Doctor Drakken hummed to himself, walking through the halls of his most recent lair. He was quite proud of himself, and the moment he saw Shego, he was going to tell her the good news. Before he realized what happened, however, he was slammed against a wall with an arm hard against his throat. "What the hell is this?" Shego snarled, holding a newspaper in front of the blue-skinned man. The headline blared: "Explosion Rocks Middleton! Kim Possible Targeted!" "I was just about to tell you," Drakken wheezed. "Last night, I planted an explosive device in Kim Possible's room without her knowing it." "She's in the hospital!" Shego growled. "What's wrong with you?" "You were out last night," Drakken protested. "I would have let you push the button, but you weren't here." Shego threw the paper aside, took a step back, and punched the man in the face. She did not let him fall to the floor, instead keeping hold of his collar and punching him repeatedly in the face and torso. The inept man whimpered piteously when Shego's hand lit with green flames and drew back. Shego hesitated. She held her attack, breathing heavily, glaring at Drakken. When her fist began to move, Drakken screamed. He waited rather patiently for death, but dared to open his eyes when death didn't come to him. Shego's fist was buried in a smoking hole in the wall beside his head, and she was still glaring at him. "What did I do?" Drakken sniveled. ---------- Kim groaned and pushed herself up to a sitting position. She rubbed her forehead, closing her eyes to block out the brightness of the clean white room to remember what had happened. Flashes of flames and shouting came back to her immediately, but it wasn't what she was searching for. Who was that person in the cap? She had already seen them earlier that day-the same person who had stopped the purse snatching by Bueno Nacho. After a minute or two, she opened her eyes to look around. She was sitting in a hospital bed, and Ron was sitting in a chair next to the bed. He was leaning in the chair, his head lolling back and forth with each of his snores. Rufus lay curled in the young man's lap, snoring in tandem with him. "Ron?" Kim asked. Rufus woke at her voice first, climbing up Ron's shirt to casually slap at his face until he awoke. The blond man was groggy, but perked up immediately when he realized that Kim was awake. "KP!" he said loudly, jovially. "Oh, God! It's so good to see you awake! Everyone was so worried." "I've had worse," Kim murmured, smiling rather wearily. "Ron, what happened? The person in the hat-are they still here?" Ron paled, shaking his head slowly. "They're at the police station," he said. "What?" Kim demanded, sitting up straighter. "Why?" "I don't know why," he answered. "All I know is that your mom called me and said you were here, and when I got here, Jim was just sitting out in front of your room. I asked him what happened and he kept saying that there was a monster that attacked you." "That's impossible! They saved my life! If it wasn't for them, Jim and Tim would be dead too!" "Kim, that's all that I know-that's what your brother said. What are you doing?" Kim threw the blanket off of herself and stood from the bed. Glad that she had not been changed into hospital garb, Kim started for the door. Ron stood from his chair and grabbed Kim's shoulder. "Kim, what are you doing?" "This isn't right," she replied tersely. "Whoever they are, they saved my life. I have to know why the police put them in jail. And I have another bad feeling about who started that fire." She walked out of the door before Ron could say anything else, and he did not choose to follow. ---------- "Ah, Miss Possible! Good to see you weren't injured last night." "I was told that you arrested somebody last night near my house. I'd like to see them." The police captain looked confused for a moment, but gave the young woman a smile and a nod. "I don't see why not," she said, taking a ring of keys from her belt. "Even a monster like this thing can't get through arm and leg manacles." Kim stared at the other woman questioningly, but the captain didn't elaborate as she led Kim down a hallway. When they came to a room with a solid steel door, the captain stopped, unlocked the door, and flicked the light switch next to the door. "Wake up," the captain said shortly. "You have a visitor." Kim looked towards the slab of metal that constituted a bed in the cell, but there was no one lying on it. However, there was a lump under a rough brown blanket in the corner. Something silver poked out from under the blanket slowly until the blanket fell off of the person's face. Kim would have rushed from the room if she wasn't so versed in the strange, but even her experience couldn't keep her from letting out a small gasp. A very tired looking young woman