Kim tightened her fingers around what was closest, trying to discern what had happened by touching something. It felt familiar, and when her fingers squeezed, someone else's fingers squeezed back on her wrist. "You awake, Kim?" The voice was also familiar, but Kim's head still throbbed with pain. "Shego?" she mumbled. "I'm right here, princess," Shego said in return. "How do you feel?" "Terrible," Kim answered. "Where are we? What happened to Tao?" "That's her name?" Shego asked to no one. "I've been asking her what her name is, but she wouldn't answer." "She's mute," Kim murmured. "Where are we?" "A forest," Shego answered. "We've been walking for about three hours. You know, I hate seeing those glowing eyes pop out of nowhere, but she's the only person I can follow. It got dark an hour ago." Kim lifted her head from Shego's shoulder and looked about. The ground was white with snow, and the bare trees seemed to glow with the moonlight. Up ahead, Tao had stopped and turned about. Her eyes glowed briefly when they caught the moonlight, but the shine faded after an instant. "You heard right," Shego muttered. "Our little Kimmie's awake now. Do you think you can walk on your own now?" She stopped and carefully loosened her grip on Kim's arms and legs, letting the younger woman slide from her back. Kim sighed, rubbing her eyes and forehead. "What on earth happened?" she asked. The memory rushed back to her abruptly and she gasped. "Shego! Are you all right?" "I'm fine," Shego replied almost smugly. "When have you ever known me to be hurt? Even you haven't been able to put a scratch on me, Kimmie." Kim ignored the jib and looked to Tao. "How did you do that?" she asked. "You were standing next to me one moment and then you and Shego were gone." Tao smiled rather sadly, her hands in her pockets. The tail around her waist reached down and wrote something in the snow. Kim walked a few somewhat shaky steps and crouched down to read what had been written. There is a snake inside me, the words said. "How is that possible?" Shego asked, having read over Kim's shoulder. "Tao is the daughter of Ion Psymon, a biogenetic scientist," Kim answered, standing straight. "Tao was biogenetically engineered. The genes she was spliced with must have be a mix of human and animal. Tao, where have you been leading us?" Tao brushed the words away in the snow and wrote new ones. My mother, the words said. Without writing any further, she turned away and started to walk again. Kim and Shego followed her, unsure of what else to do. They walked for many more minutes until they came to the bottom of a hill. Shego stopped, looking about with narrowed eyes. She clenched her fists, green flames encircling her hands. "There's something out here with us," she murmured. Instinctively, Kim drew closer to her while falling into her familiar fighting stance. Tao looked over her shoulder at the two other women before looking around. She leaned back her head, took a deep breath, and let out an echoing wolf's howl. Shego whirled to look at her in rage. "Are you insane?" she demanded. "Why the hell did you do that?" Tao smiled slightly and put a finger to her lips. Another howl echoed back through the cold night air. The sound of crunching snow accompanied it only moments later, and without a moment's pause, a massive wolf slammed into Tao. Shego and Kim jumped towards the two wrestling beings, but they stopped immediately when a strange sound reached their ears. Tao was laughing. She soon parted from the beast, sitting in the snow and laughing as she brushed the snow from her silver hair. She pointed up the hill. Kim and Shego turned and saw that a light now shone from a previously unnoticeable house. A shadow was cast from the light and stretched down the hill. "I see you've met my daughter," a voice called. "Come inside. There's no sense in standing outside when the snow is about to start again." The shadow withdrew, and Kim and Shego, only sharing a confused look, followed it. A house, hidden in the snow, stood at the top of the hill. The front door was open, waiting for Kim and Shego to enter. "Tao!" Shego shouted, turning around once stepping inside. "Get up here!" "She won't come inside," the voice from moments before said. "Not even when the snow starts again. She'll just do what Lobo does and burrow under a snow pack to sleep." A tall woman with short brown hair and black eyes stood before them. Pince-nez rested on the bridge of her nose, and she wore long black clothing for the winter. "Why won't she come inside?" Kim asked. The woman, Ion Psymon, strode past them and closed the door. She stood there for a time, her hand on the doorknob. "She won't tell me," she eventually said. "She hasn't spoken in sixteen years." A silence crept up into the room and took over each woman's voice. After many minutes, Ion turned around and leaned against the door, looking at Kim and Shego without a smile. "I assume you two are Kim Possible and Shego. You're all over the news-along with Tao. She's accused of kidnapping both of you." "She didn't," Kim insisted. "She just kept the police from shooting Shego. If I hadn't gone with them...well, I had to go with them." Ion gave her a slightly lingering look, but did not ask. "The storm is about to start," she murmured. "You two can stay here for the night. Even if Tao carried you both back to Middleton, you wouldn't be able to get there before you suffered