"Test of Faith"

By Eoraptor

Disclaimer: Kim Possible and related materials ©2002-2007 The Walt Disney Company, this is a work of fiction created without authorization, not for profit, under assumption of fair use, and rated T for Teen for language and content.

Shego was possessed of one thought the entire day.

"How did I get here? WHY am I here?"

It was a thought, a question, which kept her largely unaware of anything going on around her. At least as she sat inside the rectory, breathing deeply and studying her hands.

Then a knock came at the door. She opened it, and ignored the face of the Preacher. No words were exchanged, he just smiled at her and led her down the short hallway and out into the small amphitheater which formed the front of the First Reformed Church of Go City.

And then it began to hit home. The entire church, which was not a small one by any means, was full to bursting. And it was laid out in one overriding color scheme. The end of each row of pews had cobalt blue bunting. The rafters and vaults were thick with blaze blue ribbons and crepe paper. Everyone who sat wore cobalt blue armbands.

Hell, even Shego had her hair tied back with a brilliant blue headband.

And of course, there on the casket, double-wide and gloss black, were electric blue orchids entangled with blackbriar branches.

How the hell was she here? Why was she, Shego, baddest of the bad, about to stand up in front of a church, one full of the most righteous people in all of Go City, and speak about good people? In a white blouse and a black pencil skirt with a goddamned blue hair-band?

He was supposed to be the indestructible one; the one who outlived them all. And that wasn't just because he was bullet-proof. He didn't go out and do dangerous things for kicks like his younger sibling, or put himself into harms' way on a lark. He lived the very definition of a mild-mannered life.

A clearing of a throat next to her shook Shego from her reverie. She realized that everyone was looking at her.

"Oy… so my brother, right?" She looked around awkwardly.

After a moment, she decided to get right to it, "Look… let's cut through the bullshit. My brother and I didn't get along. He was a pompous, self-righteous bastard with shoulders outsized by only his own bizarre worldview."

Shego smirked. The crowd looked aghast at her. The preacher looked like he wanted to yank her off the dais.

Good, so now they understood a bit of how she felt having to stand here and do this, "But I can say this about him in all honesty… he had the biggest fists in the world… I'm not kidding, Guinness measured them; six point three inches across, guy could palm a watermelon… But for as big as his hands were, his heart was bigger still. He'd give you the tights off his back if he thought they would keep you warm at night."

"And god how many people did he save over the years? People I woulda kicked in the ass to speed up their passing out of my way, he fell on the sword for." She shook her head at the thought even as she related it to the assembled masses.

"And it wasn't just as Hego. As Dirk Hansen he wasn't just the mild-mannered manager of a great metropolitan taco stand, he was in fact, the owner of seven of the twelve Bueno Nachos in the greater Go City metro. How many starving people had he given free food to over the years when they didn't even have the eighty seven cents for a taco? And how many young kids did he give first jobs to, especially ones the people might have otherwise run off, the ones with "issues"?"

"I mean seriously." She related as she stood there, trying not to claw her hands through her hair, or rake her nails nervously down the antique pulpit, "Raise your hands if you worked or ate at one of the taco huts he managed. No seriously, go on."

A few hands went up, and then more, and then more. Fully three quarters of the assembled throng.

"Even some Vegans out there I see. Good, now we know who's going to hell don't we?" She grinned wickedly, leaning on the pulpit as much for strength as for bravado.

"And let's not, for a moment, forget that even though he had the mayor and the chief of police on speed dial, he never so much as once fought a traffic ticket, whereas I could step right out the front door of this church and get arrested for frowning at a poodle. What a fucking moron not to call in a few favours, huh?!"

By now the audience seemed to be over-gasped at her bombastic eulogy, and let the curse slide.

"And don't get me started on the tower, or the uniforms… Guy got his ideas for fashion straight out of a 1993 comic in the 99 cent bin at the Chuckle-mart. If my hips weren't so dead sexy, I'd have burned mine to ash years ago, preferably with him inside them." She watched the audience like a hawk considering its prey.

'what the hell was he thinking, making me come up here and do this?!' She again ranted inside her own head as she looked out at the assembled good people of the City of Go. 'Why not ANYOBODY else?!'

Shaking her head, the dark woman forced herself back into reality.

She realized that she was prattling on now. Best just to end this spectacle before she set the lectern on fire or lightning burst through the stained glass to strike her down, "So yeah…. Here's to my idiot brother. The world is a much smaller place without him around to stretch it out."

