'He (Luke) realized that the battle in Shimrra's bunker had brought him very close to the dark side… But he had no regrets about having skirted that razor's edge, and knew in his heart that he would have walked even closer to the edge to safeguard Jacen or Jaina.' – Star Wars, the New Jedi Order: The Unifying Force

Part 2: Descent Into Dark Places

Chapter IV: Following a Trail in the Dark

Ron had just returned to his apartment when pulled out the ronnunicator and called up Wade. It had been a gift from Kim from when she had moved away for college, just a way for them to keep in touch, and briefly he considered trying to reach the kimmunicator with it. But he didn't.

He'd already tried that, after he'd woken up from the sedatives. There had been nothing but static.

So he simply called Wade.

"Wade, it's Ron."

"Oh, hey Ron," the young man said. "I've been trying to call you. Where have you been?"

"Global Justice Headquarters," Ron replied. "I've got some information I need you to look at."

"Information on what?" Wade asked, already wary.

"The Panther Group," Ron said with narrowed eyes.

"Ron, I know you think she's still alive, but you can't just-"

"Who told you I think Kim's alive?"

"No one told me, Ron," Wade said, his voice sympathetic. "You kept on muttering about it at the funeral."

'Oh great,' Ron thought. 'I was saying that stuff out loud…'

"Oh," was all he said, this time able to keep his brain and his mouth quite separate.

"Going after Panther like that will be dangerous," Wade said, stating the obvious. "If they track us down…"

"Exactly," Ron said, almost cutting Wade off. "Which is why I'm doing this one alone."

"Excuse me?" Wade said in disbelief.

"No 'buts', Wade," Ron replied. "I can't risk you in-"

"No, you are not cutting me out of-"

"-this mission. If they find out where you are-"

Their voices were rising.

"Ron, I am not just going to sit idle on this one-"

"I'm not losing anymore friends, Wade; this is something I have to do. You don-"

He didn't finish the word.

"She was my friend too! Don't you dare tell me that I don't have to do this!" Wade roared.

They fell quiet, each somewhat embarrassed by their outbursts. Wade was the first to break the silence.

"Ron," he began, "I don't know if you're right about Kim or not. If you are… then I want to help you find her. If you're not…" He trailed off, not able to finish, but not having to. They both knew what would happen if Ron was wrong.

If Kim Possible were truly dead, then Ron would take apart the Panther Group piece by piece. If it took him the rest of his days, if his final breath was to be spent in pursuit of that bloody vengeance, then he would ensure that before he died he would see to it that the people who took Kim Possible away from him were completely wiped out. He would destroy their dreams as the leaders of Panther watched, and then he would destroy them.

It was that simple.

"If you're not," he continued, "then I want a piece of that, too. This computer geek," he said, narrowing his eyes fiercely and leaning towards the camera, "is out for blood."

Ron was taken aback for a few seconds.

"Dude," he replied when his mind recovered, "you got mean when you hit puberty."

"Testosterone increase," Wade said as leaned back, noticeably relaxing. "Came with the growth spurt. What do you need?"

Ron looked around for a moment, and then remembered the disk.

"I'm sending you all the stuff GJ has on Panther," he said, inserting the disk into the ronnunicator, "Work the Wade magic, buddy."

"Got it and processing," Wade said after a moment, his fingers already working the keyboard. "What else?"

"I'll need a ride to… Alfeld or something, wherever that is," Ron said as he opened his closet. "Dr. Director said the location of the factory was in that data, so just get me to wherever it is. Oh, how's the battle suit?"

"Well, that's what I was going to call you about," Wade replied, sounding somewhat embarrassed. "It's out of commission for the next month, at least."

"Say what?" Ron asked, having started digging through the pile of used clothes that covered the floor of his closet. He'd also set the ronnunicator down on his bed, so he was now only hearing Wade, and not seeing him.

"Ron, you had a bunch of plastic explosive go off ten feet away from you, while you were holding a nuclear warhead," Wade explained. "The thing is totally shredded, and I'm practically going to have to rebuild it."

"Well, then," Ron said, as he cleared the debris from a box, and then lifted it out of the closet. "I guess we're going old school."

He placed the box on his bed and opened it, revealing his old mission suit: black shirt, gray cargo pants, sneakers, gloves, and utility belt. It also had the standard assortment of gadgets, however these were encased in slightly "manlier" facades than Kim's had been. The hair dryer was still there, but his was colored a dark blue, instead of pink. The laser was disguised as a simple ballpoint pen, not lipstick. They had tried equipping him with Kim-style gadgets once, but that had led to awkward questions at airports in five countries.

