All characters and places in this story belong to the Disney Corporation, just like Lucasfilm,

ESPN, Pixar, Marvel, Jim Henson Productions and ABC do.

The original creators were Mark McCorkle and Robert Schooley.

I receive nothing for the writing of this story.

If anyone knows Zaratan or can get in touch with him, please let him know that I am doing

this. If he give me permission, great. If he doesn't and wants to finish it himself, great. Either way it's a win.

Once again I'd like to thank Cajunbear73 for beta reading this chapter while Temporaryinsanity91 takes some time off to deal with some family heath problems.

I would like to apologize for the shortness of this chapter and I hope to make it up next week, but I wanted to keep the story going for those that are reading it as it comes out.

Katara: This is just going to be a bunch of guys throwing rocks at each other, isn't it?

Sokka: That's what I paid for.

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Previously

Taking a deep breath and silently praying to God for forgiveness, since he would probably be the only one that could forgive her for what she was going to do, she asked, "Just how many men did Michelle sleep with before she found one that would marry her?"

Ron head jerked up and he turned to look back at her over his shoulder.

"I guess she inherited more than just some of her looks from her mother. Although I hadn't realized the being a slut was an inheritable trait."

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"Anger is always the shortest distance to a mistake."

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IIn her head, Kim had seen this playing out in a totally different way. She'd thought that their kids' idea of all of them getting together after the parties and having them all sit down with the kids taking their parents roles, having them argue it out while Kim and Ron just sat there, only speaking if they had something to add or clarify.

That might have worked for Ron and her, but what would that have put Michael and Michelle through? They might well have inherited the 'sins of their parents,' causing trouble in their relationship with each other. That wasn't acceptable to Kim and she doubted it would have been for Ron, too.

This was the only thing she could think of to help him work through the anger from the pain she'd put him through back then. If he needed a couple of shots at her to work through this and get on with his life, then that's what she was willing to do if it meant it would help her best friend.

"Former best friend.", Monique's correction from their lunch earlier that day came back to haunt her. 'Monique.' , Kim said to herself as she hadn't known about her friend's part in what happened on his porch after she ran off crying that day and what she'd done the days that followed. She knew that as soon as Monique told her about Bonnie being pregnant, Kim had ordered her out of her room, never giving her a chance to say anything else. Could she have started the rumors thinking she was supporting her friend?

Rumors that only added salt to the wounds Kim had inflicted? No wonder Ron had overreacted when they talked that first night at the party, and that second slap to the face only reinforced his feelings of being betrayed. She would have to have a long talk with Monique after this was over.

If she was able to, that is.

Kim knew that she ran the risk of being hurt by her decision to try and handle things her own way tonight, but not this way, or this much, and not her. His anger was much greater than she thought, much deeper, and Kim bringing Michelle into the mess only provided the last straw. The straw that broke Ron was more than he could handle: The idea of his daughter betraying him…too.

Ron's eyes burned with the fire of his emotions just for a second after she'd accused Michelle of being a slut. Just long enough for her to see them before he closed them again and stood there in silence. No matter what else came from this, the emotionally broken man that had been walking away from Kim, his daughter, his family, was now gone, and was replaced by...by an unknown.

His demeanor went neutral as his chin slumped to his chest for only a few seconds. When his head rose again to face her, there was an unreadable expression there, almost devoid of any emotion. This was not what she'd been expecting him to do. She'd expected him to run at her like a very angry nine year old on a sugar rush and curse her, maybe even taking a few swings at her, but not this...this calmness.

He turned around and started walking back towards the mat, stiffly removing his outer jacket as he walked, leaving his upper torso clad in a short sleeved shirt, and for the first time since their reunion, she got a better idea of his upper body strength. She was starting to have second thoughts about her plan. The jacket was off by the time he reached the mat's edge, and lying on the floor as he removed his shoes. His gaze never leaving Kim.

"Don't use your mystical monkey powers." she said. "That would be…"

"Cheating.", he finished her statement. With his both shoes off, he stepped onto the mat. She looked into his eyes and wondered who he was because this man had the look of a person that could do anything and have no remorse about what he'd done. She'd once seen that look before in the eyes of a killer hired to assassinate a nine year old girl as a warning to her father about testifying. He had two other daughters.

"Defend yourself.", he flatly said as a teacher might say to slow student.

"What?", she asked, trying to break him out of that flat calm.

"You tried attacking and failed. Now try defending yourself."

She readied herself and wondered if she'd been wrong about this being the same Ron that she loved...use to love so long ago.

He moved quicker than any person she'd ever seen without some sort of assistance. Faster than one of Drakken's Bebes and much faster than when he wore her first battle suit. He attacked with a flurry of chops, slashes and thrusts. She blocked, dodged or deflected each one and felt as if she was moving in slow motion.

She also found that she had better not try to directly block any more of his hits. That area of her forearm felt like he'd hit her with a brick and it was all she could do not to rub it to ease the pain.

After his initial attack, he backed off and returned to his starting point on the mat, giving her a chance to breathe. It had just been an opening round to test and see what his opponent was capable of. If so, she started to think that she might be in trouble. She thought to try a little banter like she use to use against Shego, either to get an emotional reaction out of him or just to reassure her that she was alright.. She wasn't sure which.

"You've gotten better since the last time we fought."

He stared at her and without blinking or showing any emotions, answered, "You haven't."

After a few more seconds of silence, "Defend yourself."

This time he was almost a blur of motion, and the next thing Kim knew, the heel of Ron's hand was pressed against the underside of her nose; she was a few pounds of pressure away from bone shards in her brain. She froze, not quite daring to breathe.

