Chapter 17: Suspicious Past, Haunting Present

Hello everyone, it's Dismal again, sorry that it's been a long time since I've updated, I had to worry about a lot of things for college and doing research, this had to be pushed back for a bit. Luckily I was able to finish up this chapter when I could.

Ron's Mission:

Arriving at the docks, Ron looked below to see his targets. "Couple of regular workers, I'd rather not get in the way, much less kill them." Looking even further, he sees a ship docked in the bay. Security looked tight, but these men looked pretty different from the regular workers.

Ron chuckles to himself, "These guys aren't even trying to blend in. Can't they put in a little bit of effort… ok their boss is dead and they're probably not getting paid enough, but still…"

Despite wanting to include Felix in the mission, he didn't want to compromise their secret partnership. If the Director of Global Justice is watching from afar, there's a chance that they'll figure Felix out. He would ensure the hacker's safety before his own.

He took a breath, the brisk winds moving behind him. Remembering this to be a stealth op, in and out. But there isn't rules specifying in killing or sparing them, so there's autonomy there. He leaped down from one ledge, and did a front tuck towards another.

'A bow and some arrows would've done a little justice towards this.' He thought. Keeping in mind, he did pack several shuriken and kunai, he prayed it'll be enough to complete the mission. He sees two people below him having a discussion. People of Hench's payroll from the look and the sound of it.

"So exactly why are we guarding the ship… Jack's dead and we aren't getting paid for this." One guy said.

"Well apparently, word around is that some guys are making a move to take his turf, whatever that's left." The other guy answered.

"Y'know I actually heard of this guy and he might have best chance out of anyone. This guy uhh… Senior Señor… something like that."

"Señor Senior Sr?" Ron mouthed. This guy has to be another member of Kim's little rogues gallery. 'Makes sense for him to even try to take the company from under him… but if he's doing it now, it'll place him at risk if he's trying to remain anonymous.'

"I actually thought Lucre was trying to take over, I mean… he's the advisor, right?"

"They both are… the old guy wants Hench's side hustles and Lucre just wants the company itself."

"I can't see him as a boss, I really can't."

As those guys went back and forth, Ron just sighed. 'Ok, I've had enough.' He jumps down and falls on top of the thug. He rolled toward the second guard and did an oblique kick towards his right knee. As the guard fell forward, Ron hooked his arm around the back of his neck. Applying pressure, the guard jolted upward… with the sound of a neck snapping. Throwing the guard to the side, he approaches the first guard, using his palms to chop him in the throat. He grabs the back of the head, knees him in the stomach, and slams his head onto the shipping containers and stomped on his skull.

Looking up, Ron decided to get to higher ground. Hoping to avoid running into more should they have equal ground. Seeing the ship in front of him, he jumps to the side of it and took cover.

Seeing one of the doors opening up, he sees a man come out with a cigarette in his mouth, using a lighter to make a spark. Taking two kunai from his person, Ron charged at the guy and slit his throat, he then spun around and stab him in the back twice, he then threw him off of the ship. Still armed with the blood soaked knives, he entered the corridors, hoping to find something pertaining to his mission. "Ok, no pressure… find someone who knows about the missing people, free them and get out." He closed his eyes, then sighed under his breath. With that moment of silence, he heard whimpers and cries.

'Getting warmer.' He thought. It sounded like it was below the ship. Seeing a stairwell to his left, he slowly makes his way down there. Why slowly… he could hear footsteps inching closer to him. 'Here we go'.

Ron twirled his knife around and threw it at the unsuspecting guards head. Ron lunged towards him to break his fall. Afterwards he saw a second guard who was spooked by the crash. He lunged at the second one, delivering a flying knee straight to his jaw, breaking it and knocking him unconscious. With one kunai in his left hand, Ron sees a couple of guards charging at him. Slitting the unconscious man's throat, he shrugs his shoulders and prepares himself to face the oncoming threat.

Seeing the first guard closest to him, he uses his right hand to uppercut him in the jaw. He then delivered a left hook, still with the knife in hand, not only did it damage him, but it left a cut on his cheek.

The second guard on his partner's right side tried to attack. The blonde boy slipped away from the punch and placed him in a clinch, he uses his right knee to attack the guard in the abdomen and shoved him to the first guy who attacked him. With both men losing balance, the second guard tried to do a push kick, only for it to be ineffective as Ron moved to his right to dodge it. The blonde boy managed to break the distance and attacks him with a left elbow. He then used his right hand to grab the enemy's wrist and he stabbed him twice, once in the chest, then another to his neck. He then tripped the dying man with his leg so he could fall to the ground.

"Come on!" Ron said under his breath. He charged at one of the guards, driving his shoulders underneath the man's legs, using his hands to grab right behind his knees. The momentum was in his favor. He lifted the man up and went towards the other guard. Throwing him towards the other man, as Ron pushed the guard back, one of them fell, with a sickening crack… to his skull. Ron grabbed the one who remained alive by his shirt. Taking his knife, he stabbed him in the jaw.