It hadn't taken long for Wade to analyze the GJ data, for as Dr. Director had said, there wasn't much there to work with. The easy part had been pinpointing the location of the factory and then arranging transportation. The hard part was the timing, and this was simply a matter of patience: a full week had passed between when they'd called in three outstanding favors to Kim (and swearing the people involved to silence) and when Ron found himself on a Delta flight into Germany, equipped with an international drivers license, an assumed name, and the ticket to pick up a car at the Hertz station in Hanover/Langenhagen International Airport.

It had taken a bit of work, but Ron had managed to convince Wade that where he was needed was right there in his room, working the Wade mojo on the computer. They younger man had grumbled and complained about being left in Middleton, but he recognized the necessity.

The flight across the Atlantic was a long one, and Ron tried to take Wade's advice and get some rest. He simply couldn't: every time he'd fall asleep, he'd start to dream, dreams that took the forms of flames and fighting shadows. It made it very hard to sleep, even on a Dreamliner.

Rufus, however, had no such problems, and spent the whole flight asleep in one of Ron's pockets.

The plane touched down and then taxied to the gate. Ron, despite being somewhat bleary-eyed, reclaimed his carry-on from the overhead bin (it was a backpack containing his mission suit, the ronnunicator, and a few gadgets), and the joined the queue of passengers. The captain was there at the hatch, shaking hands with the passengers. When Ron reached him their eyes met, and a quiet understanding passed between them.

Kim had saved this captain's plane once.

They shook hands, and Ron felt the captain press something into his palm. It was a small slip of paper, which Ron waited to open until he was off the plane and standing anonymous in the human press of the concourse.

'Go get 'em, kid,' was all it said. Ron intended to.

He stuck the paper in one of his pockets and then tapped on the outside of the one in which Rufus had taken up residence. The naked mole rat stuck out his head and stretched, busting loose with a giant yawn.

"Wake up, buddy," Ron said. "We're here."

Rufus left the pocket and scurried up to stand on Ron's shoulder.

"Well," Ron said with a laugh, "at least one of us slept well."

Getting past customs and security wound up not being a problem (yet another one of the favors called in), and the airport signs were fortunately marked in English as well as German, so getting from the concourse to the Hertz desk wasn't difficult, even if the smells of the foods from the various kiosks threatened to drag him off his course. But every flash of red hair or green eyes, be they in the airport itself or just in his mind, reminded him of why he was there. His heart kept his nose in check.

Ron still didn't allow himself to entertain the thought that Kim might actually be dead. Now, it was more a defense mechanism than anything else; just like Wade, he knew what he would do if her death turned out to be real, and simply did not want to allow his mind to go there. He'd dreamed, too, about that possiblity on the airplane.

So he kept on hoping.

His mental reverie was interrupted when he arrived at the Hertz desk, which was manned by nothing less than a giant behemoth.

"Guten tag, jungen,"(1) the giant creature spoke, its voice a deep bass that seemed to vibrate the very floor upon which he stood. He froze, realizing that the behemoth towered over and out-weighed him by a good margin.

Then he noticed other features of the behemoth, and came to realization that it was human… and female.

"Wer bist du?"(2) she asked.

"Uh…" was all he could get out. Rufus simply stared straight ahead, shell-shocked.

"Was? Ich sagte…ach, dumme Amerikaner,"(3) she said with no small amount of derision, and then switched to English. "Who are you?"

"I am… Robert… Marley," Ron said stiffly, still in shock from the sight of the person manning the desk, which caused him to struggle to remember the alias.

Rufus somehow produced a mole-rat-sized wig of dreadlocks from the ether, and popped it on his head with a cry of "Boo-yah!"

"Who are you?" Ron continued stiffly. It was likely not the best thing he could have said, but it did seem to put the… woman in a good mood, or something akin thereof.

"So you show interest," she said, with utterly incomprehensible look on her face. "I am Brunhilda von Hausenkrausen, the most petite of my sisters, and known to my friends as 'Unibrow'!"(4)

This was a very appropriate nickname for her.

'I am so very sorry I asked,' Ron thought, having regained control of his senses, which meant he still had the good sense not to say that out loud.

"You are here to pick up ein auto, kleiner Mann?"(5) she asked.

"Uh… ja, ein auto,"(6) he said slowly, remembering some of the German Wade had tried to get him to learn. He had confirmed, then, what he had discovered in Latin class of old: he did not take well to new languages. It was by shear luck that he said the right thing here, and he had no clue what 'kleiner Mann' was supposed to mean.

