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Kim Possible: Morality's Choice - Chapters 1.8 & 1.9 - Actions & Reactions

Kim stood before the chamber with an annoyed look, one that was focused on the unmoving form of Bonnie Rockwaller. She had had the evening all planned out and now Bonnie had to go and pass out from something as simple as a little shock treatment. Kim could not believe how weak Bonnie apparently was, having herself taken far worse at the hands of Drakken and Dementor then she had used on Bonnie. She made her way to the side of the chamber, preparing to open it and revive her guest, when she heard a familiar voice fumbling at the building's front door trying to get in.

Great, she thought, what is he doing here? She hadn't planned on dealing with him until she had dealt with Bonnie. She sighed, annoyed that everything she had planned was again being sent off track and moved back into the shadows to await his entrance.

- - - - -

Ron let out a small whine of frustration. When he had first arrived and spotted Bonnie's car parked in the parking lot he had feared he was to late, but it was that very thought that spurred him to hurry. If Bonnie was already here then his only real option would be to sneak in and get her away from Kim before she realized he was there. It was plan that had thus far not lived up to his imaginings as despite his many and varied attempts, the damn front door just refused to open. How the hell was he supposed to sneak in if he couldn't open the door?

He was sagged against the door, desperately wondering is he might be able to climb to the building's roof, when the door fell open and he fell backwards into the warehouse. He landed with a thud on the cold hard floor and let out an audible groan in both pain and shock as he took in the new sights around him. The first thing he noticed was how big the warehouse and how much of that size seemed to be taken up by shadows. The second thing he noticed, and the thing that immediately worried him, was Bonnie, strapped into some kind of chamber and not moving. Oh this was not good he realized.

Kim had done something to her and though he didn't know what he was willing to bet that that chamber wasn't a good place for her to be.

His first instinct, to smash open the chamber door, turned out to be wrong, painfully wrong as a the force of his blow was met by a large shock that threw him back several feet. He groaned and rose to his feet desperately looking for something to try and pry it open. It was as he scanned the objects that sat around him that he he heard a voice...her voice.

"Go away Ron. This isn't your problem, not yet. I'll deal with you when I'm done with her."

Ron was surprised at how cold she sounded, it wasn't anything like the Kim he was used to hearing.

He looked around quickly and tried to pinpoint just where her voice was coming from. It quickly became obvious to him that it could be coming from any of many dark sections of the building and so he decided to just start talking out loud.

"K.P. come out, we need to talk. This isn't right. You've got Bonnie locked inside some kind of chamber and she's not moving. I know your probably really really really mad but no one needs to be hurt. We can just talk."

Her reply came back as dark as the shadows it seemed to come from.

"I'm done talking. Leave now or you'll see just how mad I really am."

Ron was worried. Her tone left little doubt in his mind that she was quite serious in her words, but he couldn't leave Bonnie and he definitely couldn't let Kim do something he knew she would regret later.

"Kim I can't..."

"Wrong answer Ron."

Ron wasn't sure what hit him, but the next thing he knew he was flat on his back, his body throbbing with pain. He groggily sat up and tried to figure out just what had happened. He knew Kim must have hit him but he had never even seen her. Was she really that fast? He got to his feet and looked around for some indication of where she must have come from. He soon realized it was pointless as the warehouse was filled with dark sections and she could have come from any of them. As if in answer to the resigned thought Ron suddenly spotted a pair of angry eyes staring at him from out of the darkness, eyes that were every bit as cold and angry as the voice that followed them.

"How could you Ron? I wasn't enough for you? You had to sneak off behind my back...and with BONNIE no less. I put everything into our relationship, but it just wasn't good enough for you was it?You couldn't just be happy with me!"

Despite himself Ron gapped at Kim's words. Wasn't good enough? Just be happy? Yes he had screwed up badly, but Kim was far from blameless for what had occurred. He hoped that if he laid it all out she might finally see the truth.

"Happy? Kim how could you not see? We haven't been happy for a long time. Ya, I screwed up, and I'm beyond sorry for that. I know I should have told you about what was going on with Bonnie, but did you ever wonder why I started talking to her? Why I started hanging out with her? It was you Kim. You treated me like a joke, you yelled at me like I was a puppy you were training and worse of all, when you lost your memory you laughed at the very idea that we had ever been a couple."

Kim scowled and felt her anger rising again. If Ron expected her to feel sorry for him then he really was a doofus. He had lost any sympathy he had ever had with her

"Don't try and push this on me Ron. I did everything I could to make it work, I supported you every time you had any problems, but all you ever did was act like a little kid and come crying to me every time something hard came up.

Her voice took on a mock whiny tone.

"Kim the odds are out to get me, Kim Barkin hates me, Kim theres an intruder at my house."