severe frostbite." She started to turn away. "Hold it," Shego snapped. Ion stopped and looked over her shoulder. "The guest room is that way," she said, pointing past Kim and Shego. Shego glared at her. "What is Tao?" she demanded. "I worked with a mad scientist on a regular basis. Human clones and gene splicing is insanely difficult. No one has found a completely stable method to do either one of them, let alone a combo of the two. Just how did you make such a powerhouse that doesn't have the usual symptoms of clones or splices?" "You speak of the susceptibility to the combination of chemicals in soda for clones and the insanity that all spliced creatures eventually suffer from," Ion sighed. "I took all these factors into consideration twenty-six years ago. I worked for three years to try and discover the cause of the dissolving of the clones and the insanity for the spliced creatures. It came to me when I looked at a gene-overlay. There were inconsistencies in both, but as it was, if the methods were to be combined...." "You could fix it?" Kim gaped. Ion closed her eyes with a faint smile of pride. "All but one consistently fatal missing piece in the genes," she continued. "It took me another year of testing to discover how to fix it. There was no real base for the genes to keep hold of, figuratively, anyway. The splice genes and clone genes both had an inherent weakness in their physical makeup. The clones are not real humans because of the lack of human contact in their creation. They need a mother, so I gave one of my ovum to create what I privately named Tao." "It was a success," Kim stated simply. "Since science before me has mapped the human genome, it was simple to take out what weaknesses existed in my genetic code, duplicate it as if there had been a father, and add in the animal genes that had been selected. Muscular power of a black mamba, muscular endurance of a giant gray wolf, bite force of a great white, and the proportionate strength of a Hercules beetle to name a few. Tao was 'born' twenty-two years ago." Ion heaved a sigh and walked out of the room, leaving Kim and Shego alone. The wind sounded harder, rattling the windowpanes. Shego's eyes flicked from the doorway that Ion had walked through to the front door a multitude of times. After a few minutes, she sighed and put her arm around Kim's shoulder. She turned the other young woman and led her down the hall into what Ion had called the guest room. The room was somewhat small with plain white walls. A bed, just large enough for two people, was tucked into a corner. "This is some serious weirdness," Shego muttered, sitting down on the bed. "So once we get back into Middleton, Tao's going to be public enemy number one, and I'm down to number two. Why did I ever hook up with you? You're ruining my bad girl image." Kim smiled and sat down next to her. "You should talk," she said. "I'm supposed to throw you in jail. At least you can claim good old seduction-to-get-at-me. Heroes don't do that." "You should," Shego chuckled, wrapping her arms around Kim. "It's actually a lot of fun." Kim smiled at her again and put one hand over Shego's. "I will eventually," she replied. "But not tonight. We should both just get some sleep." "Spoilsport," Shego grumbled. She flashed Kim a smirk, however, and pulled the other young woman under the blanket with her, holding her close as they both fell asleep quickly. ---------- Kim sighed as Tao leapt away, jumping into the trees to avoid stepping in the new snow. She had carried Shego and Kim through the trees, not explaining why she did so. Shego dusted herself off, adjusting the collar of her leather jacket. She looked at Kim, spotting the strange gaze on the other young woman's face. "What?" she asked. "I feel like it's my fault that Tao can never come back into Middleton," Kim sighed in return. Shego sighed in exasperation, putting her hands behind her head to stretch. "If it makes you feel better, you kind of are," she muttered. When Kim looked to her in shock, she continued. "You were the one who had to go and help her at the police station, from what you told me this morning. I'm pretty sure she could have gotten out by herself. But I'm part of it too. If she hadn't jumped between me and the cops, she wouldn't be charged with kidnapping. And of course, it's Drakken's fault because he blew up your house, and she had to save you." "Are you saying she shouldn't have done all of that?" Kim demanded. "No," Shego answered. "I'm saying she's too good. Look at her. She should hate everything around her. Why is she trying so hard to be a good person?" "Not everyone is as dark-hearted as you think they are," Kim said tersely. "That's not it," Shego said in turn. "Kim, think about everyone in that police station. The people who saw her, they don't want her alive-hell, they don't want her to exist. Have you ever thought about that? Even you would be mad at the world if no one wanted you to exist." There was a heavy silence. Shego sighed and kissed Kim on the cheek. "Listen, you should get back to wherever your family is right now and make sure they know you're all right. You know, why don't you tell the police the truth about Tao?" "They won't believe me," Kim murmured rather forlornly. Shego smiled slightly and kissed her on the lips. "If you need me, my cell phone is always on," she said. "Make sure to stay safe, all right? Avoid missions for a