Chapter 13: It Was Going So Well
Kim and Ron arrived in the VTOL, taking their individual seats across from one another. The pilot was preparing the bird to take off.
"Hope you don't get airsick." Kim said.
"You wish." Was Ron's response. Even if those two were friendly, that would change in a heartbeat. That wouldn't be just a prediction, but a fact. The aircraft had taken of and began to move forward. In the air, both of them saw how people at ground level were reduced to ants.
It was then someone came on screen. "Good afternoon, Agent Possible." She said. "I trust everything's fine on your end?" She asked. It was the Director of Global Justice herself.
Ron remembered, he shared a dance with her, under the guise of "Dean". 'She won't recognize me. Hopefully.'
"Yes ma'am, we are ready to go through with the mission."
"Drakken and Shego have set up their base of operations here." The screen transitioned to a map, a red dot pinged and marked the location. It then zoomed in to a lair. "So far, surveillance show moderate security. Vehicles have been seen going in and out, moving materials, possibly for their doomsday device."
Ron raised his hand. "Umm… Miss, I have a question. What exactly are we up against?" He says. 'Of course I know who I'm after, but it's best to play the rookie, for now.' Kim then answered his question.
"Just regular bad guys, with power staves. Something we handled before. Listen, you don't have to fight Shego, you can leave her to me." The redhead states.
"I mean what can I expect, from her at least?"
"Well there's her sarcasm, her plasma hands… that's as much as I can say right now." She leaned back with her arms folded.
"It seems that you have another partner on your hands, Miss Possible. Care to explain?"
"Oh! Uhh… this is a friend of mine, he goes to my school… he's capable of whatever you can throw at him." Kim answers. She was reprimanded a couple of times for having someone other than a GJ agent assist her in this endeavor. Even so, as long as the mission is a success… she'll have less of an earful.
"Fine… the objective is to destroy the device, along with the lair. Ensure Drakken and Shego's capture as well, if at all possible. You will be arriving in the drop zone in about ten minutes. Get what you need and good luck." The transmission ended.
Ron got up from his seat and walked away from Kim. "Where are you going?" She asked.
"To get what I need, I'll be back." He responded. His right hand touching his left shoulder as it rotates. 'Can't go in with a sword, mainly because I don't have one on me. Shuriken and custom made smoke bombs are out of the picture, guess I'll have to make due with what's here.' He thought.
Rummaging through the equipment laid out for him. He found some things useful. A pair of escrima sticks, smoke grenades created by GJ of course, and a copy of Kim's rappel. He placed on one of the Global Justice uniforms, bearing forearm and shin protectors. To top it all off, there's a mask, able to conceal his identity. Placing it on, he grips the escrima, his eyes remembering distant days.
FLASHBACK
Mom and Dad were gone… there wasn't anything he could do to change that. He didn't even get the chance to say goodbye, he was just taken from his home and into this school whose beauty escaped the boys eyes.
His eyes were cast down onto his knees, the man ensured that he was settled in, even so… this wasn't his home. It certainly didn't feel like it. It can be the most brightest day anyone can experience, a gentle breeze, the breath of crisp air… and it would be nothing but a feeling of gloom in its place. He could see two people fighting, about his age, but they weren't fighting out of anger, rather they were…practicing. Bowing their heads, they began, leaving Ron to look at them.
Finishing up, they bowed their heads. The blonde boy caught their eye, his casting upward at them. "Why were you two fighting?" Ron mumbles.
The boy looked at him. "We're not fighting, we're training, to become Ninja's!" He exclaimed with pride.
Ron remembered seeing some ninja movies, some were based on revenge on a clan, finding a new purpose, empowerment, depending on the context. They can even do cool flips and moves. Considering he has nowhere else to go or do, it appealed to him.
"We have a school here that can teach us how." The girl said.
"Yeah, have you thought about being one?!" The boy asked.
Ron shook his head. "No… but I'd like to."
The girl gave him a smile. Reaching out her hand to him. "I'm Yori." She introduced herself.
The boy was next. "I'm Hirotaka."
Ron reluctantly took Yori's hand. "My name is Ron."
FLASHBACK ENDS
'It wasn't easy opening up to you guys, but somehow it worked.' He looked at his grip on the escrima stick in his right hand. A bit loose, he tightened it for a second, then sheathed it.
"Hey, you okay?" The redhead asked. She sees the zoned out look in his eyes, as if he's reminiscing about something that happened in the past. It's still not enough evidence to conclude if he was a vigilante or not. For all she knows, Ron could be nervous or remembering his training in self-defense.
"Yeah, I'm ok. Hey, are we going in loud or do we take them by surprise?" He asked.
"Well… they pretty much expect me, so we won't have the element of surprise for long."
'How long have you been doing this?' Ron thought.