Sensing that at least three more guards were coming towards him, he takes the knife that he fought with and threw it onto one of the guy's head. He charged at the second guy by jumping up and delivering a flying head kick. Knocking him away from the fight. Ron attacked the last guy with by placing him in a clinch. He jumped up, grabbing the man's arm and hooking one leg onto the front of his neck and having him fall flat on his back. Placing him in an armbar submission, Ron wasted no time in breaking a bone, leaving the man screaming. The second guy tried to stomp on Ron, only for the boy to roll out of the way and appear behind him. In the end… Ron snapped his neck. The only sounds that came from the room were his breaths, but also… silent weeping. When Ron opened his eyes, his blood ran cold.

"Oh God…" he saw the women imprisoned, most were as young as he was and others were slightly older. Some of their clothes, dirty and tattered. Their makeup blotched all over their faces. Their eyes looked to be in absolute fear, but after looking at the young ninja… they might be able to hope again.

"I'm getting all of you out of here." He said with urgency. "But I need you to stay quiet, calm and do as I say, ok?" Some of them nodded their heads. Taking some lock picks, he was able to unlock the cages one at a time. "Are there anymore people locked up?" He said with urgency. They only said silence, until one spoke.

"N-No, it's just us. They've held us under here, for almost a week. They were taking about… moving us somewhere else tonight." A young girl said.

"Goddammit." Ron muttered under his breath. "You don't have to worry now, I'll take care of this, just… follow me." He takes his sword and leads the group out of the ship.

"Director, the mission is a success, and your worst fears are confirmed. He had a shipment, full of… there were a lot of innocent girls in there. We should get the police on the scene, have them find their families and get them home." At that point, the girls whispered and murmured to each other.

"Is this guy with Global Justice like Kim Possible?"

"I saw him on the news, they say he's killing people."

"I can't believe he saved us, that was amazing."

He would feel elation at whatever compliments were given to him, only if the situation wasn't so dire.

"Thank you." A timid girl said. Ron turned to her and spoke.

"Thank me by getting home safe." He aims his rappel onto a rooftop and swings away. As he was swinging, his phone began to ring, sitting on the ledge of a roof. "Hm, unknown caller." He answered the phone. "Hello?"

"Uh hi, is this Dean?" The caller asked.

"Yes, it is." Ron said. Going into his 'Dean' guise once more.

"Hi Dean, it's Walter, we spoke earlier today." The man said.

"Oh hey, is everything ok?" Ron asked him. He swings his legs back and forth, looking at the docks he previously infiltrated.

"I'm ok, I just wanted to see if you're still on for the fights, they're going to start it in a couple hours."

"Oh yeah, no problem, I'll swing by soon… just had to take care of some stuff for work." He stood up from the ledge and began to stretch. From there, he traveled to the gym and began to wonder aloud to himself.

"Why is it that they need a password like a sentence? 'The reaper's opened the gates'… couldn't they do like a callsign? That'd be easier, and way cooler."

Kim's Mission:

The redhead was currently crawling in a vent. As silent as she could, Kim was able to find her way into the office of the late CEO of HenchCo Industries. No henchmen were present yet. Activating her Kimmunicator, she could see Wade's face on the screen.

"Ok Wade, I'm in his office… plugging you into his desktop now." She says, placing her hands onto the desk.

"Ok let's see what we got…" the tech specialist got into hacking. "Hmm… looks like we can pin a lot of guys with these files, going in to destroy it now is a lost cause for them. All of this is… oh wow." As Wade conversed with Kim, he found some recent files.

"What is it?" She asked.

"Many bank accounts associated with Hench have been wiped clean, so there's no point in robbing him either. But there's a considerable amount of money that was sent to someone's account and as I was tracing it, a considerable amount of money was wired somewhere important." With a click of a mouse, it confirmed his suspicions.

"Where did it go?" Kim asked.

"Kim, it went to the Middleton Space Center, six million dollars worth. But this was almost 10 years ago… so why would…"

His thoughts were interrupted as an alarm blared, through the building. Kim looked around the area, he didn't see any guards in front of her, but they were entering the building. From the ground floor and the rooftops. It looked to be almost a dozen guards.

"Uh oh, looks like you've got trouble." Wade remarks.

"Yeah, I see it. Did you get all of the files?" Kim asked. Her eyes kept darting towards the exit.

"Yeah, you can unplug the drive, I can do things here on my end." Wade told her.

As she walks away from the desk. She had a choice to make, escape via the rooftop, or head down to street level.

'I'll probably get innocent people in the way if I head down street level. The roofs would be my best bet, as long as I still have my rappel. She headed towards the roof, but as she left the office, the redhead failed to pay attention to the laptop automatically activating protocols beset by the original administrator.

Rushing up the stairwell, the entrance to the roof inching closer with each step. Kim used her strength to burst through the door. Seeing five men in front of her surrounding a chopper, she charged at the one furthest from her and knees him straight in the jaw. As she rolls out of the way, she takes a small device and throws it onto the chopper as it flies away from the fight. Moving away from a thug that tried to kick her face, she moved behind him and used her right elbow to attack the leg that balanced him during the kick, causing him to fall on the ground. Two other thugs would charge at her after the attack.