She entered something into a computer, and then grunted and grabbed a set of keys from the wall rack.

"Your car is in space sixty-five," she continued, her voice still a loud bass. "These are the keys."

She then leaned forward over the counter, attempting a sultry look which would have worked on anyone else's face (except for the other sisters von Hausenkrausen), but on her just looked freaky.

"You look köstlich, kleiner Mann.(7) Do you want to brush against my hand as you take your keys?" she said, actually lowering her voice another octave, trying to make it sound alluring, but the words just came out as a very low growl. It was just too much, and Ron and Rufus traded a terrified look.

"Rufus," Ron said at last, "grab the keys, and run."

Chapter V: Alfeld

Alfeld itself was a city of some 25,000 people, situated on the banks of the river Leine. It was also the origin of the legend that would later become "Snow White and the Seven Dwarves." In the Tom Clancy novel 'Red Storm Rising', a Soviet military breakthrough occurs at Alfeld, which leads to the darkest point in that fictional telling of World War III. Ron Stoppable was familiar with some of that, having been briefed by Wade on the history of the town, but none of that mattered to him.

All that mattered, in his mind, was that some five kilometers south of Alfeld, on the banks of the Leine, was a weapons factory operated by the Panther group, the only one confirmed to date, and that Alfeld was one of the few cities in the world that didn't have a Bueno Nacho franchise. The later fact didn't really bother him all that much, as the veal schnitzel turned out to be very good, though Ron and Rufus both decided that they could live without sauerkraut. It was just the principle of the thing: they were about to go into danger, in order to find Kim, without the steadying presence of nacos or chimerritos.

It just didn't seem right.

The fact that Ron could even consider such things, even if for a moment, was a sign to him that he was still sane.

Wade had arranged a room in a small hotel on the outer edges of the city. It was late evening when Ron and Rufus finally arrived at the hotel, after having made a pit stop for the aforementioned veal schnitzel. He made a quick status call to Wade, just to let him know that they arrived safely, and all parties agreed that it would be best to go ahead and turn in, and visit the factory in the morning.

Strangely, the dreams did not haunt Ron's sleep.

Neither Ron nor Rufus noticed the oriental man who had shadowed them all the way from Hanover to Alfeld. He had taken position on a roof opposite their hotel, and observed them through a high-powered telescope.

When he was certain that it was Ron Stoppable, he rolled away from the scope and pulled out a cell phone.

"Touma? It's Seiji. Bring the rest in, it looks like her information was right."

The factory itself was owned and operated by a man named Ehrelin Heinrich, who had arrived in the area five years earlier, purchased an old-and-busted factory, and somehow managed to bring it back into working order and make it profitable. No one was really sure how he did that, since no one in Alfeld seemed to know anyone who actually worked at the factory, and no one local had been employed in refurbishing the factory itself.

It was all quite suspicious, which was what had attracted the attention of Global Justice in the first place. They had determined that several shipments of arms out of Europe had come from somewhere on the river Leine, and the questionable factory outside of Alfeld had been a good place to start looking for the source. Dr. Director had considered it such a promising lead, in fact, that she had assigned Vice Director Daniel Craven, the head of the European branch of Global Justice (known as GJEUR), to run the investigation personally. It was he who had discovered that Heinrich was in fact rather high up on the Panther Group's chain of command, and that the factory was a major assembly and distribution hub for the arms trade, sending it's wares up the Leine to the river Aller, and then onto the river Wesser and the port at Bremerhaven.

None of what he had found was evidence that would stand up in a court of law, given how it had been procured in the first place, and all GJ attempts to raid the factory had ended with a loss of all hands. Dr. Director had begun to suspect that Craven had a mole in his directorate, which was why she neglected to inform him of Ron's presence in Germany. He and Kim had been her private ace in the hole for a long time, and she saw no reason to change that. Besides, Craven had already suspended any further operations against the factory until he could acquire a few tanks, and legal authorization to blast holes into the walls.

It was two o'clock in the afternoon when Ron finally pulled to a stop, hiding the car behind a small hill a short distance away from the factory. When they exited the vehicle, Rufus jumped out of one of Ron's pockets and kissed the ground, struggling to catch his breath and pantomiming a racing heart.

"Okay, that's just overdoing it," Ron said. "I wasn't going any faster than the speed limit."

"Ron," Wade said through the ronnunicator, "the signs were in kilometers per hour."

"Kilometers, miles, same difference. The point is, we're here… and it's not like I hit the truck. We missed it by a good five inches."

Rufus pretended to faint from the memory.