looked up at Kim, and Kim was sure that her eyes would have been glowing if the lights weren't on. Animalistic gold eyes peered over the blanket, and short, crudely cut silver hair fell around her face. Cat-like ears twitched on the top of the woman's head, turning alternately at Kim and the police captain. She yawned widely, obvious fangs glinting in the light as her tongue lolled out slightly. Without saying a word, she closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. "She hasn't said a word," the captain muttered. "She howled like a wolf when the paramedics tried to take you, though." Both women noticed something silver slither out from under the blanket. The captain pushed Kim behind her and started to draw the handgun from her shoulder harness. "Wait," Kim said quietly, putting her hand on the officer's arm. She cautiously took a step around the other woman, walking towards the woman in the corner. Though she wasn't sure how she knew what it was, Kim watched the woman's silver-furred tail reach out from under the blanket and start to draw in the dirt on the floor. With the captain standing anxiously at the door with her hand on her gun, Kim crouched down near the silver-haired woman and watched her tail. It slowly wrote out three crudely crafted letters: "TAO." Kim stared at the letters for a time before looking up at the woman. The woman was looking at her over the blanket, her eyes barely open. Kim looked back at the letters again. "T, A, and O," she murmured. "T, A, and O. Tao. Tao?" She looked up to the woman. "Is your name Tao?" The woman nodded very slightly, sweeping the letters away with her tail. She started to write something else, Kim reading off the letters as she went. "H, U, N, G, R, Y." Kim smiled soothingly at Tao. "Are you hungry?" Tao nodded again. Kim laughed and looked to the police captain. The woman in uniform sighed, shrugged her shoulders, and turned to acquire some food. "Can you speak at all?" Kim asked. Tao shook her head. "Is it because of the smoke from last night?" Tao shook her head again. "You just can't talk?" A nod. Kim smiled with a sigh. "All right, all right. Can you tell me what happened last night? Why are you here now?" Tao blinked and looked down at her tail, beginning to write. Helped, she wrote slowly. Helped you. "So why are you here now?" I was scared. "You got scared? Oh, the ambulance siren. What happened?" I hurt someone. "You hurt someone? How?" I hit them. I thought they would hurt you. "Oh. Why didn't you write that for the police?" I didn't get a chance. "Did one of the officers hit you with a stun gun?" Tao nodded. The police captain walked back into the room carrying a tray with a sandwich and a cup of water on it. She handed it to Kim, who in turn held it out to Tao. The silver-haired woman ate the sandwich slowly, deliberately. Kim turned to look at the police captain. "She said that she hit somebody last night," she explained. "Can you tell me what happened?" The woman sighed heavily, staring at Tao. "When I first arrived with my partner, the paramedics and the firefighters hadn't gotten there yet," she said. "Your mother and father, Kim, had just gotten out of the fire. We were waiting for you to come out with your brothers when a window on the second floor blew out. We thought it was just from the heat, but then she landed right in the middle of us. She was carrying your brothers-one in each arm-and you on her back. "Your mother took your brothers, and one of them woke up enough to stand on his own. I was about to take you, but then the paramedics and the firefighters arrived. One of the paramedics tried to take you, but she hit him. Clawed three gashes in his faces and dislocated his jaw. My partner reacted by jamming a tazer in her neck. And here we are now." "Tao was scared," Kim said in turn. "She thought that something was going to hurt me-she was trying to protect me." "Why would she do that?" the captain asked. "She doesn't even know you." Kim looked at Tao, who was now sipping at the water. "I don't know," she answered. "But I don't think she really meant to hurt anyone." The captain looked thoughtful for a moment. "Animal instinct," she murmured. When Kim looked at her in question, she continued. "Look at her. She's more animal than human. There must be something about you that made her protect you." Kim said nothing in response to this. She instead watched Tao silently. The silver-haired woman seemed more alert, her ears turning towards the door behind the captain and Kim. "Tao, do you have any family?" Kim asked. "A last name?" Tao nodded, looking at her tail. Kim followed her gaze and stared for many minutes at the name that Tao wrote down. The captain noticed Kim's stupor and dared to ask. "What's wrong?" she asked. "What does 'Psymon' mean?" Kim shook herself