Finite Middletons (Freshman year, Ron's basement, Sunday Morning (technically), 1:40 AM)

"You can't avoid seeing nudity down here in the baths, just don't stare," Justine said as she led Crystal into the shower area of the "Japanese Onsen" in the Stoppable basement. Stepping under a shower, she added, "You don't need to wash your hair if you don't intend to get it wet in the bath, just pin it up. It's OK to drip on the floor, try not to drip back into the bath. Remember that the idea is to keep the bathwater clean."

The blonde genius quickly washed off, wringing the water out of her hair and grabbed her entirely too-small towel. "The water is warm and toasty, Bishop upped the mineral content, so the water is nearly opaque. The faster you get in the tub, the more comfortable you'll be."

Crystal watched the wet blonde drip across the floor toward the tub with her overly large boyfriend. Was that a little sway in the hips of the uber-serious physicist? She started to doubt just how closed Mike's eyes were when she saw a small smile appear on his face.

Starting to feel like a voyeur, she turned to look at the far tub containing a blond young man leaning back relaxed with his towel covering his eyes.

"I can do this!" she thought to herself, slipping off her clothes, putting them on a shelf, and stepping under the warm water in the shower.

Ron leaned back in the hot tub and listened. Kim had talked to him briefly, right before bed, telling him to remember to be a man, not a horn dog, and don't hurt anyone's feelings. He had just dropped off to sleep when Big Mike woke him up. He needed Ron to get him into the baths without the house Artificial Intelligence "Bishop," warning the household about someone bathing alone.

"Really, Mike?" Ron complained, "It's not like you two are a secret. I'm surprised Mrs. Kravitz hasn't taken a garden hose to you guys when you walk past her house on the way home after school."

"Justina isn't that bad, and uh," Big Mike quietly said, "do you have my copy of your new swimwear ready for me?

"Yeah," Ron replied, "it took twelve yards of neoprene, but it's ready. You want it now?"

"Yes," the big man looked a little nervous, "and bring yours."

Ron immediately smelled a setup. "But I'm leaving as soon as Justine gets there, right? I'm not up for trying to ignore you guys being all kissy-face."

"I might need someone around to keep Tina from getting carried away…" mumbled Mike. The same guy who would have easily resisted the combined and individual advances of the entire Swedish Bikini Team plus all the Tri-City Cheer squads, but melted at the merest glance from his 'Tina.

Ron slipped into the farther hot tub, leaving the one closer to the doors for Mike and his instructor in the gentle, mostly innocent, intimate arts. Soon a thin blonde accompanied by a wavy-haired brunette walked in. The sunlight spectrum lamps in the shower area showed a red tint to her dark brown hair. It was his running buddy Crystal. "So this isn't a setup? Or have I missed a clue somewhere?" the young man thought uneasily.

Closing his eyes and leaning back, he listened. He heard the soft murmur of the two girls briefly talking, then one shower shut off. The second ran another couple of minutes. He heard dripping, probably one of them was wringing the excess water out of their hair. He didn't hear any footsteps. Yoriko had them practice walking silently, and when it came to running and martial arts, his running buddy was a quick study. The room wasn't silent, and he focused on the small sounds of the air conditioning, water pumps, and filters. He could tell someone was approaching by the way their body blocked some sounds and reflected others. Yoriko was much better than he was at all things Ninja. She would have accurately determined direction and distance.

"Ron, may I join you?"

Showtime.

Finite Middletons (Floating Lotus School of Enlightenment on Mount Middleton, Small Courtyard / Climbing Wall, Monday, 10 AM)

"Falling!" Crystal's scream echoed off the rock walls. She had been so close to the end of her climb that she had skipped attaching the last two carabiner clips securing her safety rope to the rock wall. The clips would effectively anchor her safety line to the anchor rings in the wall. Surely, she could make the last stinking, twenty feet without slipping. She was wrong. The extra distance she was going to fall was going to extract a price from her partner who was belaying her on the ground below, herself, or maybe both of them…

Ron slammed into the rock face, yanked off his feet by the jerk from Crystal's rope. But he didn't let go, stopping her fall safely. Jessica ran over and put her arms around the banged-up blond, helping to get him steady on his feet.