"Still overdoing it, buddy," Ron said, then turned back to the ronnunicator. "Wade, I think we're in position. I'm going to take a look around."

"Alright, but stay low: the mission suit won't hide you against the grass."

"Got it," Ron replied, and then proceeded to climb to the top of the hill. Not climb, really, so much as walk, since the hill was only ten feet tall, and just barely enough to hid the car from view of the factory.

He reached the top and lay down flat on his stomach, examining the grounds of the factory through a pair of field binoculars. There wasn't much there, just the main factory, the parking lot, a few auxiliary buildings, and the loading pier that led to the Leine. There didn't appear to be any guards, but he did see a couple of windows that he could use to get in.

He described all of that to Wade, who then used the ronnunicator to scan for security cameras or laser traps.

Oddly enough, there were none.

"That's good, right?" Ron asked when Wade told him the results.

"Could be," Wade replied dubiously, "or it could mean that they don't care if anyone gets in."

"Which would mean that getting in is… bad?" Ron said uncertainly.

"It was for the GJ teams. According to the reports, they got in and then didn't come back out."

Ron and Rufus both winced.

"Well, I don't think we have much choice," Ron said, getting serious. "I'm going in."

With neither guards nor cameras outside, getting to the window proved to be easy. A quick shot with the grappling hook later, and Ron was suspended in the air next to the window, peaking inside. It reminded him a lot of the warehouse from the States.

The men inside were dressed the same way as the ones at the warehouse in the States. None seemed to be armed, aside from a few men roaming the floor, who were armed with submachine guns. The workers themselves were along side a series of assembly lines, putting together everything from assault rifles to ammunition magazines to what looked like detonators for explosives. Others were storing the completed items in crates.

Above the floor, from an office that jutted out from a catwalk, which circumscribed the factory, a man in a dark-tinted lavender shirt observed the floor. He had brown hair, which was thin and messy, and wore brown gloves and small gray-tinted glasses. He had the air of someone important, and Ron guessed that this was Ehrelin Heinrich. That office was also where he needed to go: if the information he was looking for were to be found in the factory, it would be in there.

By accident, he had chosen his window well: there was a two-high and three-wide stack of boxes in front of it, which would help conceal him upon entry. He tested the window first, seeing which way it opened and if it squeaked or not, and then he opened it the whole way and crawled through, managing to land lightly behind the stack of boxes. The muffled thump of his feet hitting the floor was drowned out by the noise of the factory.

Rufus crawled out of Ron's pocket and scampered to the edge of the stack, sticking his head around one of the boxes to see if anyone was coming. He motioned the 'all clear' to Ron, who then crept over to him. Ron gave Rufus a little pat on the head, then stopped, not entirely certain of what to do next. 'Infiltrate the Panther Factory' had seemed like a sufficient plan at the time, but it was turning out to be a bit more complicated than that. He needed to get to that office, but the getting there was becoming the hard part, as there were too many people and too much open space to run through.

He began to scoot backwards towards the other end of the stack, having noticed a set of pipes there that he could send Rufus up, hopefully to either cause a distraction or find another way into the office. He stopped after a moment when he felt himself bump into something. Gulping, he turned over and found himself face to barrel with a MP5.

"Heh. Hi," he said nervously. "We were with the tour group, and my friend here got lost, so-"

"Get up, kid," the guard said brusquely. "Move. Hands above your head."

Ron slowly stood to his feet. He kept his hands well above his head, and let the guard march him out from behind the boxes. Rufus had jumped back into his pocket.

All in all, as he walked out from behind the boxes and onto the main floor of the factory, Ron felt pretty stupid. He mentally kicked himself for having been caught so easily, and the gun barrel that was being jammed into his back and neck didn't help matters. He figured that he would be marched into to the office and then shot.

'No,' he thought. 'I've not come this far just to die… not when I'm this close…'

He was in the middle of the factory when that thought crossed his mind.

'If I die here, I'll never see her again.'

That thought, the knowledge that failure would mean that he would never seen KP again, awoke something in him. Courage, coupled with something shadowy that was born aloft upon dark wings, filled his heart. He would not die here. He would not fail. He would see her again, he would find KP wherever Panther had stowed her, and no one would get in his way. If they did, then they would fall.

The guard pressed the gun into his neck again. With a cry, Ron twisted to his left, using his left hand to knock the gun away and then driving his right foot up in a spinning kick to the guard's chin. The guard spun through the air and crashed into one of the conveyors, the gun flying from his suddenly limp grasp.

All work stopped as the men turned their attention from the guns and bombs to Ron Stoppable, alone in the middle of the factory, the look on his face resembling that of a lion who was surrounded by angry zebras.