while." Kim managed to crack a minor smile and nodded. Shego patted her on the head and turned, walking away. Kim turned as well, walking slowly towards the place where her family's house had been. The walk felt longer than she remembered, even though she had never walked from the edge of the city before. She couldn't comprehend what Shego had said. She did not understand how humanity could hate itself, even in such a varied form in Tao. She did not yet have the capacity for such hatred, which might have been why the world called her a hero. "Kim!" Kim looked up at the shout, stopping dead in her tracks. The frame for a house-a house just like the one that had burned down-was already raised on the freshly cleared patch of land. Construction workers milled about, the sound of hammers loud in the cold air. A weight hit her around the middle and nearly knocked her over. Jim and Tim both had launched themselves at her and hugged her fiercely. "Kim, look!" Jim cried joyously. "These guys heard what happened, and their boss said he owed you a favor! They're making us a new house!" Kim, still shocked, looked at the workers and the job they had done so far. "That's great," she murmured in a stunned voice. However, what snapped her from her reverie was a faint rumbling in the ground. She looked up and saw, as if it were purposefully moving at a painfully slow rate, a giant robot stomping around a corner. One glaring, glowing red sphere-an eye-swiveled to stare at Kim from the black metal face of the machine. "Ah, Kim Possible," a voice echoed metallically from the robot. "Just who I was looking for. Now where have you hidden Tao?" Kim jerked in shock. She took a nervous step backwards, reaching into her pocket for any kind of gadget. When her hand found only a few hunks of lint, she remembered that she had left all of her things in her room. Everything had been destroyed in the explosion. "What do you want with Tao?" Kim shouted back to the robot. A chuckle rattled inside the metal plates, sending a cold jolt down Kim's back. "I'm going to kill her," the voice laughed. "Now where is she?" Kim pushed her brothers away, putting her hands up as she fell, once more, into her comfortable stance. The robot's arm reared back, the three large, flat prongs opening wide to create the most space to crush Kim. Kim flipped backwards, and the closest prong slammed into the ground inches away from her feet when she landed. She sprang forwards, running up the robot's arm. A few feet before the arm met its shoulder, Kim leapt up and forward, both feet extended. Her kick landed in the center of the red glowing eye, but did damage to Kim. Her legs bent against her will, her joints quivering for a moment before she began to fall away from the robot. The heroine twisted in midair, landing on her hands and flipping back. When she put her feet to the ground, her ankles would not support her weight. Kim stumbled and fell to the ground, looking up at the robot in fright. "Poor little cheerleader," the voice snickered. "If you won't tell me where Tao is, then I guess I'll just have to kill you." The robot's arm rose up to strike. Kim was unable to close her eyes. She watched as the arm began to fall at a blurring rate, but noticed a second blur appear before her. An echoing clang caused enough pain in Kim's ears to make her close her eyes. When she opened her eyes again, she gasped. "Tao, how are you...?" she questioned. Tao stood before her, hands holding the robot arm from striking Kim. Without pause, she threw the arm to the side into the ground. The robot lifted its arm from the cracked cement, the glacial laugh resonating from within its shell. "There you are, monster," the voice snarled. "I'm going to kill you." All the tension that was so obvious in Tao's body vanished at the voice. "Oh, so the monster has a memory? You should remember me. Now be a good beast and die." The prongs on the robot's arm opened again, a massive spike emerging from the center of the arm. When the robot struck, it appeared as though Tao did not move and was slammed into the ground. After the dust cleared, Tao was standing on the robot's arm, clutching her own bleeding arm. An arc of blue-white electricity crackled through the air around Tao. It swirled around her body, jumping almost instantly to the metal of the robot. Tao smirked, the hair on her head and the fur on her tail rising up as the sound of raw electricity filled the air. A sheer blast of the electric energy flowed out of Tao and into the robot. She leapt away as the robot quaked, landing next to Kim just as the robot crashed to the ground in a heap. Before Kim realized what else had happened, Tao had a bloody hand on her wrist and someone else was holding a knife to her throat. She willed herself not to gasp when a gun was pointed at Tao. "Unless you let her go, I'll shoot you and slice her throat," a young woman's voice snapped. "Step back now!" Tao slowly let go of Kim's hand, stepping back a few feet. "Dumb animal." The gun was fired, but Tao stepped slightly to the side. The bullet grazed her face, scorching open the skin. She stared at the woman behind Kim, her eyes still wide in shock. The young woman shot another bullet and Tao dodged, but she jerked forwards. "Tao!" Kim shouted in shock. Tao stumbled and fell to the ground, unconscious, two tranquilizer darts in her back. "Tao!"
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