Ron clenched his teeth in anger. He knew he shouldn't let his anger at her words get the better of him but he simply couldn't stand it. If she wanted to drudge up every fault of his then fine he could do the same.

"Supported me? SUPPORTED ME? All I ever heard from you was Ron grow up, Ron don't do that, Ron knock it off. I was never good enough for you, suddenly everything I did was either an embarrassment or wasn't quite enough for Kim Possible. You were never happy no matter what I tried and I never stopped trying. You think I was whiny? Try being with someone who is trying to control every detail of who you are, who treats you like a fixer-upper, who claims to love you but then drops you in an instant when a green skinned girl shows up. All I've ever been to you is the sidekick, the distraction, you never tried to help me get better you just ordered me to like I was some kind of robot."

Ron was surprised when he saw her running out of the shadows, his words must have hit home. He began to worry as she drew near. He didn't want to fight her, she was his best friend. They had known each other since they were kids, they had grown up together, but as he looked in her eyes he didn't see any of that, he only saw her anger and hatred for him. As her fist shot out towards him he realized he had no choice, she wasn't going to hold back.

If he hadn't known her all his life, if he hadn't gone on countless missions with her and seen her fight, it would have been no contest. She could have, hell she should have, been able to take him down in a single hit, but she wasn't thinking clearly and he knew it. Whether it was by instinct or years of reflexes honed on missions or heck even luck, he somehow managed to dodge her punch. Oddly instead of pulling back she pointed directly at him, her finger mere inches from the tip of his nose.

"Do you want to know how I found out? Who was willing to come and tell me even if they knew it would hurt? Shego. The woman I thought wanted to kill me was the only one willing to help me and how did I repay her? I attacked her, I nearly put her in the hospital. For once she was trying to be the good guy which is more then I can say for you.. The boy I thought was my friend, who loved me, turned out to be the person who betrays me for one of my enemies and hurt me more then any villain ever has."

Kim pulled back into a martial arts stance and prepared to strike. Ron leaped backwards trying to put as much space between him and Kim as possible. All the anger he had just been feeling drained away at this revelation. Shego! Of course, it made sense he realized. She had twisted Kim's mind and made her do this. He didn't know how Shego had known, or even if what she had told Kim was the truth about what was happening, but Shego being part of this meant that there was hope he just had to reach her and make her understand the truth.

"Kim think, this isn't like you. Shego's twisted your mind. Your not acting like yourself. Your a hero K.P., you don't hurt people. Whatever Shego told you wasn't the truth, I'm sure of it. Stop acting like the villain for a second and listen.

Kim just crouched and prepared to launch her next attack, Ron's words seeming to have the opposite effect from his intentions.

"I am so sick of people telling me how I'm supposed to act, telling me who I am. You can't do that your Kim Possible, your a hero, heroes don't do that, heroes don't feel betrayed or angry. You get to help people but oh no you can't help yourself that would be selfish. Well you know what Ron, if that's what being a hero means then I'm through with that. I'm going to decide who I am from now on and I'm going to decide what Kim Possible will and wont do, how I will and wont feel, and you know what?Right now I feel like beating you until I feel like stopping."

Kim quickly closed the distance between her and Ron and attacked with a series of punches and low sweeps, driving Ron back against a wall.

"Shego reminded me of something Ron, something I had forgotten. It's about control. I lost control of my heart and you ended up crushing it. I lost control of being able to say who I was and became trapped by what other people told me I was. Well I'm done with that, I'm taking back control and I'm going to start by showing you and Bonnie what happens when you get me angry."

Ron felt his heart break at her words. He knew she couldn't have meant what she was saying but he also knew it was his fault she was saying it in the first place.

He spoke pleadingly, still hoping to bring her out of her anger.

"Kim stop. Think about your friends and family, think about everyone who cares about you. You don't want to throw everything away over something stupid, I know it. I'm not worth it, Bonnie's not worth it."

Kim shot her arm forward, only missing his head by an inch as Ron ducked quickly.

"But I am worth it and I'm going to show you just how "stupid" what you did was. Now hold still!"

Ron grimly realized that he wasn't going to win, not the battle of fists or of words. Kim was still to angry over what had happened to listen to reason and that same anger was giving her an edge in the battle that he just couldn't match, not while he was holding back and had no real intention to hurt her.

Had he been able to he would have apologized to Bonnie for failing to rescue her. Had he been able to he would have gone back and told Kim everything before this all started. Had he been able he would have stopped Shego before she ever talked to Kim, but the truth was Ron wasn't able to do any of those things. There was though one thing Ron was able to do as Kim Possible came flying towards him, her outstretched leg aimed right for his head. He was able to look dumbfounded as the side wall of the warehouse exploded inward.