slightly, still staring at the name. "Psymon," she murmured. "I've heard of the name Psymon. There were old articles about a biogenetic scientist named Ion Psymon-she's a genius. But the last article about her was something I found in a library newsreel from twenty years ago. She had been working with a military scientist named Sean Green, and she just dropped off the face of the earth. How can you be her...daughter?" Tao made no move to reply with her tail, instead drawing the appendage back under the blanket. Kim turned to the captain, sighing confusedly. "I think it would be a good idea to release her into your custody," the older woman said. "If she's as tame as you say she is, then you should be able to make her go home." Kim frowned, her humanitarian mind angered by the captain's words. "You're making her sound like a vicious animal," she whispered. "She is a vicious animal," the captain replied in a harsh, loud tone. She shoved two keys into Kim's hand before turning and walking out of the room. Kim watched her leave, stunned at the words. She turned to Tao, but the young woman showed nothing on her face. "Come on, give me your hands," Kim said gently. "You'll have to show me where your mother lives so I can tell the police you didn't run away." Tao took the second key once Kim had unlocked the manacles around her wrists and unlocked the leg-manacles herself. She stood up and brushed the dirt from her brown pants and green shirt. Her tail wrapped around her waist, hidden under the long green shirt. Rather self-consciously, she reached up and touched her cat-like ears. "You can't hide them?" Kim asked. Tao shook her head, but walked to the door anyway. As they walked through the hall, the overnight inmates-drunkards, brawlers, and burglars-stared at Tao. "Freak!" A metal cup filled with water flew from a cell and hit Tao in the back of the head. She paused for only a moment, but kept walking. When she stepped into the main lobby, everything went completely silent. The officers froze the moment they saw her. The uncomfortable silence might have escalated into a more violent version of what had just happened in the cell block, had the doors to the station not been broken forcibly down. "Get the hell in there!" A beaten, bruised, and bloody Doctor Drakken was thrown headlong into the front desk, followed quickly by a raging Shego. She curled one fist, green flames bursting into view. Drakken whimpered, scooting uselessly into the desk to try and avoid Shego's growing wrath. "Shego, stop!" Kim shouted. Shego froze, turning to look at Kim. Her breath was ragged with her dissipating rage, and the flames around her hand hadn't faded. She turned, taking a step towards Kim, the disbelief before joy evident on her face. The police, however, did not know that Shego felt joy seeing Kim was all right. "Freeze!" sixteen voices cried in unison. Handguns were drawn all around the room, sights set on Shego. The moment was too far-gone. The police saw that Shego had beaten Drakken, and that she was staring at Kim Possible with disbelief on her face. Everything clicked in their minds, for what they knew. Kim looked at the officers, wishing to scream for them to stop, to hold their fire. However, she knew that by the time she took a breath, Shego would have quite a few rounds in her chest. Kim felt something brush by her side, turning to look at Tao. The woman was gone, and a thud made her stop her glance less than halfway. She turned back only in time to see Shego vanish suddenly. The police looked around confusedly, wondering where Tao and Shego had gone. The captain took charge first. "Outside, now!" she shouted. The officers rushed out the door, guns up and searching for a target. Kim followed, standing just outside the door as the officers charged down the few stairs and out onto the sidewalk. Tao dropped down noiselessly in front of Kim and grabbed her, easily pulling the other woman onto her back. Too stunned for words, Kim wrapped her arms around Tao's neck and held tightly as the silver-haired woman sprang up and somehow latched onto the wall with just her bare hands and feet. She jumped up over the edge of the building, landing next to an out of breath and rather stunned Shego. When she jerked her thumb over her shoulder, Kim breathlessly translated for her. "Grab hold of me," she gasped. Shego shook her head, too astounded by the events to comprehend. Tao grabbed her and, just as easily as Kim, pulled the woman onto Kim's back. She put her hands to the ground and started to run on all fours, leaping from rooftop to rooftop with unbelievable ease and speed. For the first time in her life, and only because of her flame and smoke-weakened state, Kim passed out from the chaotic action around her.
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