All characters used in this story are, of course, copyright Disney.

In a Rut

Part One

"Using Our Words to Hurt"

"And so, Kim Possible," the silhouette shouted over the gale, his raspy voice laced with unabashed glee, "You have no choice but to stand idly by and watch as my new Indomitable Wave Manipulator unleashes a mad excess of man-crushing tsunamis on the rest of the surrounding world!"

The figure finished his speech with obvious relish; his arms raised above his head in a triumphant gesture, entire body poised for his inevitable victory. His wicked laugh rose high over the sounds of the whistling wind and the crash of the water against the rocks below.

A great bolt of lightning filled the stormy sky, providing an impressive atmospheric effect that befitted the situation quite nicely. The man on the rock began cackle even louder, not wanting to be upstaged by the bad weather. He went on like this for a while, laughing manically at his hostages, until he ran out of air and was forced to take several deep breaths.

Once recovered, he had another quick fit of the evil giggles, then moved to flip a switch in the nearby rock wall.

At once, the entire isle was lit up by a bizarre set of stadium style lanterns, and the figures—all just seconds before too indiscernible to make out in the gloom—became quite visible.

The eccentric villain on the on the boulder was suddenly given a face in the intense new glow—and a very strange one at that. His skin was of a sickly blue hue, and dark circles ringed his wild eyes. He was clad in a dark coat, gloves, and boots—the usual garb of your garden-variety mad scientist. A distinctive scar marred the cheek just below his left eye, and his unruly black hair stood on end even in the pouring rain.

Close beside him stood a exceptionally sallow skinned woman, her green and black cat suit soaked through, tendrils of her raven hair whipping about her face like angry serpents. Even wet and wind-blown, she was strikingly beautiful, wearing a cold smile that did not quite reach her narrowed emerald eyes.

The abrupt brightness had also revealed two more individuals—these ones tied tightly to a palm tree on a lower level of outcropping. They seemed to be the losing party, though neither looked at all resigned to defeat. They were younger than their captors, at the very most in their late teens. One was a pretty red-headed girl, glaring confidently at the laughing man on the stone platform, her green eyes filled with defiance. The other was a blonde boy with freckles sprinkled across his cheeks, cheerful-looking despite the ostensibly bad situation.

And it was the boy who was first to speak after the darkness had once again shrouded the four, his comical voice shouting out to interrupt a third bout of blue man's mad laughter.

"Or at least on the coastal regions!"

The man on the rock ceased his hooting abruptly, and he turned his head slowly in the direction of the young man. In his surprise at being interrupted, his arms were left still raised in the air.

"What was that?"

"I said, even if your tsunamis don't reach the WHOLE rest of the world, they'll at least hit the coastal regions!"

The blue man's jaw dropped in surprise at the brassiness of the comment, and, in a state of mild unconsciousness, he let his arms fall limply to his sides.

"Uhh—"

"Well, think about it, dude… You're expecting that little machine to make tsunamis that'll wipe out everything, right? I'm guessing that the most it can do is take out stuff on the edges of the land… Thinking it'll destroy everything—yeah, my friend, I'd say that you're waaay kidding yourself with that idea. I mean, in my opinion, it's a bit much to ask for—"

"SILENCE!" the man on the rock barked, waving a furious fist at the startled looking youth. He had no patience for the stupid, driveling chatter of teenage boys.

"Hey man, I'm just saying—"

"ZIP IT, BUFFOON!"

At this retort, the blonde's expression became indignant, and his good-natured humor disappeared.

"Aw, come on, I thought we'd moved past this—"

"WELL, ONE STEP FORWARD, TWO BACK, THEY SAY!"

"What? Who's 'they'?"

"IT—THEY—YOU—ARGH!"

A loud rumble of thunder sounded overhead as the blue man huffed and stomped in a circle, his arms flailing in an animated rage. After he'd exhausted his fury, he spun back around to face the red-headed girl—she was the one he'd been speaking to in the first place.

"AS I WAS SAYING…" his eyes flashed and his mouth opened wide, and he prepared to deliver the words he had been meaning to, had he not been interrupted by the sidekick.

And there he stood—just like that—for a few unpleasantly long moments, his eyes burning with evil intensity and his tongue poised for a villainous do-gooder lashing, until his expression clouded in bemusement as he realized his dilemma.

Sheepishly wringing his hands, he turned to his female companion.

"Er… what was it that I was saying?"

The pale-green beauty came to life with unsubtle exasperation, rolling her eyes to the cloud-filled sky.