"Sorry!" called down the brown-haired girl.

"Not a problem," called back her tall blonde teammate, "If Ron had been paying attention to your hands and feet instead of your butt, he would have seen your fall starting and been able to brace himself properly. Do you want to be raised or lowered to get back on the climb?"

"Raise me about two feet, and I'll be good to go," was the reply.

"Hey, her butt falls just as fast as the rest of her. Not that I was watching it," protested Ron.

Together, they pulled their climber up two feet, where she grabbed onto the wall and began to regain her lost vertical distance.

"That was close, were you scared?" a dark-haired girl asked as an older Ninja reached out to help Crystal up onto the platform.

"Nah, it's just like cheerleading except Ron has a roped tied to me to help him with spotting. So, Hope, what are you doing here? Thinking of leaving the cheer squad?"

"Bonnie sent me over to see how you and Tara are doing, and maybe suggest that you come back if you weren't happy."

"Me and Tara?" Crystal's voice was a little dubious.

"Well, OK. Bonnie really wants Tara to come to manage the non-traveling squad, but we miss you too." Looking over the wall, they watched Ron walk over and pick up a different rope dangling down the wall.

Crystal lifted that rope off the edge and started to attach it to her harness when the older Ninja cleared his throat.

"Really, Ichiro-san?" she asked, "Like you haven't already checked it a dozen times today? If you were going to kill me, you would pick a more subtle approach than a loose knot on the anchor rope."

"Crystal-san," he replied with a straight face, "next time I might not be here to check your rope. Maybe I'm not here now, but I'm an evil impostor who's infiltrated the school."

"OK," Crystal wasn't annoyed. There was something about these older Ninja, something that made her trust them and want them to trust her. She walked over and checked the knots of the anchoring lines. Everything was tight.

"Please check my harness Ichiro-san," she asked politely.

The Ninja carefully examined her harness and how the rope connected to it. After making a minor adjustment on a leg strap, he leaned over the wall and called out, "Ready!"

Ron's reply was immediate, "On belay!"

Crystal stood with her back to the edge and said, "Hope, come down and find me. I've got an hour of free time; we can get a soda and talk." She then looked down to make sure her rope wasn't tangled, hopped off the edge, and bounded down the wall.

"Miss?" the Ninja held up what looked like a harness, "it is a lot of stairs to get to the ground, there is an easier way…"

Finite Middletons (Floating Lotus School of Enlightenment, Conference Room A, Monday, 10 AM)

"Relax, Tina, Ron caught her, and we'd have heard him swear if he had been pulled into the wall too hard," Mike Little had turned to look out the window as soon as she heard Crystal scream. He had been sitting in a window seat working on a reading assignment while waiting for his girlfriend to finish her meeting so they could take a turn on the climbing wall.

"OK, Mikey, if you say so, but I don't think that Ron Stoppable swears," Justine Flanner replied from the table where she was going over graphs and equations with Mr. Gray.

"It's not very inventive swearing, but a single growled 'Dammit' still counts," pointed out the thin alien.

"These equations make no sense, time travel is impossible!" the young physicist declared, pushing back from her seat.

"This term of the equation is often misinterpreted," Gray pointed to a spot on a page covered in mathematical symbols. "This is not a constant, but the root of a variable derived from phi and gamma."

The young physicist glared at the page as if it were purposefully keeping knowledge from her, then glared at the alien,

"Are you sure? You've said that you're not a mathematician or physicist."

"I've never claimed those skills, but I was in the room when the Master Physicists were explaining these equations to their senior students, and those students often made this mistake."

Justine furiously updated code using her smartphone, and then after her phone generated new information, she wrote a note in a notebook. Pausing with her brow furrowed, she said,

"Wait, that can't be right. If that were true, the universe is doomed, no cycles, no rebirth," she furiously scribbled in a margin, "Ladies and Gentlemen, one show only…"

"Then it is truly fortunate that we were born in the short interval where the universe existed, yes?"