In that instant, as the workers began to come towards him, Ron realized that he really could have chosen a better place to lash out. He did the only thing he could do at point, which was to adopt a fighting stance and hope for the best.

Rufus, wisely, stayed hidden in Ron's pocket.

As the workers drew a circle around him, one of them called Ron out.

"Well, well, well," a rather burly looking fellow said derisively. "If it isn't Stoppable, the sidekick."

"Do I know you?" Ron asked, turning to look at the challenger. The man's voice sounded familiar.

"Figured you wouldn't remember since the change in uniform. I used to be one of Drakken's henchmen, kid. A lot of us here were: Panther hired us right up after you put the Doc and Shego in the slammer. I'd run afoul of Possible's fist a few times, but I remember you usually wound up huddled in a corner somewhere, practically sucking your thumb."

Some of the other workers guffawed, but Ron did nothing more than glare.

"Speaking of Possible, how's she doing these days? Oh that's right, she's dead," the henchman said with a laugh. "You should have seen it here, Stoppable, when the news came: a brief moment of silence, just to remember the old times… and then out came the champagne. Still, it was a pity: she really was hot stuff, 'specially once she grew up, and me and some of the boys figured that if we ever managed to capture her, we'd-"

At that Ron's control broke and he lashed out, but not at the henchman who had been speaking. He struck at the man who had been sneaking up behind him, whose approach the henchman's monologue had been cover for. His first blow was a kick to the stomach, which stopped the worker in his tracks and doubled him over. The second blow was an upward kick to the worker's right hand, which knocked the lead pipe he'd been carrying out of his hand and sent it arcing up into the air. Ron caught the pipe and then delivered a third blow by slamming it into the side of the worker's head. The worker went down and deflated as green slime oozed from the tear in his head.

A synthodrone.

"B-b-b-b-but," the henchman stammered, "You're not supposed to brain us; the good guys don't fight like that. It's those rules that Dr. D. used to go on about."

"First off… don't you ever talk about KP that way again," Ron said quietly, looking over his shoulder. "Secondly, I don't distract as easily as I used to. And thirdly…"

He turned to face the henchman, and there was no mistaking the intent in his eyes.

"Thirdly," he said, in a voice so quiet it was almost a whisper, "after what Panther did to Kim… this time, there are no rules."

The workers wasted no time, and rushed him at once. Ron twirled the pipe in front of him like a short staff, alternately fending off blows and striking his own. He dodged one kick that was aimed to sweep his legs, and then leapt on the attacker, kicking him twice in the head and then vaulting off of his face to aim a flying kick at the former henchman. That blow knocked the henchman out cold and sent him flying into three other workers, tumbling all of them into a giant heap.

Several others who attacked fell away with broken fingers and fractured legs, their punches and kicks having been blocked by the pipe. Ron tripped a worker over, and then used the pipe to parry a blow from another worker, who was wielding a wrench. He delivered a back flip-kick to the worker, knocking the wrench away into the air. Another leap drew him even with the airborne wrench, when he then whacked with the pipe, sending it flying to one of the armed guards, knocking him out cold.

He landed, took a blow to the head, and immediately riposted with the pipe, shattering the bones in the worker's wrist. A series of kicks and blows from the pipe took out several more, but there seemed to be even more workers flooding into the factory. The commotion had drawn the attention of those who worked on the pier and in the outbuildings.

He fought on, and added a wrench to his left hand, and wielded them both as whirling bludgeons. He held his own, but still he began to tire.

Ehrelin Heinrich had watched the scene below with some amusement. He'd noticed Stoppable enter through the window and had in fact been the one who'd sent over the guard that Ron had bumped into. He'd decided to just sit back and watch the unfolding melee: after the forewarning they'd had of the prior Global Justice raids, having something completely unexpected happen looked like a good way to break the monotony of the assembly line. He'd heard of Ron Stoppable, of course, from the enforcers who'd used to work for Dr. Drakken, but he was glad that the boy had improved.

It made the fight considerably more interesting to watch.

But still, time was money, even in the world of arms smuggling, and Heinrich didn't have all day to watch Stoppable and his workers beat the daylights out of each other. So he got up out of his chair and went to the rack on the wall where he kept his H&K MSG90A1 rifle. The last thing he'd shot with it had been that one Global Justice agent, but he hadn't made a very difficult target.

Ehrelin removed the lens cap from the scope and activated the laser sight.