"Oh, for the love of…" she moaned, slapping a gloved hand over the center of her face. She didn't even attempt to mask the irritation in her voice. "You were telling Possible all about how she has no choice but to stand idly by and watch as your new Indomitable Wave Manipulator unleashes a mad excess of man-crushing tsunamis on the world—"

"Or at least on the coastal regions!" the blonde piped up once more, his liveliness restored.

The man on the rock instantly snapped his head in the boy's direction, but the teenager had already begun to feign innocence, whistling a polite, unassuming tune.

The blue man grimaced and turned his eyes back to his own sidekick.

"Thank you, Shego."

"What else do I live for?" she replied off-handedly, turning away from the entire scene to watch the now violently rumbling wave device on the stone opposite their own.

The man frowned for a moment at the back of his unfriendly cohort, then twisted his head to flash a frightening smile in the direction of his red-headed nemesis.

"Kim Possible… PREPARE TO—"

"NOW, RUFUS!" the girl suddenly shouted, and from her mess of tangled hair jumped a small, hairless rodent. The creature landed purposefully on the watch that was clipped about the teen's wrist and readied himself for action. Then, with a tap of his tiny claw, he pressed the biggest, brightest button on the gadget, and was launched high into the air as the face of the watch shot out like springboard.

He flew through the air in a pink blur, making a direct shot for the Wave Manipulator. He landed with a tuck-roll, anchoring himself right into the control pad. From there, he immediately sprung up, prepared to hit the button that would stop all of the chaos… and was confronted with a good square foot's worth of keys to choose from.

Turning back to face Kim, he let out a shrill squeak of dismay.

"He doesn't know which one to press, Kim!" the blonde offered his translation to the girl beside him. As Rufus' owner, he found that he understood the little guy's language better than anyone else.

"Just pick one, Rufus!"

A particularly loud wave smashed against the rocks below, sending a great blast of foamy water high into the air to rain down on the teens.

"Hurry!"

Rufus squeaked his understanding, and turned quickly back to the control panel. Without any idea what he was doing (only knowing that if he didn't try something, his friends would end up being squished by a wave before any of them got to see the Indomitable Wave Manipulator in action), he pressed a good many buttons at random, then sat back and waited.

The machine did nothing.

Rufus hunched over, prepared to press the whole keyboard at once if he had to. He lifted a claw into the air—

The device boo-beeped, let out a couple of shrill whistles, then fell silent.

Almost simultaneously, the waves below stopped crashing and the wind let up. The island and all around it seemed to become suddenly quiet—it appeared as though the calm had been restored and villains thwarted.

The blonde let out a whoop of victory. "Rufus, my buddy, you are—"

But he was shushed by Kim.

"What? Is this not a perfectly spankin' reason to rejoice?"

"Ron, something isn't right."

"Of course everything is right! Why wouldn't it be?"

Kim was quiet for a moment, and the only sounds were those of quarrelling voices coming from somewhere on the rocky platform above.

"It just… It just doesn't feel right."

Ron rolled his eyes.

"Kim Possible, you are such a—"

He stopped short, a look of pure terror registering on his face. He had been rendered speechless, his train of thought lost as he stared off into the distance. The voices above had suddenly fallen silent as well, Kim noted, another sure sign that her hunch had been dead on.

She hated it when she was right… Well, when she was right about these sorts of things.

She slowly followed Ron's gaze, finding that her eyes were met by the sight of a huge, glowing pole as it ascended from the top of the wave device. As it reached steadily toward the sky, the hum of live electricity filled the air, growing louder as the rod rose higher. Then, there was a single mechanical screech as the shaft ceased escalation, and the island was left in an expectant hush.

Suddenly, a loud hissing noise cut through the quiet, and the frightening hypnotic quality of the situation evaporated instantly. The pole had begun to spit sparks.

The two villains reappeared on the platform, neither looking remotely pleased… The man, in fact, looked on the verge of hysterics.

"Wha-what's it doing?" What was left of his evil tenacity was quickly dissolving into a full-blown panic. "WHAT ON EARTH IS IT DOING!"

Shego shot him a very dirty look.

"So, Drakken, I guess I can assume that this bit wasn't part of the original plan, right?"

"Ron, Rufus is the only one that can reach the lipstick! We need him!" Back on the lower level of outcropping, Kim was trying to talk sensibly to the horrified Ron.

Ron, however, was preoccupied with the fact that Rufus was still very much sitting on the control panel of the machine, glued there in a frightened stupor.