Releasing, he growled at her as he moved back, returning once again to the same spot on the mat he started from.

His face finally started to show some emotions. She just didn't understand what she thought she saw. Anger? Hate? Frustration?

"Defend yourself!", he growled at her.

Moving even quicker than before, he came at her, still delivering a series of quick attacks that she barely managed to avoid as she tried to counterattack, something which Ron blocked and dodged with apparent ease till he saw an opening. The flat hand punch he hit Kim in the sternum with sent her back several feet as fast as a bullet. Just as he hit her, she had the most peculiar event of her life happen: she had an out of body experience.

Just as his hit landed, she found herself looking down at them from above; time had stopped. She saw his arm's extension or how much force he'd put into the punch. His arm wasn't fully extended. If it had been the best she could have hoped for would have been several ribs broken where they were attached to the sternum, which could have punctured a lung the next time she moved.

The worst that could have happened would have been the sternum giving way enough to bend in and rupturing the pericardium, or the sack around her heart. She would have bled out in less than a minute if that had happened.

Then suddenly she was back in her own body watching Ron again return to his starting point. His frustration clearly showing on his face now as his hands started showing signs of tremors.

Holding a hand to her sternum, "What in the hell did you just do?" she demanded as she broke out of her fighting stance.

"Defend yourself!" he almost growled the command at her even louder than before.

"Not until you.."

"You have four seconds to prepare yourself before I attack." he snapped back.

Trying to change tactics, she said, "I didn't really mean what I said about..."

He started coming. His movements almost a blur, but this time she had a plan. She'd planned to let his speed work against him by throwing high kick to his head and allowing him to move into it or back out of its range. She would then do a flip and go into a single handstand to deliver a second attack at his stomach to take some of the wind out of his sails and get them back on equal ground.

As he approached, she started into her first kick, but instead of connecting with Ron's head or him stopping short, he started to duck beneath it. She adjusted to aim her second kick at his head but in the time it took her to switch to a one-handed handstand, he'd ducked below where she could aim it. At the same time she saw he was going to do a leg sweep to take out her single arm that now had her full weight on it. If he connected it would break her arm, so she pushed off the floor, knowing that for a few seconds she would be suspended in midair. There was no choice in the matter.

As soon as her body was parallel to the floor, she had another out of body experience as time seemed to stop. She was standing to the side and she could see herself floating, but as she looked to be held in that position, Ron came out of nowhere and was on the other side of her. He put his knee under her spine somewhere about the T-9 to T-12 vertebrae. His arms raised and came down on either side of his knee, but once again they had no real force behind them. If he'd used much force, with gravity bring her down as well as his strikes, it would have severed her spinal column at that point, leaving her to become a paraplegic. Dead from the waist down.

She wanted to scream out to him but she was back in her body before that could happen. As she felt herself coming down against his knee, he moved it and was gone. She hit the floor, doing a kip-up to regain her feet again, and there was Ron, standing right where he started just like before. This time though, she could see his whole body shaking with emotions as he let out a small cry of frustration.

He was fighting two fights. The one with her, which he was winning, and the one with himself. That battle was still undecided.

He just stood there, in a fighting stance shaking, looking like he'd forgotten what he was doing or that she was even there.

When she gently called his name, he looked up at her, his eyes full of unshed tears, and when he finally focused on her she saw one escape and run down his cheek. "The man you knew as Ron is dead. A big part of him died when you dumped him…It just took a while for death to catch up, because now he's lost the only thing left that kept him going. The only thing he had left."

"Ron, I'm sorry..."

"Sorry doesn't change anything! Sorry doesn't take away all the nights I spent thinking that I screwed up by not being good enough for you and could never be good enough for you! Sorry doesn't change what you did to me then and it sure as hell doesn't change what you said about my daughter now!"

Then Ron snapped, "Defend yourself!" This time it came out as a shout of rage and instead of waiting for her to prepare herself, he started moving towards her. This time however, he moved at a normal pace. When he came in range, they started exchanging their attempted strikes and this time was much more even than before. Blocks, dodges, parries and counters went by at a dizzying speed. It even looked like Kim might be winning, until he landed a two-fingered strike to her right leg, which went as stiff and rigid as an icicle. It wasn't a physical pressure point that Ron had struck. It was an acupuncture point.

Stunned, Kim made a limping retreat, trying to defend herself and regain control of the limb, but Ron pressed his attack and he paralyzed a blocking arm as well.

As she fell to the mat, she screamed out, "I give up! You win Ron! You win!" But, he was way beyond hearing her, let alone stopping at this point. He turned her enough to strike a spot above the base of her throat with one finger, and her entire body went rigid.

She knew that spot. It was an area above her tenth cranial nerve or the vagus nerve. An area martial artist avoided unless they meant to kill because when the vagus nerve is triggered with enough force, the victim will go into convulsions and then cardiac arrest. There was no undoing it once it was hit.

She couldn't move. She couldn't speak. She could barely blink. All she could do was stare up at Ron as she waited for the convulsions to start.

Ron reached down, picked her up and carried her over to the sofa at the other end of the room and sat her down on it. She felt even more helpless than before since all she could do was look at him as he started falling to pieces.

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To Be Continued... yeah.. Really.

A part of the fight scene (The conclusion of it.) was borrowed, with permission, from the story "Bleeding Through," written by Mattk, also know as Seraph4377 over at Deviant Art.

It wasn't that I was to lazy to write it, it was because it so perfectly described what I was wanting for that ending to the fight.

As always, if you have a question about something or you find an error, drop me a note or put it in a comment.