They had reached a standoff. Up against a wall, with nowhere to run, was Ron Stoppable, pipe and wrench held at ready. In front of him were the twenty workers who could still move. The rest were unconscious or had enough broken bones that they were rendered immobile.

"You want a piece of this, huh?" Ron said, taunting them. "You want a piece of this?"

Then the workers began to snicker and point. Ron looked at them in confusion, and then looked up. He saw Heinrich, perched outside his office, aiming a rifle that had a flickering red thingy attached to the barrel.

Ron looked down, and saw that there was a red dot shining on his chest. He felt an icy hand grab his insides.

His head snapped back up at the sound of the shot. He saw the smoke, and a little bit of the muzzle flash, and he was, in his adrenaline-rushed state, almost able to see the bullet itself as it sped towards him.

Then a shadow passed in front of him, and there was no longer any bullet, just dissipating smoke and the sound of a light landing and skidding feet.

All eyes turned to the sound. A ninja stood there, dressed in black, clearly female, lithe and sinuous. She was bent slightly at the knees and waist, her left hand held close to the ground to aid in her balance, her right clenched in a fist and held up and behind her.

The ninja winked at Ron… and then there was a second ninja, behind Ehrelin, and another at one of the windows, and a fourth and fifth on the catwalk, and a sixth in the rafters. The second ninja felled Ehrelin with a blow to the neck. The girl then stood up straight, her right hand extended out in front of her, still clenched in a fist. She opened her fist, and let the bullet that had been aimed at Ron drop to the ground.

When it hit the floor, the ninja struck. They moved like lightening, and the battle was over almost before it had begun.

In the end, Ron Stoppable and the ninja stood facing each other amongst a field of broken foes.

"Rufus," Ron said to the mole rat, which had finally come out of his pocket and was standing on Ron's shoulder. "I think we've finally come among friends."

"You are correct," the girl ninja said, removing her mask. "Stoppable-san."

"It's been a long time… Yori," Ron said with a grin.

Yori introduced the five ninja as recent graduates of the Yamanouchi School, where she now served as an instructor. Their names were Sanada Ryo, Date Seiji, Hashiba Touma, Mouri Shin, and Shuu Rei Fuan(8). As they made their way to the office, Yori told him how, after the news of Kim Possible had reached Japan, she believed that he would seek to confront Panther, and had obtained permission from Sensei to take a group of recent graduates and attempt to aid him.

"But how did you find me in the first place?" he asked as the elevator took them to the catwalk. "Wade and I didn't tell anyone where we were going."

"I accosted Dr. Director outside her home," Yori said, sounding embarrassed, "and managed to convince her that I was a friend and wished to help you."

"And she believed you?"

"It helped that several graduates of the Yamanouchi School now work for Global Justice," Yori replied. "It was not hard to convince her that I was serious, and she revealed that you would likely travel to Alfeld. Seiji followed you in from Hanover, and summoned the rest of us last night."

"He did?"

"Yes," Seiji replied with a laugh. "You need to work on your stealth technique, Stoppable-san."

"Right…" was all Ron could say in reply before the elevator stopped and he, Yori, Seiji, and Touma stepped out. Ryo had already arrived at the office, and had apparently tied Ehrelin to a chair, while Shuu and Shin were outside, making sure no one would interrupt. At their approach, Ryo stepped out of the office and greeted them with a bow.

"I have searched the upper level, Yori-sensei," he said respectfully. "All record keeping seems to take place on the computer in the office, but it is currently locked and password protected."

Ron and Yori followed Ryo into the office, while Seiji stood guard outside the door, and Touma patrolled the catwalk. They saw that the office itself was very spare; there was little more there than the computer, a desk, the chair in which the unconscious Ehrelin was bound, the storage mount for the rifle and several extra clips, a few more weapons, and a telephone. There was also a girlie calendar on the wall, but no one paid any attention to it.

"Wake him up," Yori said to Ryo, pointing at Heinrich. Ryo pulled out some smelling salts and held them under his nose; after a moment, the man awoke with a start.

"Was… was die Hölle?"(9) he said groggily, then caught sight of Ron and Yori. His focus returned at the sight of the later, and he shot her a leering grin.

"Ah… eine Japadirne,"(10) he said, and then turned his eyes to Ron. "Or is she yours, Herr Stoppable, and not just one in general?"

Yori did not rage or yell at the insult, instead she calmly walked over to Heinrich and slapped him hard enough that he fell over, taking the chair with him and landing on it's back. He was laughing.

Ron walked over and put a hand on Yori's shoulder, and then guided her away from Heinrich. He turned and faced the laughing man on the floor, just watched him for a moment, and then put his foot on the horizontal support of the front chair legs, and pressed down. The chair pivoted upright.

