Ch.77
Ron didn't wait for Akito to say anything else and stepped away from the door, just enough to kick them off their hinges and onto the gym floor. Because of the loud noise there were a couple of screams. Ron place them on the heightened nerves and walked in.
Silence soon followed with only the sound of his steps.
Ron felt the people staring, not really caring what goes through their minds and casually forgetting that his top was bare. Meaning everyone in the room could see the wounds on his torso and and the burns on his arms.
Mr. Barkin was the first to break the silence. "Ron, please tell me the police are outside."
"Not quite, Mr. B." Ron answered, adding. "But don't worry, I'll make sure you all walk away from this."
His promise made Ron focused on Eric who had an amused expression.
"Hey Eric, mind stepping away from Monique." Ron warned.
"Ha! You actually came." Eric said as he looked at Monique. "As promised, you're free to go."
Eric then reached towards his right leg and pulled out a knife, briefly causing everyone to tense, before he cut away Monique's restraints.
Monique stood up slowly, watching as Eric sheathed the knife and turned walking towards Ron, almost running at the end. Ron opening his arms and welcomed Monique with a hug, petting her back lightly.
"Everything's going to be okay, Mon." Ron soothed the shaking Monique. Slowly, Ron turned his back to Eric to make sure that Monique was behind him and place a wounded and unconscious Rufus on her hands. "Now, stay still and don't move."
Seeing Monique nod, Ron turned back to Eric.
"So loser, how are you going to save everyone?" Eric asked, amused.
"Just like I did to your boss, I'm going to give you a beating." Ron replied.
"Dr. Drakken is currently about to conquer this world, you couldn't possibly stop him." Eric denied.
"Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but I did." Ron affirmed. "Now if you and your friends want to walk out of here in one piece I suggest you surrender."
"Ron they're all synthodrones." Kim called out nearly causing Ron to curse.
Synthodrones, of course. Loyal and most importantly, unafraid of death. Seeing Eric smirk as that piece of information sinks in, Ron sighs. 'The hard way it is.'
"Get ready." Ron telepathically told Akito and his team. "And avoid the high ground."
Then he reached out across the world to the one weapon that eagerly awaits his call.
'Call me!' The Lotus Blade sang into Ron's mind.
Ron seems to grab ahold of something between his hands and draws them apart. As everyone watches they see a blue, blinding flash and now Ron is holding a sword. To everyone the presence of the sword was suffocating and it kept getting stronger. Ron's eyes glowed blue and he slowly stepped towards Eric.
Eric, the synthodrones and everyone else has the same thought run through their mind, the second Ron attacks, they are going to die. All the synthodrones, even the ones still disguised among the hostages draw their weapons and aimed at Ron. When they saw Ron simply smile, everyone shuddered.
Then they lost track of Ron, it was like he disappeared, only eric quickly realized what happened. "Above!"
In a second, all the synthodrones were aiming above and opening fire. Screaming ensued and a few people called Ron's name. The sound of gun fire ran rampant for a few seconds and then everything went black, soon followed by a few thuds.
Silence reigned in the gymnasium until Bonnie, Tara and Monique screamed. "Ron! Ron, are you okay?"
Just as their screams were getting frantic, light flooded the room and revealed Ron, now standing behind Eric. A second goes by and Eric, followed by the synthodrones start falling apart or bursting. For Eric, his head rolled off his shoulders before turning to goo, his body slowly dissolving.
Breathing in, Ron speaks. "I'm okay."
As he starts to walk towards the hostages and Monique to him, he feels the lotus blade warn into his mind. "Danger."
His senses following the warning from the blade kicked into gear, telling him it was from where the downed Eric was. Ron spun and saw a device, with a flashing red light, come into view among the dissolving Eric.
'Bomb!' Ron thought as he telekineticaly grabbed ahold of the device and brought it to his arms. Jumping over Monique as she was about to hug him, Ron dashed towards the exit. It took him a moment to cross the distance and throw them bomb with the last of his strength. Not long after, a massive explosion went off.
~~~~~
Monique was stunned, her ears ringing. One moment she's about to bring Ron into a hug, the next he's gone, followed by a shockwave throwing her off her feet.
Head spinning, Monique sits up and tries to understand what happened. She notices that like her everyone seems to be confused. Looking around she wonders, 'where's Ron?'. With that thought clarity comes to her mind.
"Ron!" She shouts and tries to get up, staggers and falls down. "Ron, where are you?"
When she finally gets to her feet, Monique turns and spots Ron by the door he came through earlier. "Ron, are you okay?"
As Monique approached she notices that he doesn't seem to be moving. She runs to him. Stopping beside him, Monique sees a shield in his right hand but by the looks of things he never got to raise it.
Monique feels tears blur her vision and she falls to her knees. Ron's face is bloodied from small pieces of shrapnel but the worse is that in his forehead there's a piece of what seems to be steel embedded. 'No, no, no! Not you, Ron!' Soon, Monique begins to sob and lays her head on in his chest, crying uncontrollably.
Ba-dum!
Monique's surroundings dissapear as she's swallowed by grief. In her mind she can't help recollect memories of Ron and her crying gets louder.
Ba-dum!