Mike walked over and started massaging his beloved scientist's shoulders with massive, loving fingers.

"How much time do we have left?" he asked.

"Huh?" the young woman had sagged onto the table cradling her head on her arms, made suddenly boneless by her boyfriend's soothing grip.

"How long until the universe dies?" he repeated.

Dragging herself back up into a sitting position by sheer force of will, Justine scribbled notes on paper for nearly a minute while entering numbers into her phone. When the phone beeped, she looked at the display and answered, "Ninety-two point seven billion years, plus or minus a half billion years."

"Then we have time to climb the wall and a walk on the beach," the large young man said, physically picking up the slender girl and carrying her, giggling, toward the door.

"She'll be back in an hour, her mind all rested and ready to look at equations again, Mr. Gray," said Mike as the pair left the room.

"Maybe two hours," Gray heard a laughing Justine call back as they went out of his sight.

"Humans," muttered Gray, "So erratic, yet everyone wants some of them on their team."

Finite Middletons (Floating Lotus School of Enlightenment, Sub-basement under Small Courtyard, Monday, 10 AM)

Yoriko stifled a yawn as she watched Kimberly sitting in a recliner with Rufus sitting on her lap in his best, naked molerat Lotus Position. Before she was pregnant, a trip to deliver Tim and Jim to their uncle Slim's ranch and back would have been considered a relaxing duty. Now, it tired her out. She had wanted to stay in Middleton, but she allowed Hiero's desire to not let her out of his sight for more than an hour or two to override her desire to see to Ronald and Kimberly's MMP training. The truth was that she felt a little clingy to her "baby-daddy-san" as she had heard Jim and Tim refer to Hiero.

The morning had started with Ronald and Kimberly going over scrolls under her guidance, but the young man's mind had been too scattered, as they were being blown about by the winds of … passion, maybe? She had seen him without a shirt that morning; she raised an eyebrow at the chew marks on his shoulder but only got an innocent look in return. She had missed something by being away from the Stoppable home Saturday night. Surely an attack of her young charge by a pack of weasels would have made it into the morning report.

She had dismissed him early but kept Kimberly and Rufus to work on mental exercises. She knelt on a mat, watching the pair attempt to mystically travel to somewhere that Rufus wanted to take Kimberly. In a concession to the American inflexibility of knee joints, she had ordered several recliners to allow her students to concentrate on the mental and mystical without the pain from the physical body distracting them.

Seeing a soft blue glow surround the pair, she gracefully stood up. Eastern or Western body, it felt like her "chosen one" was choosing to bounce on her bladder. As she left the room, she spoke to her 'baby-daddy-san,' "Please watch them and see that they do not become distressed. I will return momentarily."

Hiero reached out and gave her a quick kiss. 'Some parts of Western Culture should be embraced,' she told herself.

Kim looked around as a jungle came into focus. She was standing in a small clearing caused by a fallen tree. Rufus was standing on the tree on his hind legs with his front legs raised over his head in the universal small-child sign language request for "pick me up."

She picked her smallest partner up and placed him on her shoulder. "Rufus, are you OK? Where are we?"

She seemed to hear static, which slowly faded as Rufus settled on her shoulder, leaning against her neck.

"The MMP lives here," a small but clear voice squeaked, "Kim, meet Kala, the embodiment of the MMP, Kala, this is Kim, she is my friend and an ally of the MMP."

Kim turned to see a huge animal of the ape family had appeared in front of her. She would later learn that it was a Mangani, the largest and most advanced of all the species of apes. Her second impression that not only was it considerably taller than her, but it was also at least three times her weight. She even guessed correctly that it was a fully grown, adult female. Her first impression was that her Kung Fu skills would be of no use should this ape be unfriendly.

"Where is the boy, rat?" the Mangani growled, "I would speak to my host."