Kim stood up. "Ready?" A hatch was opening and violent winds blew upon them, it was time to jump. Walking close to her, a cold, shaking feeling in his hands, he sighed. "Yeah, lets go." Placing on a mask to conceal his identity shortly after.
A hatch opened, causing Kim to run off and jump, Ron followed shortly after. Parachuting to the ground, Kim landed first landing on the ground. She sees a guard above her, about to pull the alarm before someone fell on top of the henchman and punched him unconscious.
Ron climbed down from the vantage point to meet up with Kim. "Kind of a bad drop point, huh?" He joked.
"Don't remind me." She took her helmet off and whipped her hair. "Guess we should just waltz right in, without any problems." She ran forward.
"Shouldn't it be safe to say 'without any problems yet'?" Ron remarked. As he followed suit shortly.
"One, I'm not trying to jinx it, like you just did. Two, I want to focus on the more important thing, like a doomsday device probably blowing us all up." Kim said. 'Thirdly, I want to see whether or not you're the vigilante.' She said the last part in her thoughts.
Following Kim, the blonde boy hears Felix's voice from an earpiece. "Hench is outside the lair, away from the blast zone, the outpost on your left." Instinctively the blonde boy looked left, snarling under his breath, he could feel his nostrils flare for a brief moment. His mind focused on the task at hand, helping Kim out on her little 'mission'.
Appearing on the side of the base, the redhead took out her rappel and aimed it at a good vantage point. "Right here's good." She says as the rappel shot upward. In a sense, Ron grabbed onto her as they shot up to the air and into the lair.
"Ok, lotta guards… how are we going about this again?" Ron asked.
"Ok uhh… I'll take on Shego and you take on the guards… sound fair?" Kim asked.
"Uhh… no. There's more of them, take out some guards along with the green chick and I'll consider it fair." Ron walked in front of her and whipped out his two batons.
'Ok, the best thing to do before Kim brazenly announces our arrival is to…'
"Kim Possible!" The blue guy announced. Ron must've tuned out her 'heroic' line that was probably… well for a better description he'd say… meh.
"Seriously?! Right when we just broke in?!" Ron exclaimed. Yet his tone wasn't meant to scold, but rather worry.
"Just trust me." She whispers to the blonde.
"Nyaah, how did you get pasts the guards?!" Drakken exclaims again.
"There was barely enough people to call it security, only guy we ran into was in an outpost." Ron said. He pointed his thumb outside the lair.
"Heh, even the new guy is taking notice." There was a green lady whose voice dropped with sarcasm. Indifferent to her surroundings, her attention towards sharpening her nails.
"Umm… who are you anyway?" Drakken sheepishly asked.
"Don't worry about it," He twirled his escrima sticks in each hand. "Besides, I wanna have a little fun."
"Wow Kimmie, you picked this guy? Mask, obviously in a dangerous place, guys surrounding him. Didn't know he's got a hard-on for masochism." She sneered. That grin on her face got to Ron, his eyebrow twitched a bit.
"Get this straight green bean, I don't play that! If anything, you're the one asking for it!" Ron said. He gritted his teeth.
Kim stifled a laugh. 'Green bean, that's a good one'.
"Whatever you say, but don't worry, after dealing with princess, I'll save some for you."
She leapt into the air and in front of Kim. Both females taking a fighting stance, while some guards came up to block Ron from the device and Drakken.
With a deep breath, Ron took two steps back. He smacked his batons together and exhaled. The first guard tried to close the distance, but Ron struck him by using his right hand to strike the guards right knee, then his left side to his left rib. He struck the guard with an uppercut to his jaw with his right hand and struck at the enemy's throat with his left. Leaving the guard to clutch at his throat and feel his left calf being kicked where he lost his balance, falling to the ground.
The second guard came in front of the first one, he started leading with a left hook, then a right jab followed with a left uppercut. Ron ducked the first one, then swayed back for the second. The uppercut was countered by attacking the elbow, then the shoulder, after that, the boy locked the joint and bent it to a point where the arm was broken, he then hoisted the henchmen up and threw him at his pursuers.
Kim and Shego strikes were countered by their respective opponents. Each fist strike countered and parried with their forearms. Kim jumped and spun herself to perform a back kick, but she missed completely because Shego tried to counter with a sweep kick. The villainess pushed Kim back and fired a plasma blast. Kim sidestepped from the attack, but her eyes widened upon the realization to where it would hit… or rather whom.
'She's aiming for Ron.' She look back at a quick glance and sees that a guard was attacked in Ron's place, her attention was going to go back to Shego, yet she couldn't help but notice the blonde boy attacking one of the guards throats, hard enough for him to clutch at his neck, gasping for breath.