"RUFUS! GET DOWN HERE! YOU DON'T WANT TO BE ADDING THE WORDS 'BURNT' AND 'CRISPY' TO YOUR RESUME, BELIEVE ME!"

Rufus snapped out of his trance at once, squealed in extremely enthusiastic compliance, and quickly scampered off of the now violently buzzing machine. There was another hiss of electricity, followed this time by a frighteningly large shot of lightning that narrowly missed the lucky rodent.

"You always forget about the mole rat when you think of your ideas, don't you?" Shego hopped off the platform, grabbing the wrist of her boss and pulling him along behind her just seconds before another bolt of lightning struck the spot where he had been standing.

"SHEGO!"

"RUFUS!"

"RON!"

"WHAT!" Ron had been sharing very tender moment with his pet, now perched safely on top of his head, and both seemed to have quite forgotten the situation at hand.

"I know that you're glad Rufus is okay, but he needs to get the lipstick or we'll all be adding the words 'burnt' and 'crispy' to our resumes!" Kim shouted. She had a positively resolute look in her eyes, completely unafraid, despite the intensity of the weather surging just above their heads.

Ron smiled apologetically and turned to address his mole rat, now awaiting orders on his owner's shoulder.

"Rufus—time for evasive action, naked mole rat style! Go to it!"

Rufus gave a miniature salute, jumped from Ron's shoulder and onto the backpack, then quickly buried into the largest pocket of bag. Seconds later, he resurfaced successfully with the tube.

"Great!" Kim beamed and nodded her head, "You know what to do!"

The pink rodent squeaked enthusiastically, held the lipstick level with his chest, and pointed at the rope that fixed Kim and Ron to the tree.

"Now!"

The two teens leaned as far out and away from the target as they could, and Rufus uncapped the cosmetic. Instantly, a beam of red laser light shot out and burnt effortlessly through the thick binding.

Kim and Ron jumped up as soon as the last of the ropes had fallen away, and, within all of three seconds, they had grabbed Kim's backpack, the laser lipstick, and the mole rat; and were speeding down the rocks and toward the small submarine that they had left docked further along the shore.

The other two were not so lucky.

"IS IT SUPPOSED TO BE DOING THAT?" the blue doctor screamed, his entire body flattened against the rock behind which he and Shego had hidden.

"Um, okay, hellooo. Your machine, not mine, Doctor Doofus."

A monster-sized bolt of lightning struck their boulder, instantly reducing a good half of their shelter into pebble-sized debris.

"Shego, make it stop!"

"Me? No way! If you want it to stop, you go put your own life on the line and find the off switch! Don't make me the human sacrifice for your stupidity!"

"Hit it with your plasma!" he offered impulsively.

"And end up blowing everything else up along with it! I don't think so!"

"Then can't you kung-fu it or something! Deliver some sort of machine-breaking blow of super ninja strength!"

"No way! That's suicide—it'll zap me if I kick it!" she paused thoughtfully for a moment before continuing in a voice that positively smacked of sarcasm, "Oh, wait. Let me reconsider… Yeah, okay, I've changed my mind! If dying will get me out of the contract I have with you, I'd be more than happy to—"

Drakken roughly grabbed Shego's shoulders and tried to shake some sense into her.

"JUST DO SOMETHING, YOU IMPERTINENT WISEACRE!"

"Alright, alright, sheesh," she said, standing up so quickly that the doctor fell back onto his rear end in surprise. "Why am I always the one that has to do all the messy work?"

Drakken opened his mouth to reply, but his sidekick silenced him with a single gloved finger to the lips before he was able to actually say anything.

"No, no—don't answer. A couple hours from now, I can't imagine that there would be too much left of your lair worth saving."

The man growled indignantly at the saucy remark, but didn't bother to argue once she'd dropped her hand. He watched in total silence as she turned away from him and moved to climb onto of the remains of their shelter, then still as she leapt effortlessly up the rocky wall to another ledge high above his own, the wind whipping through her hair, her green hands glowing all the while.

--------

"How was I supposed to know it could control other things besides water?"

The sound of Drakken's piqued shouting reverberated raucously into the hall from the exterior antechamber, followed suit by the sound of the entrance door being shoved noisily back in place.

"I don't know… maybe if you'd actually read the manual…" Shego's voice snapped back in obvious disdain.

Several of the henchmen sitting around the hall winced, anticipating what they knew was sure to be a very nasty argument. They, after all, had come to expect that sort of thing whenever Drakken and Shego happened to be in close proximity of one another.