"Mind your manners, Kala," an enormous black panther walked up, rubbing against the Mangani's leg, "This is his mate and the power flows through her. That is most strange. I thought she was supposed to be the Chosen One."

"She was," either a Mangani has a naturally growly voice, or this one was still annoyed, "the Mystical Monkey Monk said that the next Chosen One would be female and be able to break the curse. I will have a word with that fool when I see him next."

"Is there somewhere we could sit down and discuss this? I'm afraid that I've been reading scrolls of prophecy and MMP lore all morning, but none of this seems to be remotely familiar." Kim desperately wanted to channel this mystical meeting into something calmer, somewhere where she didn't feel like this giant angry ape threatened her life. Somewhere that she could ask about the "mate" comment.

Finite Middletons (Floating Lotus School of Enlightenment, Sensei's Conference Room (the one with the big fireplace), Monday, 10 AM)

"So, if Master Sensei and his people arrive on Friday, that gives us the weekend to let them get over jet lag before announcing the exchange program on the next Monday. Do we want Kim and Ron both going to Japan as two of the exchange students from Middleton?" Subira looked up from the papers and a calendar in front of her and took a sip of coffee. "After all, Ron did have that run-in with Fukushima in the previous timeline."

"I think that this Ron can handle him. Plus, we need to keep Kim on the new track. She is starting to get fixated on Josh Mankey, just like in the old timeline, and we don't have time for that. Sending them over together will give them a chance to bond without the distraction of fighting henchmen and dodging death rays," Wendy replied. "Did you see the list of students that they are bringing?"

"Yes, they are bringing our original Team Cobra minus Fukushima plus adding in Katsumi. I worry that they are bringing Katsumi to Middleton too early."

"Nonsense, she is smart, confident, and as adorable as a box of kittens. Wade might be a super genius masquerading as a perfect gentleman. Still, I'm sure that whatever magic made them fall in love will work all over again. We just need to find meaningful tasks for them to work on as a team," the Mistress Sensei sighed and continued, "No, the pair I am worried about is Wanda Wang and Suzy Chin. As I recall, those two were real troublemakers."

"Hmm, as I recall, the trouble was already made, our talent was in tripping over it by accident," Subira grinned at her partner in many crimes.

Finite Middletons (Floating Lotus School of Enlightenment, Small Courtyard w/ Climbing Wall, Monday, 10:30 AM)

Crystal watched Hope rappel down the smooth wall next to the climbing wall. Ron unhooked her and helped her to take off her harness. After exchanging a few words with him, she jogged over to the picnic table where Crystal was sitting.

"That was fun," she said, "and does everyone get Ron to spot for them, or does he only spot for special teammates?"

Crystal pointed to the climbing wall where Ron was helping Big Mike put on a climbing harness under the careful observation of Justine Flanner. She said, "Later when we have more trained climbers, senior climbers can spot for less experienced climbers. Right now, we only have Ichiro helping out. Normally, we'd have a couple of other senior instructor-ninja people here to watch the climbers."

"So, speaking of special teammates," Hope grinned to let her friend know that she wasn't getting off the hook that easily, "how are you and Ron doing? The last time we met for lunch, you were going to talk to Ron about filling your vacant boyfriend position, but next time I heard, you were going on a mission with him and Kim. Did you ever get a chance to talk to him? How was the mission?"

"The mission was interesting. We took seventeen tons of transformer and generator parts to a place in Yemen. I looked it up when I got back, Yemen is the bottom of the barrel for how women get treated. We worked for over twenty-four hours straight and then flew home."

"Did you get to fly in a C5A?"

"No! It was a giant dirigible. Maybe it was a zeppelin? Anyway, it was a lighter-than-air ship. Pretty amazing, it had this eccentric old Scotsman as the captain/pilot, and the first officer was his niece. No other crew, I got to be the loadmaster and direct the unloading of all the stuff, with Ron, Kim, and some local guys were my crew."

"That sounds like work!" replied the black-haired girl.