A few minutes go by as she cries, Monique unaware of the world but starting to calm down for an unknown reason.
Ba-dum!
Monique stills and listens for a moment.
Ba-dum!
With the sound of his heartbeat realization hits. 'His heart's beating!'
"Someone help, his heart still beating!" Monique suddenly yells.
To her shock, a ninja materializes in front of her, hands glowing.
"What are you...?" Monique begins to ask, reaching forward.
"First aid, don't interrupt." Another ninja says holding onto her arm.
Monique looks to side spotting more ninja and a in the surroundings. With no better choice than to trust them she nods and pulls her hand back.
The sound of her surroundings finally come back and Monique notices the hysterical screams of Tara and Bonnie. "Let me go to him. Step aside and let me go to Ron!" They shout amid curses.
Their screams are suddenly cut off and then Mr. Barkin screams. "What the hell did you so to them?"
Thud!
And Barkin's shouting, too, fades away.
Concerned Monique speaks up. "What did you guys do to them to get them to stop shouting?"
The ninja answers. "They were knocked unconscious so they would not interfere."
"I see." Monique says and watches as soon they bring a table and lay it down next to Ron after folding the legs.
They then lift Ron onto the table, the ninja soon straddling him to continue first aid. Then the ninja lift Ron and begin walking to the door.
"Where are you taking him?" Monique asks.
"The hospital." Was the simple reply.
"I'm going too." Monique states and begins to follow but was stopped at the door.
"Not enough room." The ninja says and blocks her way, Ron soon leaving her sight.
~~~~~
Bebe had been observing Ron closely throughout the night and had experienced various data surges.
To Bebe these were confusing and distracting. To Ron or anyone else they would have been spikes of fear, anxiety and relief.
Each time Ron was hurt Bebe experienced a data surge of fear followed by another of relief after his victory, that one was replaced with one of anxiety over the upcoming battle. Like this Bebe went through the night and at time almost intervened, specially when the five ninja nearly killed Ron.
After Ron safely stopped Drakken's plan and moved to rescue the people held hostage at the gym, Bebe figured that there was only a little more to go till Ron stopped putting himself in danger and anxiously watched. Just as she relaxed over Ron achieving victory, turns out there's a bomb inside Eric/synthodrone 901.
Ron reacted quickly and decided to get it away from everyone though to Bebe throwing it was too dangerous a choice. Still, Ron should have been safe but the bomb didn't travel nearly far enough to Bebe's liking and dropped about a hundred feet away. As Ron was bringing up the sword, now turned into a shield, it detonated. Ron closed his eyes, likely to avoid the shrapnel hitting them directly and was swept off his feet.
Bebe waited a moment for Ron to open his eyes and resume the rescue but what she got was his vitals flatlining at an incredible rate. The Neuro Linker picked up even his brain waves ceasing causing a massive data surge in Bebe. With no time to hesitate, Bebe took control of Ron's body and began giving it commands so that it continued functioning. With strenuous effort, Bebe got Ron's heart to a steady rythm.
Ba-dum!
Ba-dum!
~~~~~
Xu Ming Yue could honestly say she was proud of Ron's accomplishments this night. He stopped an attempt to take over the world and then rescued his classmates.
Then things took a turn for the worse when the bomb was discovered. Ron's exhausted body couldn't throw it far enough and he couldn't bring the shield up in time. Xu Ming Yue watched and felt the steel embed itself into Ron's forehead. She quickly did everything in her power to preserve Ron's life, slowing his perception of time and taking over enough of his body's functions to activate the healing technique but Ron's conciousness wasn't responding to her calls.
Abruptly she felt a foreign conciousness invade Ron's body and worried that she would have to fight it off but the conciousness simply got Ron's heart pumping.
'Not a threat!' Xu Ming Yue concluded and focused on healing till she felt someone apply a healing technique, finally collapsing into unconsciousness.
~~~~~
Kim was shocked when Ron showed up to rescue them. Even more so when she saw the wounds on his body. To her, Ron looked like he'd been through hell and back, yet he came to rescue them.
That's when Kim started feeling depressed. Here she was, spending practically every free moment of her time with Eric yet she never realized her pretty boy was on the enemy side much less realize that he was a synthodrone. To make matters worse, Ron who cut her out of his life, stepped up and was saving the day like she encouraged him to do.
After listening to Ron try and persuade Eric to stand down she couldn't help but speak out. "Ron, they're all synthodrones."
Kim saw it, Ron biting back a curse. Everyone would have missed the subtle movement but she saw it clear as day, making her wonder if it was because they are synthodrones or because she spoke to him. Afterwards she couldn't help hang her head, she really messed up when it comes to Ron.
Then Ron dealt with the synthodrones so swiftly Kim wondered how not was possible. There were so many scattered throughout the room that it should have been impossible for Ron to take them out in so little time but with him able to summon a sword out of thin air and his eyes changing color Kim didn't know what he was capable of anymore.
When the explosion went off Kim was dazed like everyone else but she regained her senses quicker. She started looking around to see if anyone was hurt and heard Monique start calling for Ron. Just as Monique spotted Ron so too did Kim and she also noticed his unnatural stillness. When Monique started crying above him Kim's brain overloaded and she passed out.