"You're Heinrich, right?" Ron asked.

"Ja, what is it to you? Clearly not about the Possible Mädchen(11), as you seem to have moved-" he stopped his taunt when Ron suddenly got in his face.

"Computer. Password. Tell. Now."

"Gehen Sie zur Hölle,"(12) Heinrich replied with a smirk.

Ron stood back and glared at Heinrich. As he tried to figure out what to do, he glanced around the office, and spied a large knife lying amongst the weapons that Ryo had found. It had a sharp edge, partially serrated. He saw it, and felt a thought began to take form in his head.

It wasn't a large thought, but the concept was very clear. He needed Heinrich to talk; the information on the computer might lead him to KP. He saw the knife, and the thought whispered to him in dark tones how he could make Heinrich talk. It was the shade with dark wings that had, during the fight on the factory floor, risen up from the part of his heart where he had always feared to go.

It whispered to him, tempted him and showed him the easy scenario… and he turned away from it, pulling out the ronnunicator instead of going for the knife.

"Wade," he said to his friend. "We're in."

"Great work, Ron," Wade replied. "Now we just need to- is that Yori?"

"Huh? Oh yeah," Ron said, blushing slightly. "She brought the badical ninja help."

"Ninja help? How did they find you? My security precautions were tight!"

Yori and Ryo held back laughs.

"Wade, that's not important. Look," Ron said, pointing the ronnunicator's camera at the computer. "Bad guy computer. Can you hack?"

"I can try," Wade said, sending the command to deploy the ronnunicator's access cable. "Just find a USB port and plug me in."

There was one on the front of the case, so Ron plugged the cable in there and set the ronnunicator down on the desk. Heinrich continued to laugh at them.

"Please, you think your friend can get into that system? Global Justice cannot even hack our systems!"

"Well, you've never faced a hack by Wade," Ron said confidently, but only slightly. The dark whisper was still there.

"Ron, he might be right," Wade said after a moment, actually sounding impressed. "They've got some good security on this thing, but there is one more thing I can try."

Ron watch anxiously as Wade's fingers flew over his keyboards again. If this failed, if Wade couldn't hack the system… then he would have to get at the password somehow, and the dark whisper was becoming very insistent, and the knife was close.

Then the younger man cried out in triumph.

"Got it! You'll have to enter the password yourself, but I've got it for you."

Ron leaned over the keyboard. The whisper was gone.

"Tell me."

"The password is 'Unibrow'."

Ron suddenly paused, his prior excitement now replaced by a very awkward memory.

"Wait… Unibrow?" he asked, not Wade, but Heinrich.

The man shrugged, as well as he could with his arms tied down, and decided there was no need to lie.

"The nickname of my girlfriend in Hanover. She works for the Hertz office at the airport. A bit aggressive," he added with a wolfish expression, "in so many ways, but I like my women aggress-"

"Dude! That's just… no! Sick and wrong! Sick and wrong!" Ron cried, waving his hands as if to ward off a bad vision. Heinrich laughed at his discomfort, while Yori made a mental note to ask about it later.

"Brunhilda! Bleah!" Rufus said, sticking out his tongue.

Ron, still shaking his head, entered the password into the computer.

"Okay Wade, we're up."

"Great. Downloading the information now. Anything in particular you want me to look for?"

"Any mention of Kim or what happened back home would be a good start."

Heinrich turned his head and looked at Ron, slowly coming to a full understanding of the younger man's purpose. It amused him greatly.

"So… that is why you are here," he said with a laugh. "You still think she is alive, that you can find her! I am astonished."

He continued to laugh, as Ron turned and stared at him.

"I have just one piece of advice for your, Herr Stoppable," Heinrich said through his laughter. "Turn back, boy. Turn back now, while you still have time. You are descending into the darkest places of this world, trying to find what? Light? Hope? No matter what you find, Herr Stoppable, not matter where you go or who you fight, Kim Possible is forever gone from you. Her fate was sealed the moment she fought Concolor-"

He stopped, realizing he had said too much. Even Ron noticed the slip.

"Wade, did you get that?"

"Yup. Now adding 'Concolor' to the search strings."

"Who's Concolor, Heinrich? That's the guy she fought, right? Who is he?"

He seemed as if he would refuse to answer, but then decided it didn't matter.

"Concolor is the head of Panther. Du kanst nicht annulieren, was getan worden ist,"(13) he said in German, and then fell silent, and refused to speak any more.

"Wade, you have everything from the computer?"

"I've got it all. It'll take a while to process, though."

