"Kim…" A voice called out. A voice that held concern in its tone. The sound felt somewhat distorted as the only thing her eyes registered was darkness.

'What happened to me…' The redhead thought. Her eyes still closed, a pounding feeling in her head. Her body now registering the pain it's been put through. The feeling of her toes wiggling and her fingers picking at something that felt like metal, the smell of something burning. She can confirm that she was alive.

"KP." The voice called out to her again. This time, she swore she could hear fingers snapping, her eyes registered that the fingers used were close to her face.

A sharp inhale through her nose and exhalation through the mouth. Her eyes shot open and looked around. She was tied up, on her knees, her hands behind her back. She looked to see that they were in the lair where they previously fought side by side, charred and burned. Anything that was left resembling the old place was smoldered metal and ash. Kim looked above to meet 'his' eyes. He wasn't in the uniform that was provided for him in the mission, nor the mask provided by Felix. It was his vigilante outfit, a hoodie with gloves, sneakers and pads protecting the wrist and shins.

"I know that this is the outfit different from before, but an outfit that screams 'I'm the killer' is definitely not a good idea." He said.

Kim didn't say anything, she focused her mind and body upon releasing herself from the chains she found herself bound to. Her hands shuffling to find a loose end.

"I wouldn't do that." He added. "I made sure you won't get out of this. I'm sorry, I've been wanting to talk to you, but how can we do that if we're just fighting each other? Obviously, this…" he gestures his hands signaling her predicament "… was the only thing I could come up with." He sits in front of her. His left knee upwards, with his arm resting on it. His right hand supporting him upwards as he eyes the redhead. "So how long have you been doing this?" He asks.

She was silent. Looking at him with such a deadly glare. Filling the area with tension and an uneasy feeling.

"How long have you trained?" He asks again. Still no response. Ron sighs getting up from his position.

"When I was about five years old… I remember copying some ninja moves, I didn't have any formal training by then. I mean it… started when I was eight. But I still kept doing it until my training really began." He paces around the burned lair. "You think you have it figured out when you get a head start but… it wasn't like that." His left hand rubbed the knuckles on his right hand. A sharp inhale came from him. "Where I went, it taught you more than just fancy moves, you weren't just a ninja… they make you a hunter, a warrior, survivor, stuff like that." He walked toward Kim. Taking something out of his bag, he found a bottle of water.

He took the cap off and walked closer to her. "I know you think I'm this psychotic killer and everything… but I'm really not. I mean I do kill, but I haven't really lost if that makes sense. I'm babbling like an idiot… aren't I?" He offered her a sip. "No tricks, no poison, no truth serum or anything… here." Ron placed the bottle to her lips, she drunk from it.

"Were you planning on killing them? Drakken and Shego, the guards?" She asked.

"No." Ron said. "Believe me, I could… but it just… wouldn't feel right. Probably because Drakken isn't that competent to rule the world or whatever he's trying to do. He's not worth it, Shego is the opposite but she just doesn't care. Kill or cripple; that's pretty much my thing." He answered. 'Plus, she needs to pay for shooting me in the back.'

"What about the Fashionistas? Were they competent?" She asked.

"Extorting money from innocent people who actually worked for what they had, yeah I did it. Pretty easy, considering they targeted a kid about our age, what would've happened to him if I hadn't stepped in, broke some bones…"

"Slit their throats." Kim interrupted his sentence.

"I started off non-lethal, then I changed my mind. They still did it, they stole from them, I just… stole it back. I made sure they wouldn't do it again, that they wouldn't hurt innocent people. You think people are gonna lose sleep for those guys, they're not. Trust me." He argued.

A silence fell through the air. A stare down actually happened between the two. Something was coming up in the conversation, they both know it.

"Y'know I've been studying you." Kim said to him.

"Really?" Ron arched his brow.

"You have all of these fighting techniques and people call you a ninja, huh? I mean I know you're from here… that I can say. But all that training and everything like that, you can't tell me that you've done this somewhere that wasn't here in Middleton."