She used a right leg kick on one guy, followed with a left uppercut. She then saw a left hook coming from the second guy and weaves away from the attack. She then delivers a push kick, causing them to be off balance for a bit. The two other men decided to charge at her. The first guy tried to take her down, only for him to be redirected to the ground with a trip. The next guy actually did tackle her, but what he didn't know, was that Kim used the opportunity to grab his exposed arm and uses her own to wrap around it, the objective of wrapping it until it broke… which was successful.

As the man rolled onto his back in agony after the submission lock. Kim got up and did an oblique kick to one of the guys left leg, then the redhead places him in a head clinch, delivering punishing knee shots to the body, before taking him down with an outside trip. Seeing a guy getting to close, she decides to distance herself from the fight, backing away as the guy went forward.

Seeing the guy about to perform a right hook, she decides to use her left hand to grab and trap his hand, following up with an elbow to the throat and a hip toss to the ground. If that wasn't enough, Kim decided to place him in a submission hold, not so different from the first one… only difference was that the arm bent the other way. Two guys, incapacitated with a broken arm for each of them.

Kim attacks the next guard, performing a tornado kick to one side of his face, then punching him on the other side of it. Leaving him to fall down unconsciously.

"Kim, five more guys are coming, but you needed to get out of there, the place is rigged to blow!"

"What?" She mumbled under her breath. As she kept the fight going, backup arrived. As she wailed on the last guy by kneeing him in the jaw about three times. She threw him away from her. As all of them began to circle around, she felt the ground shake beneath her as a loud boom came from the building. One of the blasts had separated her from the thugs, as the explosion rocked the rooftops of the building, Kim somehow was knocked off, but some of the men were caught up in it. There was no way to rescue them, the buildings exit points were probably blocked either by debris or fire.

As she fell, the explosion rocked her, having her nearly slip into an unconscious state. A gasp of breath, her eyes opened wide, she quickly acted on instinct, and used her rappel to move herself toward another building, falling safely onto one of the rooftops.

She lies spread eagle, with the sun in her face. The sound of fire trucks and police cars, rushing towards the blazing flames were already present. They could take it from here, the redhead was sure of it. Kim was catching her breath, sitting up while she does. She sighs "I think I should call it a day, maybe get some sleep." She stands up, looking back at the burning building. She shoots her rappel and decides to head home.

Changing from her mission gear to her pajamas. She rests on her bed, the soft mattress alleviating the soreness of her muscles and removing a good amount of stress from her mind. She decides to contact Wade, wanting to know something that might help her.

"Wade, I have a question… you said that Hench gave six million dollars to the Space Center, why would he do something like that? It's out of his character, even I can tell that." She asked. Something like this was hounding her for some reason, other than the fact that her father works there.

"I've been reviewing the records from now and ten years ago. Financially, Hench was having a notable decline during that period, though I don't know why. But somehow, during that period in time, some employees were murdered, those who dealt with his lucrative dealings at least."

"Jack wouldn't have taken that lying down, especially if it was costing him." She rolled to her left side.

"Yeah, so if that's the case. The 6 million wasn't a donation… if anything… it was a bounty."

"A bounty… for who… and why?"

"I don't know, but after that, everything went uphill for him afterwards."

"So if it was a bounty, that means someone from the Space Center… killed someone?" A pause went through the both of them. Wade exhaled and rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"It's likely. Yes."

"Thanks Wade, I'll leave you to it."

Ending the call from Wade, she precedes to write in her diary.

'Something's going on… more than I realize. Something that happened ten years ago, when I was a kid… a bounty on someone's head and the Middleton Space Center just takes that kind of money without question. I know my Dad wouldn't take the money, much less commit murder. But one of his colleagues, I can't even imagine. I keep thinking there's something more to this… but what could possibly…'

Before she could finish the sentence, a news report came in, one that she was interested in. The reporter announced herself and began to spill the story. "Here in the Middleton docks, police have raided the docks to find many people held against their will, victimized by a human trafficking ring. Eyewitnesses reported a vigilante rushing into the docks and murdering those involved with the imprisonment of the young women. As a group of those imprisoned encountered the police, they began to raid the ship, only to find shipping manifests showing that the ship was to leave for tonight, along with more dead bodies of suspects involved. One of the victims released a statement."

"It was horrible… these guys kidnapped so many of us and… and then this guy comes in with a sword and saves our lives… can't believe I'm saying it, but he's a hero."

'Guy with a sword.' Kim sat up, looking and listening attentively as the story unravels. She knew full well who it was… Ron. As the reporter said more to it, another statement from one of the victims came.

"If it wasn't for him, I don't think any of us would be alive right now. I thought he was some crazy killer, but… he's not… I mean he saved us."

"There you have it." The reporter concludes with her name and news network. She turned off the tv and began to write again.

'Ok… back to it. Bounty… connection to my Dad's job, yadda yadda yadda. There's a connection and I need to find it… and if I'm trying to find it… that means Ron is too. Something bad's gonna happen… I know it.'

Feeling: 'Worried' (More than usual)