She ran forward, grabbed a ledge on her right side, hoisted herself upwards to kick the villainess in the face, but she ducked it. Whatever momentum was left in the redhead's body was used to bring the same leg back, this time, her heel effectively strikes Shego right in the cheek.
Shego jumped on the ledge and leapt to the lower levels. Kim followed after.
Ron finished up with his fill of the guards and chased shortly after the duo in combat, Shego took aim again and tried to fire at Kim, the blonde boy noticed. If he didn't do something… or maybe if he did…
'No!' He says. Ron threw his baton in order to strike the green mercenary's hand, in order to misdirect the attack, it worked out successfully.
"KP, remember our deal!" Ron said as he ran towards them both, he performed a baseball slide, picking up his thrown baton in the process. Ron went to work on Shego, Kim stood aghast as he just took action. The redhead believed that he would've been wrapped up with the guards. The situation was high pressure, it could've been like that. But three other guards were charging at the pair. Without time to spare, Kim charged the guards while Ron substituted to fight Shego in her place.
Attacking the guards, her thoughts went back to the blonde boy, his accuracy in throwing the batons was good… too good. From the distance he was in, the accuracy, it's like it was his talent. Her mind flashed back to a certain day, where she fought Electronique, then the vigilante. The vigilante threw shuriken in combat, Kim barely dodged those. There were also knives, thrown onto the pipes in order to break the line of sight as he did a front flip. There were even autopsy reports of murdered criminals having shuriken or kunai embedded into their bodies. Why was she thinking about that now?
Maybe she could try an experiment…something that can be subtle. "Hey, hit the self destruct button!" She says.
Ron was busy fighting Shego, push kicking her onto some control panels. He was going to strike her at the top of the head but she counter by grabbing his wrist and throwing him beside her. Ron tried to hit her with a right elbow hook. Shego had ducked and blasted him out of the way, he was launched upward in the air. With a gasp of breath, he recovered from a dazed state, and fell to the ground, even as he rolled to the ground. Getting back up he sees Shego charging, he places her in a dirty boxing clinch.
"Let's see who you are under the mask." She smirks.
"NO!" He yells, his tone becoming serious. Ron whips her to his right side, kicks her leg to the point where she lost her balance, Ron without thought threw his baton at the button.
'Self-destruct sequence activated, 30 seconds until detonation.' The computer said.
He sees Shego get back up and charge him again, he does a left side kick to her abdomen, he did the right elbow hook again to the face, where she blocked it. He then followed with a left hook, a sweep kick using his left leg, that caused her to fall to the ground again. He used his hands to hoist himself up and bring his left heel to her abdomen. Shego failed to cough any blood, but the last strike really hit the mark.
"C'mon we gotta go!" Ron yelled to Kim. He ran with her to the exit.
"Oh no ya don't." Shego mumbles. She lights plasma from her hands and fires at Ron and it was a direct hit… to the back. He cried in agony, and held Kim who was in front of him right when he was shot. She jumped out of the building with Ron, firing her rappel onto a nearby tree, swinging away from the lair exploding lair. She landed on a tree branch, thick enough to support both her and Ron's combined weight. She looked at a hovercraft, containing Drakken and Shego.
"Some other day, Kim Possible! You think you're all that, but you're not!" Drakken spewed from his mouth. Shego didn't try to speak, clutching at her stomach and glaring at the boy who struck her in such a way.
He will pay… oh yes… he will.
As they flew away, the lair finally blew to bits.
"Are you ok?" The redhead asked.
"Yeah, I'm good. Thanks to you." He responds weakly.
Kim couldn't look at Ron, because somehow this ominous feeling coursed through her. Her body shaking at the mere thought… no the reality. A breeze of wind came through, as her mind placed each piece of the puzzle together. Ron's accuracy at throwing things, the vigilante's skill in shurikenjutsu. The skills they both had in combat, familiar with many martial arts and techniques, whether submission by joint locks or regular bare knuckle fighting. The fearlessness, the disregard for their enemies lives. How he handled himself in the mission. There wasn't mistakes to be made.
He was a vigilante… no he was the vigilante.
"It was going so well." Ron said, absent of emotion. His eyes were widened as his tone was cold. "You just couldn't help yourself."
With widened eyes, Kim whipped her head back and felt something smack across her head causing her to fall to the ground. Ron jumped after her. To check her pulse and everything of the sort. She was stunned, knocked unconscious.
"I'm sorry KP… but there's just some lines that have to be crossed."
Hi everyone, sorry it took so long. Let's just say I got back home and things were hectic, lot of stuff like attending a wedding and more stuff like that. I'm just glad I got this chapter done when I did. BTW, I wanted to pay homage to a certain technique (not perfect but close), in the fight. If anyone can figure it out, I'd be so happy. Think of it like an Easter egg. I would. Hope you guys enjoy and I'll see you soon.