"I was born here, but that's about it." Ron confirmed the redhead's statement.

"So all that training was somewhere else right? Back at the gym and with the guys you showed Brazilian jiu-jitsu, but you were training like a ninja and everything… I just think…"

Ron interrupted her. "Japan. I trained in Japan, happy now?" He huffed in this sentence, she figured it out… but that wasn't the point.

"What you're doing out there, you're taking something back, is that it? You don't have to it like this. You can stop this while you still can." She tried to reason.

"What about you?" Ron said. "You're out here, you're in high school just like me, you're doing the same thing. You didn't stop, why should I? Even if we did, it's too late for us now, we both know that." He sighed.

"I don't kill people Ron, wherever this 'we are alike' stuff came from, you can forget that… we are NOTHING alike!"

Keeping his patience after her little outburst. Ron found something that caught his eye. One word came to mind when he saw that… breakthrough.

"Not on purpose, right?" He says.

"No I wouldn't do something like that!" She states with confidence and bluster. He took his index and middle finger of his right hand and pointed it in a certain direction. He sits nexts to Kim. He signals her to look in a certain direction.

What she saw was something she didn't understand. Those were the guards they both fought together, barely identifiable, unresponsive, lying cold and dead in the destroyed lair. Her eyes remained glued to the people who once lived.

'No… this isn't… how did… did I… what?' Her mind fallen into a state of shock. Her body limped at the sight of this for the brief moment. She looked back at Ron who had a nonchalant look on his face.

"You've never seen this before?" He asked her. "We saw Drakken and Shego making it out of the lair, but these guys… yikes." He imitates an explosion while pressing his fingers together and moving them away.

"You did this." Kim whispered. "Don't put this on me! I wouldn't kill those guys, not like you do!"

"Yeah, just an accident right? The 'girl who can do anything' made a mistake and killed these guys because of it. KP, I admit it, I pushed the button. I blew up this place… but didn't you tell me to do something earlier? I remember hearing you say 'Hey press the self-destruct button.' I didn't have a reason to press it, until…" he rotated his hand and stopped it to point at Kim. "You told me to."

She could only lean back. Holding on to a strength slowly but surely wavering. She closed her eyes. "They didn't have to die like this."

Ron wouldn't dare taunt her any further. She's reacting just like he did when he killed his first criminal. At the time, he held a portion of sympathy for the lowlife. He was just a thug, a smuggler, a killer when it came down to it. How the madman cried in agony, clutched at his heart where a blade was stabbed to it, how the life he took for granted finally slipped away from him. But that sympathy turned to disdain as he desired to curse and spit on the man's corpse. Ron and Kim were two different people, he was used to it, she wasn't.

"You did this…" She muttered. After several hollow breaths, her voice roared. "You did this! Don't pin this on me you… you…" She didn't wish to say anything further, yet her seething rage was past that. "YOU SON OF A BITCH!" She finished.

Ron nonchalantly walked up to her, looking above the sky, arching his eyebrows and exhaling. What looked to be a walk, was a disguised attack. A kick to the face. Not even a smart remark came to his lips. He was just silent.

She spat on the ground. Her eyes looked at Ron and for a brief moment she saw that he had a flash of anger burning into his eyes. She learned something because of that attack; she struck a nerve. "What would they think, huh? Your mom, your dad, is this the boy they raised to be? A killer?!" She sat up, increasing the volume of her words. "I don't know your story, I really don't. How can you live with yourself knowing that when you're killing these thugs, you're ripping families apart too?! You're no better than any of them… and you…"

"YOU'RE THE LAST PERSON I WANT TO TELL ME THIS BULLSHIT!" Ron's anger finally showed, no more hospitality, no more patience, just anger. "Tell me, did you even think about the people of the families those assholes victimized?! The people look to you as some savior, right?! But here's the harsh reality, Red: you can't save anyone, not if you don't FINISH THEM OFF!"

"So you're answer is to just kill off every criminal you see?!"