"Manual-shmanual! What good are they? My genius is all I need!"

Drakken stepped into the room through the rounded-out entryway in the stone wall, and Shego came in behind him soon after. Both looked annoyed and on edge, and were equally soaked with rainwater from head to toe. Upon their walking into the room, several of the henchmen abruptly abandoned their stations and headed in a nonchalant trot through the sliding doors at the opposite end of the room.

"Some genius! Did you see that fat hole your stupid Abominable Wave Maker blew in the lair?"

"INDOMITABLE WAVE MANIPULATOR," he made sure to annunciate every syllable with infuriating clarity as he corrected her. "And I've been meaning to get that part of the lair renovated, anywho."

Shego snorted in disbelief.

"Yeah, whatever! Since when?"

"Since… since…" His ears turned an indelicate shade of crimson as he found himself at a loss for words. When he finally able to speak again, he made up for his momentary lapse of control by doubling the volume of his voice. "SINCE WHEN DO I RELATE ALL MY RENOVATION PLANS WITH YOU, LITTLE MISS NOSEY PARKER!"

At this, the remainder of the henchmen stood up to leave. This batch, however, didn't bother to mask their fear as they ran hastily in the direction of the exit door.

"Oh yeah? As I recall, the first rule of the lair was—and this would be the set of rules that YOU made up—'No secrets'! Remember that?"

"The renovation's no secret! You—you just never asked!" Drakken turned away and he too made to walk toward the sliding doors.

"Riiiight." Hardly convinced, Shego padded along behind him as he tried to make his escape. She wasn't about to let him leave without putting up a good fight; she didn't feel that she had yet come out on top of the argument, and she was not the type that took kindly to losing.

Drakken sped his villainous sauntering to a full-on power-walk, trying to pretend that he was in an enormous hurry to get to bed and that he hadn't noticed that Shego was tailing him. Of course, the attempt was all in vain—she still managed to cut him off, blocking the exit with outspread arms. Drakken sniffed huffily and moved to edge around the woman, but she was unyielding.

"You're in my way, Shego," he warned, his voice low in what his long-time sidekick easily determined to be a false bravado.

"Hello, earth to Dr. D… did you ever consider that maybe your genius just isn't good enough to make the grade?" She spoke to continue their conversation as though it hadn't ended a minute before.

"NONSENSE! My genius has taken us very close to victory in the past, hasn't it?" He forgot about his great desire for sleep as he irately crossed his arms over his chest.

"Yeah, sure, it takes us there… and then we always lose—bad!" She placed her hands on her hips and leaned toward her boss. "We end up going to prison, break out, and then you get another cockamamie idea about world domination! Kim Possible shows up, does her teen heroine shtick, we get our butts kicked, and—we—end—up—back—at—square—one!" She made sure to drag out the last bit of her speech, loving how the mono-syllables sounded with long pauses in between. She also noted with satisfaction that they actually seemed to have an effect on her ordinarily hard-headed employer. He seemed to have been stunned into silence.

She felt a wave of cruelty usurp her, urging her to press on with her verbal assault.

"Oh, please! Don't give me that act of surprise! We've had this conversation at least a hundred thousand times! Don't pretend like you're just starting to really get it NOW!"

She paused again, taking relish in the fact that he hadn't tried to interrupt or contradict her. She really was on a roll! And the look on his face… he almost looked like he actually cared what she was saying!

"You are so ridiculous!" she spat in disgust. "What are you looking all wounded for? I'm not saying anything I haven't already!"

She stopped then, having had her fun, and waited for him to come up with some lame retort to fight back with… and waited… and waited…

A sinking feeling filled her stomach, and she realized suddenly that he really was speechless. For the first time, he wasn't going to say anything back. He just wasn't able to.

She slowly lowered her hands from her hips. Her entire demeanor had changed from anger to unease in mere seconds.

"Uh… Doctor D?" An uncharacteristic tentativeness seeped into her voice as she spoke.

Drakken's eyes were dull and lifeless, and his entire body seemed to have diminished—in soul as well as size. He had become someone much smaller and submissive… someone, Shego found suddenly, she didn't recognize.

Finally, he took one rattling breath, and opened his mouth to speak in a voice that was quite unlike his own.

"Maybe I really am just starting to get it now, Shego…"

And with that, he stepped around the shell-shocked woman, walked wordlessly through the door, and left his sidekick alone and cold in the uncomfortable silence of a very empty hall.