"Well, it wasn't too hard, Kim was embarrassing a lot of these young guys by out-working them. I think Ron put the hurt on some trouble makers. As I said, these people have no respect for women, especially ones that outwork them," Crystal reached into her bag and pulled out a passport and showed it to her friend.

"A Greek passport, were you undercover?"

"Nah, Mom is a Greek citizen, technically I'm a dual citizen, but check this out," she held her passport open to a page and showed Hope the entry and exit stamps."

"Paris, France?! Was that part of the mission?"

"We left Yemen late in the morning. We had been up for like 24 hours straight, so we went to bed and slept until around dinner time. After dinner, we were working on homework when Kate, she's Captain Killigan's niece, said they needed to make a stop for three, maybe four hours early in the morning. She told us that they wanted to meet with some potential clients, and would we mind having breakfast in Paris?"

"Wow, breakfast in Paris, that's so cool!"

"It was too rushed; I really want to go back. We were met at the hangar by some admin types who took our pictures. They put them in these weekly passes for their Metro system," pulling out a small hard plastic token and showing it to her friend. She continued, "this is good for all subway and bus travel in and around Paris. Thirty minutes later, we are at this cafe that Ron knew about. We had fresh-out-of-the-oven pastries with coffee. Kim thought French coffee was weak and ordered an espresso. After that, we stopped at a couple of markets for travel snacks and went back to the airship. I thought everyone we met was polite and friendly - the secret is that when you come up to someone, the first thing out of your mouth must be a cheerful, "Bonjour!" and then you are golden."

"But what about Ron? When did you get to confess your feelings on the mission?"

"I didn't get him alone! Don't get me wrong; the trip back was OK. We finished up our homework in time to stop for dinner at the Captain's castle. But Ron spent his time down in the kitchen cooking with Killigan. Then on the trip back to Middleton, we were either talking about Ron and Kim's past missions or Killigan's misadventures in golfing." Crystal rolled her eyes at the memory.

"So, when did you two get together? I mean, we've been sitting here talking, but your eyes have been on him, not me." The black-haired girl made a show of reaching for the brunette's collar and lifting it a little, "Hmm, is that a bite mark?" she teased.

'What the heck did she and Ron get into?' Hope wondered as Crystal's face showed a flush that went down to her neckline. There was no bite mark on her friend, that really was just a tease.

The flushed young woman looked her friend in the eyes and said, "It was in the Japanese tubs in Ron's basement…" She related her experience:

Crystal watched the wet blonde drip across the floor toward the tub containing her overly large boyfriend. Was that a little sway in the hips of the uber-serious physicist? She started to doubt just how closed Mike's eyes were when she saw a small smile appear on his face.

Starting to feel like a voyeur, she turned to look at the far tub containing a blond young man leaning back relaxed with his towel covering his eyes.

"I can do this!" she thought to herself, slipping off her clothes, putting them on a shelf, and stepping under the warm water in the shower. A quick rinse, including her hair, then she turned the water off, wrung the excess water out of her hair, and padded across the floor toward the tub.

Holding her towel in front of her for modesty, she walked over to the tub. Looking at her running buddy, she felt her earlier confidence start to fade, and she felt a cold touch of fear travel up her spine. Finally, she said, "Ron, may I join you?"

'Don't be stupid, this isn't Ramone, this is Ron Stoppable; Kim and Yoriko both would kick his butt if he mistreated me. No, who am I kidding? This is Ron; he'd never be less than a perfect…"

Her mental turmoil was interrupted by Ron speaking, with the towel still over his face.

"Crystal, are you OK?"

Hope interrupted her story, "Wait, didn't you take a bath earlier? What was the difference?"

Crystal replied, "There were three of us girls in the same tub, the guys were in the tub on the other side of the room, and Mrs. Stoppable was there. Somehow it felt like a normal get together at a friend's house. Just wetter… And with fewer clothes, but still normal somehow. Late that night, it felt like it was just Ron and me; Justine and Mike were in the other tub on the other side of the room." She continued her story:

The nervous young woman screwed her courage to the sticking place and replied, "I'm fine. May I join you?" A small voice in her head wondered where the heck one found a 'sticking place?' She told her doubts, "I don't know, but Lady Macbeth swears you can't fail if you stick it there.