"It's more than just that Kimmie!" He said as he took his blade out and began to sharpen it. "You wanna talk about families being ripped apart, look long and hard about the people you save. They love you now… but when those animals get out… you'll see… you'll see there's no closure. Next thing you know… they'll change their tone."

"The city doesn't need a killer. It needs someone to keep all of them together! You can't just live in a world where the only thing that's resolved is killing. Middleton needs hope, families and communities need hope, this city needs that… so I have to be the hero they need me to be, Ron! I'm what this city needs, whether I like it or not!"

"If that's the case, then I'm the hero THIS CITY DESERVES! Root out the evil, people can have hope, I get that! But it can take just one person, one day to change all of that! Every murderer, every thief, every rapist… I'LL SLIT EVERYONE OF THEIR THROATS! ALL OF THEM! THEY'LL BEG FOR MERCY! THEY'LL BEG JUST LIKE THEIR VICTIMS AND THERE WILL BE NONE!" He stopped to calm himself down, a silence was in the air. His voice held a calm yet eerie tone. "We're fighting for the same thing, it's the way we go about it. You talk about… families ripped apart… you don't know what that's like… not like I do. Believe me… believe me when I say it's not pretty, it's hard to cope, not impossible. We're both want the same thing… a better place… a better world. Bring people together, kill those who'd hurt innocent people. Not everyone feels the same way you do, and not everyone feels the same way I do. I'm not right, but it doesn't mean I'm wrong. You've brought people together just as I made hard calls." He stood up, to look up to the skies.

It was a lot for Kim to take in. He's right about a couple of things, she didn't know what it was like to lose someone she'd truly loved. Even now, they were together… happy. It even sounded like Ron knows that a community needs to be kept together.

Kim is kind and caring. She'd chose to help the world not because of the limelight, but maybe show people that there's still some good in the world… good in people. It's true that she's a freelance operative in Global Justice, she could've quit a long time ago… but there was one thing she knew about it: this was her choice. To lose someone they cared about; Ron went into that… a thought came to her, 'Did he lose someone?'. She pondered about his fall from grace.

Before she could say something, Ron was gone. Like a ninja, he vanished from Kim's sight, right when she took her eyes off of him. "What's he up to…" Kim said to herself.

Ron's head peered from the destroyed entrance. "You still alive in there?" He asked. A tone of sarcasm after lashing out in a fit of rage.

"What do you think?" She asks with her own tone of sarcasm.

"Just checking." He answered. Yet there was an odd sound she heard. It sounded almost like… dragging. "Ladies and Gentlemen, for one night only, I present to you… the leader of Henchco, the man who created the moniker "henchman"… Jack Hench himself!" Ron throws him down in front of Kim. "How ya doing Jack, not like it matters anyway?!" He grabbed Jack and punched him in the face.

"What did you do?!" She shrieks.

"Huh? Oh yeah, I got some guys to kidnap him and bring him here, long story short…" Ron went over to Kim's side, from her perspective, it felt like he was loosening the chains. For she could feel her wrists wiggling about. "The identity thing… yeah I really thought you were going to figure it out so… I thought 'two birds, one stone'."

"Why the hell are you doing this?" Hench weakly asked.

His answer was met with a swift kick to the mouth. "Shut up!" Ron said.

"Ron, stop! He doesn't deserve this…" Kim argued.

"You don't know what he's done, have you?" He smirks. "Also, you just told him my name, I thought spies were suppose to keep things secret." He grabs Jack and places his arm around him. "So what you've been up to, Jack?"

"Nothing… I-I'm just a businessman." He stammered, lying through his teeth. "People come to me for employment, I find them accommodations."

"There's more than what you're saying, Jackie, I don't believe you." Ron smacks him in the face. "Tell her… tell her about the shipment." Ron said. He remembered the director grabbing cargo manifests of a shipment. Something that was a secret. A dirty little secret.

"It's just a shipment to a customer… a buyer here in the states." He gasped. He felt his life being choked from him.