"Right," Ron said, trading a look with Yori. "We're going to head out now. Wait, oh, a half-hour or so, and then tell Global Justice that the factory is all theirs. Send 'em a copy of the data, too."

Chapter VI: Leaven

The call was somewhat unexpected, if only due to the time of day. Dr. Director would often call the European Headquarters to check on how things were going, but the calls would come like clockwork, at the same time each day. Thusly, when one came through five hours ahead of schedule, it caught everyone by surprise, though fortunately it didn't catch anyone in the bathroom.

Vice Director Daniel Craven, head of the European branch of Global Justice, picked up the phone.

"Betty!" he said cheerfully. "Didn't expect to hear from you so soon. What's up?"

Quickly she told him about Alfeld. The irony of her having to tell him about goings on in his theatre of operations was lost on neither of them.

"So you sent someone in behind our backs," he replied, sounding miffed. "Was that really necessary?"

"After having lost fifteen men and three of our best infiltration specialists, yes, I'd say it was necessary. You have a mole, Danny."

"Oh really?"

"Think about it. Why did this one work?"

"Maybe you're right… what did they find out?"

"They sent us a full copy of the database from the factory computer. So far we've found several references to the Legacy Collection, as well as something called the Phoenix Project. Also, we've got shipping information for several loads of arms and technology."

"I see. What do you want us to do?"

"Go to the factory, and collect Ehrelin Heinrich and the computer. Also, there are two ships preparing to leave Bremerhaven; according to the data they leave in two days. I want them stopped."

"If I have a mole…"

"Compartmentalize."

"So concise, Betty. That's not like you. All right, I'll deploy two teams to Bremerhaven, and we'll see what's on those ships. I know just who to send to Alfeld, too."

"Good work, Danny. Sorry I went around you, but I didn't want to take any chances on this one."

"Eh, no harm done, boss. I suppose it turned out all right in the end."

The raid on Bremerhaven was a success, with both ships seized, and several hundred tons of illicit arms impounded. Several records were found, though the crews of the ships had managed to burn most of the ones that related to Panther operations. Dr. Director made sure that copies of those records quietly made their way to Wade.

Alfeld was another story. Two vehicles had been sent, one to collect the Panther minions and the computer, and deliver them to an impromptu sorting facility in Alfeld proper, and another to collect Ehrelin Heinrich, and transport him to the Global Justice HQ in Hameln.

The second vehicle contained a driver and navigator up front in the cab, and two guards in the back with Ehrelin. Only the driver could open the back door and let Ehrelin out, and every precaution had been taken to prevent an escape.

The guards were surprised when they felt the vehicle slow down and pull off the road. They didn't hear the muffled thump of a silenced .45 firing, and figured that the driver just wanted to check a tire or something.

They heard him exit the cab and walk to the back of the truck, and watched as he opened the sliding door.

Of everything that had happened since they'd arrived in Germany, the sight of their driver holding a silenced firearm surprised them the most.

He fired two shots into each of them, and then motioned for Ehrelin to come out. He complied, and the driver removed his restraints.

"Handler says for you to convey his apologies for Bremerhaven. It cannot be helped."

He then handed Ehrelin his gun. The Panther man did not act in the way the double agent had expected.

"Ja, ich verstehe,"(14) Ehrelin replied, and then fired twice. The second shot was redundant, but he had found the sound of a silenced round to be very unsatisfying.

It would be two days before the bodies were found. By then, Handler's apologies had already been conveyed.

END PART 2

Notes:

(1) "Good day, boy." All translations into German were generated using Altavista's Babelfish, and a dose of half-remembered classes from high school.

(2) "Who are you?"

(3) "What? I said… ach, dumb American…"

(4) Brunhilda is the creation of a friend of mine from college. She is 6'5", weighs 330 lbs, and is the most petite of her sisters. She was used as an example of why this person is against arranged marriages.

(5) "You are here to pick up a car, little man?"

(6) "Uh… yes, a car."

(7) "You look delicious, little man." I doubt she was discussing flavor…

(8) I have named the five ninjas from the Yamanouchi School after the five main characters from the anime "Yoroiden Samurai Troopers", which was broadcast here in the states as "Ronin Warriors". Just a little tribute to one of my favorite shows.

(9) "What? What the hell?"

(10) I'll admit, I made this word up. It is a combination and contraction of the words japanisch, meaning Japanese, and Dirne, meaning, well, whore. You can understand, then, why Yori hits him.

(11) Girl.

(12) "Go to hell."

(13) "You cannot undo what has been done."

(14) "Yes, I understand."