Ron replied, "Sure. Be careful of stepping into the tub, the bottom is lower than the floor, so it's a step-down," her blond target said, not taking the towel off his eyes.

She looked into the tub; the water looked more like skim milk than water. She certainly couldn't see the bottom. Imagining herself slipping and performing an unplanned, less than graceful, cannonball dive into the tub, she thought she asked, "Could you give me a hand, please?"

He held out a hand, his eyes still covered. Folding her towel and placing it on top of her head, she then took his hand. Crystal thought it felt like grabbing an iron railing and noticed how his shoulder muscles stood out as she put her weight on him. With him to steady her, she smoothly slipped into the tub without making a splash.

"The water doesn't seem as hot as it was earlier," she said, as all her thoughts of witty dialog leading to her confession of her feelings vanished into the night.

"It's not. The hotter temperature can make you dizzy if you soak too long and then stand up. At night, Bishop turns down the water heaters in case a late-night bather comes in. It also saves a little energy. Were you having trouble sleeping, or did Justine rope you into getting her in so she could make out with Mike?"

"Yeah, about that, what's with those two?"

"They've been madly and deeply in love with each other for as long as I can remember. Best as I can tell, Justine wants to be more physically intimate with Mike than Mike is comfortable with. She figures that he just needs to be eased into it."

"Really? Aren't guys ready to go at the drop of a hat? Isn't there an expression, something about a stiff breeze?" she teased.

"I think Mike is afraid of hurting her; he's a pretty big guy."

"Oh? … Oh! What… Can you take that towel off your face so I can see your eyes, please?

She was interrupted by the sound of spraying water followed by a shriek, "Dammit Bishop, I WILL reprogram you! I wasn't touching Mike's private areas! The cold water spray was uncalled for!"

"I regret the intrusion, Mistress Flanner," the distinguished artificial voice replied in a tone that implied that it didn't regret hosing down the young genius one bit. "I detected that your left hand was traveling on a trajectory from Master Little's left knee that I projected to put it in grasping position of his..."

"It was a TEASE Bishop! I wasn't going to touch it."

"Very well, Mistress Flanner, I will adjust my trigger sensitivity. Please carry on."

Ron snickered, "When Bishop sounds like a British butler from a movie, that is programming from either Kim's Uncle or her dad. Programming intended to protect their daughters from boys."

She watched as Ron pulled his towel off his face, folded it up, and placed it on top of his head.

His eyes locked onto hers. Surely someone with such warm brown eyes wouldn't crush her heart if she showed him a little of it. Throwing caution to the wind, she said,

"Ron, do you like me? Because on our last date…"

Warm eyes suddenly turned panicked,

"Wait, we've been dating? Those were dates?! Why didn't anyone tell me? I didn't know! I should have brought you flowers! I should have showered to get rid of the chlorine smell the time I left straight from the pool…"

"Ron, it's OK," she surprised herself with her boldness, putting her fingers on his lips to quiet him. She took a breath and continued, "I liked hanging out and doing things with you as your running buddy. But I was worried that you didn't see me as a girl because you never tried to kiss me. I like you; I like you a lot. Can we give the boyfriend/girlfriend thing a try?"

"What does that mean to you? What do you want me to do differently?" A warm hint of relief rapidly replaced the panic in his eyes.

Relieved herself at how easy this was, she replied, "No big changes, just cuddling, and maybe kissing, stuff like that. We can start slow and see where things go from there."

"I'm all about the cuddles and kisses," the young man reached out and pulled his putative girlfriend into his lap…"

"Wait, you were both naked, and you sat on his lap?" Hope sounded deliciously scandalized.