Not that she was expecting effusive applause, but Shego was a little turned out by the complete lack of response as she left the dais. Then, she supposed, this was a funeral, not a self-help seminar. She'd seen her share of death over the years, enough to know people didn't generally welcome its coming or celebrate its passing. Which was why she was going to make sure she had nothing more than an irish wake and her ashes flushed down a toilet, preferably in a very expensive mansion she would by then own.

She tuned out the rest of the ceremony, and the only reason she didn't go back to the rectory was that it might be bad form. Also, she was pretty sure the damned Priest had locked the door behind her, and she was not one to pick locks in a church.

Along with her brothers, Shego stepped out of the front doors of the church. It was then, and only then, that she became aware of the… protest.

Emblazoned on very glossy and professionally printed signs as well as hand-made testimonials; "Jesus Died for your Sins," "Listen to Leviticus," and of course "God Hates Fags."

Peacebringers Church.

Apparently their leader was right there, front and center, with a court order in hand specifying he had the right to sling his hatred despite the best efforts of far better people to keep his hoard away. Shego took a deep breath and then took a step through the door and into the media circus.

She kept her head down, determined not to make any more of a scene than there already was, and shielded her eyes from the bright Sunday morning sunshine.

And then a tomato hit her in the chest.

For a moment, it was as though the entire world stopped, waiting to see what was going to happen. It wasn't like a random toss at the first person out the door of the church. Whoever had thrown the rotten projectile at her had had time to see who it was standing in the doorway; had chosen Shego as the target of their fruity fundamentalism.

They weren't just attacking a superhero. They weren't just attacking a villainess and felon. They were attacking a genuine daughter of Go City. While she wasn't the pillar of the community that Hego was, she was still Shego of Team Go; and a lot of people still remembered that skinny fifteen year old girl who waged epic energy battles with Eletronique over the fate of the city on their behalf.

Shego didn't see or hear or think any of this herself.

It took all of her being not to react. Every iota of self-control learned from dealing with mad scientists and fighting against redheads was called on to resist the burning desire to incinerate the dozen or so protestors standing before her. Her very bones ached with the need to unleash two thousand degrees of flaming electric green death upon them all and to let their God sort it out.

She just kept repeating a mantra to herself, quietly, through clenched teeth, "I will not start a brawl at my brother's funeral I will not start a brawl at my brother's funeral I will not start a brawl at my brother's funeral…"

The protestor, apparently emboldened by the lack of reaction from his target raised his arm to lob another volley, opening his mouth to let fly whatever jeering bombast he had memorized for the occasion.

And then he found himself seized by dark green vines, his arm held immobile over his head and his throat wrapped up quite securely.

Doctor Drakken stepped from the side door he had exited scowling, "If you throw that fruit, my good man… I will rip off your arm and BEAT YOU TO DEATH WITH THE WET END."

Shego was surprised that her friend showed such conviction, but she couldn't let this escalate out of control. This may be a family matter, but it was not an evil family matter.

Taking another deep breath, she repeated, "I will not start a brawl at my brother's funeral… And I will not allow one to be started for me."

"Drakken…. Take them off before I prune them off." She glared at her friend who by now had the protestor suspended in the air by a few inches.

"But Shego, he…"

"He hit me with a rotten tomato. Yeah." She glared at the still-suspended Peacebringer protestor, pointedly flicking the remains of the over-ripe red tomato from her formerly pristine white blouse. "I've taken worse shots at my character. Now put him down."

Around them the crowd milled nervously, still mostly silent at the spectacle being played out before them. Even the surviving Go boys seemed weary to intervene in the matter.

"One… Two… Three… Don't make me reach Five, blue boy…"

Reluctantly, the mad scientist released the fruit hurler, dropping him three inches to the ground and calling back Peony to his formal black lab coat.

"And you idiots," Shego wheeled on the protestors and their hateful signs, "It's bad enough that you protest soldiers funerals… but this? Hego fucking saved your lives… DIRECTLY! How many times did he save this city? HOW MANY? You… Billy Jenkins! I see you back there, hiding! Get out here! Don't make me come to you…"

One of the Peacebringers abashedly and apparently ashamedly stepped forward at being called out by name from the throng.

"My Brother saved your worthless ass from the Mather when he tried to subdivide a city bus! This is how you repay him? By turning his memorial service into a fucking mouthpiece for hatred? You wonder why I said Hego saved people I'd have willingly kicked into the fire? Be happy he's not here eulogizing me. I don't know if he could hold his temper like this… Ceremony was kind of important to him you know, and here you stand, insulting the last one he will ever get."