- - - - -

Betty Director frowned and folded her arms. She was not a happy woman, not at the moment. She had received an urgent call from Wade Load to come to a warehouse in downtown Middleton as fast as possible, stressing that Kim Possible was in immense danger and needed help. It was a less then accurate statement on his part she would later realize.

She and her team had arrived within 10 minutes of the call and begun the standard procedure of scouting the building to see if they could grasp the situation. It would do no good to rush in and risk anyone's life. When the camera they had snaked in through one of the building's many windows finally began displaying it's live feed, what was shown was most distressing.

It appeared that Miss Possible was not the one in danger, rather she was the one causing it. The feed displayed Kim Possible torturing what appeared to be a fellow school cheerleader with electroshock, while ranting about past injustices and wrongs perpetrated on her by the trapped cheerleader. This would have been cause enough for the distress, but it only went downhill from there. Ron Stoppable had shown up a short time later, before her and her team had gotten themselves fully set up Betty imagined, and had come upon Kim and her hostage. What followed was a a quickly deteriorating argument in which it became clear that the hostage cheerleader and Ron Stoppable had been, behind Miss Possible's back, been actively pursing some sort of relationship. Miss Possible appeared to be acting on pure anger and without any judgment as she attacked her sidekick, with clear intent to do him harm.

Betty had seen far more then enough and gave the immediate order to blow the closest wall to Kim and Ron's position, hoping that in the confusion she and her team might be able to at least put a hold on the situation and separate everyone. The charges were set quickly and silently and the wall was blown. Betty did not hesitate and marched directly into the billowing smoke, a team of well armed soldiers following obediently behind her.

The first thing Betty saw as the smoke began to clear slightly was that her entrance, as flashy as she had made it, did not have the desired effect. The second thing she saw was much worse.

- - - - -

A look of horror crossed Ron's face as he recovered from the surprise of the exploding wall. The distraction hadn't lasted long, but it had been long enough to make Ron forget about Kim's foot flying directly towards his head, a foot that wasn't itself the least bit distracted by the explosion.

Kim's foot connected squarely with Ron's head, the force of the blow snapping it back hard. Ron would later claim he saw stars, but in fact all he saw was a bright white flash before his entire head felt like it was trying to rip itself free of his neck and he fell to the floor. Blood poured down his nose and he could swear he felt it running out of his ears as well. He could barely think straight with as much as his head was hurting, and it was an unfortunate time to be unfocused as he saw Kim land, rebound, and make her way towards him again. He wanted to scream in terror, but it only came out in a dull painful moan.

Kim, for her part, wasn't the least bit distressed by her actions. She was, in point of fact, quite satisfied that she had finally landed a blow on Ron. She hadn't expected it to take that long, he was more agile then she had ever expected. She had every intention of following up on her belief that he deserved so much worse then just one kick when none other then Betty Director came striding out of the blown wall, both aghast and angered by what Kim had done.

Betty struck a hard and commanding pose and stared hard at the two individuals before her. She knew the order she was about to give wouldn't likely be followed, but she owed it to Miss Possible to try.

"Stand down Miss Possible. Stop what you are doing and you may come out of this with only minor troubles. Keep going and I can assure you Global Justice will step in and we will end it for you."

Kim scowled in response

"Go away Director. This isn't your problem, this is between myself, Ron and Bonnie. They earned this."

"You know I cannot do that Miss Possible. What you are doing is criminal, in fact if you continue it is going to cross over into a far worse act I am sure you will regret. I am giving you this one chance based on your history with Global Justice. Surrender yourself now and you may yet be able to salvage some part of your reputation as one of the good guys.

Kim's face soured at this familiar phrase.

"Good guys? GOOD GUYS? Was Dr. Cyrus Bortel one of the good guys when he created mind control chips that ended up forcing me to be a slave? Or his moodulators that made me lose all control of my emotions? "

Kim glared down at Ron

"Was Ron one of the good guys when he knowingly used Electronique's aditudinator to forcefully change the minds and personalities of two different people?"

Ron attempted to protest the declaration but his head still hurt to much to even form words

Kim turned her full focus to Betty Director and continued her rant.

"How many times have the good guys gotten away with doing bad things just because they did it in the name of justice or righteousness? Everyone wants me to be the good guy? Fine, I'm one of good guys and I see two people who did something very very bad and need some due justice."

Before anyone else could react, Kim turned back and gave a swift kick to Ron's body. Ron simply groaned in pain and coughed harshly.

Betty's eye narrowed. She had hoped to talk some sense into Kim Possible, she had hoped that she wouldn't have to resort to treating her like a criminal, she had hoped that a peaceful resolution would be found yet as she gave the order she knew she must, she realized just how wrong her hope had been and just how unhappy that fact made her.

"Capture Kim Possible."