"No!" Crystal laughed, "the goof had on a neoprene kilt! He claimed that it was an experimental SCUBA-kilt, but it wasn't working out. It was nice and smooth to sit on, though," she replied, blushing even deeper, remembering the ensuing make-out session with her more-than-a running buddy. They started with him cradling her in one arm, but she found that too restrictive. She boldly turned around, straddling his lap, freeing both of her hands to let her hands examine the muscles in his shoulders and back, putting her lips closer to his body, allowing her to taste his skin as she nibbled on his neck and shoulder. Ron's gentle caresses in places that were generally "safe" repaid her boldness. Another night, she might want more, but that night, her ability to be in control of what happened during this simple introduction to her protective, caring knight was what she needed. The fact that the house A.I. might hose them down with cold water didn't enter into her thoughts until much later.

"Ron is," she tried to think of how, to sum up, her experience, "simply amazing, a great guy," she sighed.

She was saved from further questioning by a cry from the climbing wall.

"Falling!" Mike's bellow echoed off the rock walls. He made the last twenty feet without a slip and without connecting his rope to the last several safety clips. He was at the top when he winked at the senior Ninja, then yelled his warning and fell backward in a perfect dive.

Justine had been expecting something like this the entire climb and was just starting to believe that Mike wasn't going to screw around when she heard him yell.

"Dammit, Mike!" she grumbled as she stepped back and prepared to hop into the air. Her timing was perfect. When the rope connecting her and her massive boyfriend snapped tight, she was ready, letting the safety line snatch her off the ground and swing her against the rock wall. Justine landed lightly with her feet against the wall instead of the full-body slam her predecessor had suffered. She took two steps up the wall as her weight and the rope running through the friction block brought her BF to a stop.

She was slowly lowered toward the ground as Mike reached out with one hand, grabbed a handhold, and started climbing the wall again. His strength was impressive. He had to climb about six feet using just his arms until he could get to a place where he could use his feet.

Justine looked down at her blond friend, who was standing by in case she needed help.

"Well, Ron, I hope you were paying attention, because that, my friend, is how you belay a buddy. Any comment on my performance?" the physics genius asked with a small smile, "Say, don't you have a word for it? One that starts with a 'B'?"

Ron stroked his chin thoughtfully. Justine often came off as cold and condescending. He had heard that earlier this year, MIT professors visiting the space center dropped by the school just to get her autograph. But as part of the "Blue Pimpernel Society," a small group of friends that started as an English class study group years ago, he knew better. Well, the condescending part was almost correct. She was so talented in physical sciences and math that she was barely able to keep her sense of superiority under control. But physical activities were something she that worked very hard at, something that didn't come naturally and certainly not easy, so,

"I certainly do. BOOYAH! BOOYAH!" Ron cheered his brainy friend.

Finite Middletons (Floating Lotus School of Enlightenment, Sub-basement under Small Courtyard, Monday, 11 AM)

"That was not what I expected at all," the panther said, looking in his bowl of milk at the image of the young red-haired woman get up a little unsteadily from an odd-looking chair.

"No it wasn't," replied the Mangani, her voice now smooth and comforting as one would have expected from a maternal protector and teacher of young ones, "It is a little distressing that she cannot command the MMP, but is the key to accessing it. I believe that has never happened in the long years that we have seen mystical monkey masters come and go."

"These might be shorter-lived than usual if they don't realize how much they need each other, grumped the panther.

"maybe I can impress the need for the two of them to be a mated pair on the boy," pointed out Kala, "and the true chosen one will be born soon. If she can break the curse, then our roles on this become academic."

"The girl has rejected the boy twice already, I fear a third time will doom them as a couple."

The Mangani looked thoughtful, "There is nothing that says they even have to like each other to support each other."

"Must be a primate thing…"

Credits

Check the details in my profile, but basically,

Disney owns Kim Possible and all related characters.

Sentinel103 was a source and inspiration for details of Yamanouchi Ninjas. Specifically Wanda and Suzy (Wendy and Subira)

ST103, CB73, and Daccu65 continue to help with story ideas. Thanks, guys!

Mindless Violence Fan who reminds me that at the end of the day, Kim and Ron must have each others back.