"Really, what did it have? I mean it must've been valuable." Ron said. He plants his left knee onto Jack's rib cage.

"Important people, people you have to make a good impression on!" Jack answers.

"Shut up, Jack! You're making it worse!" Kim was shaking, her breathing was heavy upon this.

"You better say it!" He punched Jack in the jaw before taking out his sword and placing the tip near his throat. "What was in there, huh?!"

"It was… it was… just girls!" He answers.

Kim's eyes widened. Did he just confess to shipping girls? His company was accused of several crimes, but this struck a nerve with her more than she thought, in a brief moment… she just wanted to kill him.

"How old were they and how many?" Ron continued.

"Old enough for high school… we had at least 35 or 40. You got to understand… my client… he's more dangerous than you know." His eyes were slowly drifting away from consciousness, until Ron was smacking his cheeks. He then turned his attention to Kim.

"Human trafficking. Innocent girls sold as sex slaves, this man is responsible and you've taken no action whatsoever to punish him." He got closer to Kim, their faces mere inches from one another. "Forty parents, maybe more waiting for their sweet innocent little girl to come home. Placing their 'hope' their faith in you." He then smiles mockingly at her.

"It was just business, I had no choice." Jack interrupted.

"Just business…" Ron says. "He doesn't care at all. "So, you still wanna protect him, bring him in. He'll get out again, and when he does… there's gonna be more."

Kim was silent towards him, yet her eyes remained glued onto him. She relied on them to answer the questions she couldn't put into words.

"Jack has all of these henchmen at his disposal, on his payroll… what do you think is gonna happen when I kill him? It's like a stack of blocks, take one off and another, and another, and the rest will soon follow. Cripple your enemies, take down what they've built… they'll crawl out. When they have nothing left… go for the kill. What is what I'm gonna do right now… your strength against mine." He flashes his sword in front of her, twirling it. Sticking his tongue out, he runs the blade horizontally without touching it. Another taunt.

His eyes transitioned into a darker glare as he grabbed Jack by his head and pressed the blade onto his throat. "I loosened the chains Kimmie, you better hurry if you wanna save his life!"

"Don't do this! Let's just take him to the police, you've already gotten a confession out of him!" She said as she struggled to break free from her bonds. "I get it! He's an asshole, he's guilty of a lot of things… believe me, nothing would please me more than to see him suffer, but not like this Ron!" She was able to stand on her legs now. "Stop this while you can, Ron! Please listen to me, I can't… I can't let you do this!"

"Then you better break free, you're almost there! C'mon! Let's go!"

Kim screamed, using every ounce of her strength to break free, for some reason, her legs ran forward, about to tackle Ron and thrash him. But a problem became present.

Her arms were still tied behind her. The chain yanked her back as she got too close. She looked back up to see a horrifying sight.

Ron slit Jack Hench's throat right in front of her. The sound of Jack choking on his blood, the sight of him convulsing and holding his neck. For some reason, his mouth moved to form a word… 'why'.

This was death, this was murder, her mind couldn't bear witnessing this any longer. The last thing that was heard before she fainted was Ron's last words.

"You can't cross the line, but I can… don't worry, I'll get you out of the chains soon." Acting swiftly, he carried Kim out of the building and left her on the tree where they first landed, where Kim deduced his identity. Taking her Kimmunicator, he placed a distress signal.

Leaving her, his own communicator was ringing. "Felix, she knows now. Also Jack is dead."

"Allegations are still pending about what he's done, if we don't show the evidence to the right people, his murder will be considered cold blooded. He'll die a good man, when we both know he's not. If she blabs this to the school, things will get even more complicated for you." Felix told Ron his viewpoint which wasn't off the mark.

"That's fine, but first… I need to know something… can you find someone for me?" Ron asked.

"Depends on who it is." He answers.

"I need to talk with the director of Global Justice, I don't suppose you can find her."

"Sure, I can find her… but what makes you think she'll talk to you?" Felix asking the blonde boy.

"She owes me another dance."