Then she turned to the rest of the protestors. She saw one of the louder ones about to pipe up, presumably with whatever pre-rehearsed responses they gave when challenged on their mission or their existence. Seeing that, she marched up to her and yanked the protest sign out of her hands, ignoring the splinters the cheap wooden handle drove into her palm.

"Let me guess, freedom of speech and freedom of expression and freedom of religion, right?" She eyed the woman, who gave her a dirty look right back, nodding and about to add voice to it.

"Okay, here's my expression…" concentrating, Shego called down the power. The sign in her hand increased in temperature rapidly, until it reached its kindling point. First it began to smoke, and then to smolder as the paper curled and darkened, before finally the whole thing burst into flames in her grasp before the protestors; burning brilliantly, although briefly, before it was nothing more than ash and char in her grasp, blowing away just as quickly.

"Now hear my speech." She glared at the protestors, as well as the assembled parishioners and the media, "My brother and I did not see eye to eye, and even I came here humbly and with respect. Or at least as much respect as I can muster for anybody. Now, the funeral is over, and so is the protest, damned sure so is my patience. So the next words I hear out of any one of you will be 'I'm sorry for your loss,' or the next thing I immolate is going to have a pulse and the ability to scream. Do. I. Make. My. Self. Clear?"

While she didn't receive the apology she demanded from them, apparently the protestors had enough sense not to test the will of the super-villain literally steaming before them. They began to make their way down the sidewalk, away from the church and the Devil standing before it.

Clapping and cheers erupted from the assembled non-protestors and counter-protestors and media, but the villainess heard none of it. After shaking off the final impulse to send a fireball after the retreating Peacebringers and taking a deep, unsteady breath, Shego went to her car and left; not up to talking to her brothers or Drakken or anyone else.

Sitting in her car, Shego groaned, clawing a hand through her hair and removing the hair band, looking at its blue fabric, "Why in the hell did you ask me to do this?"

When she got back to her condo, she found her answer. Beneath the door, slipped in through the antique mail slot set into the period door, was a manila envelope. Opening up, Shego took out the contents, with a post-it note on them, "Play Me"

"Fucking moron… doesn't he know this is the twenty first century?" Shego recognized her brother's handwriting instantly, as well as the trademark blue sticky note.

Fortunately, Shego was not bereft of a VHS machine to play the antiquated video tape on. After a few minutes of setting it up and changing out of her soiled clothes and back into her catsuit, she took a deep breath and hit play.

"I bet you're wondering why I asked you to eulogize me, sis?" There sat Hego, in his own Team Go uniform, but lacking his domino mask. It was hard to say when it was made, given that none of them had aged much in the past ten years thanks to their powers; so it was entirely possible that he'd made this some time ago, hence the VHS.

"But since you helped Kim and Ron save the world," or not all that hard at all. "I knew that you could be trusted to show up and not be arrested."

Shego sighed and almost hit pause, not sure she was ready to sit through an epistle from the dead just yet.

"Now before you shut this off," damnit he knew her so well, "Let me explain. Shego, you and I never saw eye to eye on anything. But you are my sister and I love you whether you like it or not and despite our differences. Even if you are a cranky smart mouth prone to excessive violence."

Shego glared. The sun was hurting her eyes and making them water up, and obviously she had rotten tomato juice in them.

"And I know that you, and you alone, will tell the world the truth, and not some bastardized and adulterated tale about me on that day they want to put me in the ground. I fully expect my little sister to get up there and read off the riot act on me and curse up a blue streak in the house of God. And if I can't be there in person to see it, I certainly will be watching from on high."

"Leave it to the pompous prick to be so sure of which direction he's going in," She sniffed and ground her arm across her nose, listening to the video more than seeing it for a moment. "Fucking tomato juice."

"So don't think for one minute that I want you telling tales out of school or polishing up my spiritual resume. I'm sure enough people will be doing that. Just, say what you need to say and let others say theirs."

The video went black. She was surprised there was no goodbye from her idiot big brother. But then, his faith was not as tired as hers, she reasoned.

His faith in her.

He fully expected to see her upstairs sooner or later. The thought made her smile as she pulled the tape out of the player, and promptly melted it into a pile of bubbling black plastic.

AN: So this dates back to 2013 or thereabouts. I've held onto it for years, thinking I might use it in some larger fiction where Shego is working to clean up her act when this happens. But I decided tonight that I am just going to let it fly on its own. Please Review if you enjoyed it!