It wasn't the first security upgrade she'd encountered on her second tour of these facilities, however, this one certainly posed the greatest problem. Her eyes looked around the walls. Fuck, this one's control panel must have been installed remotely. She hadn't needed to disable the old one, but her brain was trained to fully assess all the options, before choosing a course of action. Guess I do this the old-fashioned way. At least it's only connected to an alarm system and not some friggin auto-turrets or worse, the type that slices you to bits first and asks questions never.