The little sampan rocked rhythmically as it slowly closed on the flotilla of sailing vessels, the two tireless bamboo-hatted boatmen working in relays to propel her with a single oar towards her unplanned date with uncertain destiny. Kim Possible, imminently a high-school senior and recent saviour of the world for possibly the hundredth time, sat cross-legged in relaxed and meditative contemplation at the prow of the sampan. The 4 magnificently decorated junks were moored in a row, stem to stern, right in the middle of Hong Kong's busy Victoria Harbour. She had first seen them from a distance, and even compared with the giant super tankers and bulk carriers of the busy trading port, they took were an impressive sight. Now they were hidden from her by rust streaked freighters and what the raven-haired teenager imagined might be a whaling factory ship. With the junks temporarily out of view, Kim's mind wandered to why she was here, now and not at home in Middleton enjoying her summer...

oOo

After the Little Diablo incident, which was really no big, and the Junior Prom, which had been... well... major drama, Kim had been looking forward to a summer spent trying to work out with Ron what the new and surprising direction their relationship had taken would mean for them both. That and just hanging out as boyfriend and girlfriend, and maybe even going on a date, preferably one where nobody tried to kill them or take over the world. However, less than a week after Shego and Drakken had been carted off to jail again, with nations around the world still counting the cost of Drew Lipski's diabolical scheme and their government's feteing Team Possible for stopping it from becoming much worse, Ron was suddenly summoned to Japan to resume training at Yamanouchi. Kim didn't know what Sensei had said to Ron, but Sensei had appeared to her in a dream and apologised. Actually, he apologised twice - once for taking Ron away from her just at the wrong time, and once extremely profusely for interrupting the extremely lurid and un-Kimlike dream she was already having. Which was the kind of dream she had never really had before she had kissed Ron. Well, perhaps just the once before, when Hirotaka was the steamy star. And there was that other very creepy left-field dream along almost the same lines involving Shego (which is why she had resolved never to eat cheese before bed time again). And after apologising, a clearly somewhat traumatised Sensei promised to always knock loudly before walking in to her dreams again, while for Kim's part she thought that with extensive therapy she might just be able to look Sensei in the eye again sometime before her 60th birthday.

A scant couple of days after Ron left, a wistful Kim was standing outside the penned off ruin of the Middleton Bueno Nacho franchise, idly watching the quantity surveyor appointed by some insurance company or other as he totted up the cost of putting it back into business on his clipboard, when suddenly the ground under her vanished and she felt the now unpleasantly familiar sensation of her internal organs trying to congregate in her chest cavity. A few seconds and several hundred feet later, she landed in front of Betty Director before stepping out of the travel tube somewhat queasily. Before she could compose herself to speak, Dr Director smiled disarmingly and proffered an envelope. "Hi Kim... this is for you" she almost purred.

"You shouldn't have!" replied Kim, expecting a mission briefing or an intelligence report. What she wasn't expecting was an ornate envelope, trimmed with what she could almost swear was real gold leaf, and dominated by a single golden Chinese pictogram.

"We didn't!" said Betty Director, redundantly. "We intercepted it en-route to you and now I'm delivering it". Kim bristled with outrage and exclaimed "You did what to my private mail?".

"Intercepted" said Betty Director, firmly. "I'm sorry, do you want the rest of the items we intercepted? I have a list here... there's 25 letters threatening to do depraved things to you, 67 assorted photos of male body parts, and 2 of female body parts... I think... 2 fake fan letters which our lab found were impregnated with different contact nerve toxins, one letter containing anthrax powder, and a parcel addressed to your brothers containing enough plastique to re-zone your neighbourhood, wired to blow when opened. That and 46 invitations to join the Readers Digest book club. That's this month so far. Would you like to take it all away with you or shall we leave it in your parent's mailbox?"

"Uh... no... thanks... that's fine.." said Kim, suddenly not as outraged as she had been. "So what's so dangerous about this that you intercepted it?" she asked, holding up the three-hundred dollar gold envelope suspiciously. "Nothing at all" said Betty Director, "except that we knew who sent it and we regarded it as a potentially high risk source".

"And..?" prompted Kim, still unwilling to risk opening it.

"It's an invitation; to a martial arts tournament; a very exclusive martial arts tournament indeed. And we would very much like you to accept!"

"A martial arts tournament? Where? When? Why" asked Kim, somewhat taken aback.

"Where? The South China Sea. When? Next week. Why? Well, I have a briefing scheduled for tomorrow afternoon when we can cover that in great detail. In the meantime, we have put the training dojo on sub-level 6, and our entire martial arts training faculty at your disposal, if you wish to prepare yourself. But Kim, please, don't break my instructors - I need them to carry on training my people after you've finished with them"…

oOo

At just that moment, breaking her reverie, the prow of another sampan appeared between the rusting stern of a Liberian registered freighter and a much tidier looking container vessel with a fluttering Red Ensign at its stern. Kim paid particular attention because, in a harbour bustling with small lighters, sampans and water taxis, only this sampan had a prow that angled upwards at about 30 degrees, and Kim instinctively wondered if she might be called on to dive into the filthy harbour to affect a rescue. As the jauntily angled sampan was gradually revealed to her, she saw first a large wooden travel trunk at the prow, and then, further aft... the mystery was solved and Kim grinned inwardly; a Sumo ninja!

The inward grin was momentarily replaced by an inward frown as she realised that it wasn't 'a' Sumo Ninja, but 'the' Sumo Ninja who Ron had so recently tangled with at the corporate headquarters of Bueno Nacho. When she and her sidekick had conducted a head count of their defeated foes before handing them over to the police, the 400lb master of Sumo-style Ninjutsu was nowhere to be found, having vanished into the night like a particularly dense ghost. A fresh inward grin pushed the frown aside though when she saw the Sampan so low in the water at the rear that the boatman who was not on paddling duty was kept very busy bailing frantically as the choppy sea splashed in over the perilously low gunwales. And since she knew where he would be for the next little while, she was sure she would be renewing her acquaintance with the mountainous shadow master...

Reassured that the other sampan wasn't actually sinking, Kim re-centred herself, and settled back once again into the Lotus position on the prow of her own sampan. Once again her mind wandered.. back to the aftermath of a hard morning in the training dojo, deep in the bowels of the top secret GJ facility, buried deep under downtown Middleton…

oOo

Kim bowed respectfully to the three sensei facing her, and they returned her bows, more deeply perhaps than she felt she entirely deserved.

"Thanks!" she said cheerfully. "That really helped a lot. I love your atemi-waza, Master Shen, and that empi and hira-ken combination is just awesome. Sifu Kung, that Sil lim tao technique just rocks. I can tell I'm going to have a decent bruise there. I'm really glad you showed me that, I didn't get caught by it twice, did I! And Sensei Jones, I just love that Ushiro Mawashi Geri and Tetsui Uchi combo, it's so dynamic, you know? If I didn't spend so much time fighting with Shego, that would totally have floored me the first time. But now, I have to get cleaned up and go to a briefing, so I'm not going to be able to continue after lunch today. But I'm really, really grateful for all your time and effort. Please pass on my thanks to Sensei Po and Master Singh for their time yesterday, I'm really sorry that they couldn't join us again this morning. Catch you later!". Kim span on her heel and danced away cheerfully towards the female locker room, looking as fresh as a daisy, after a day and a half of continuous semi and full-contact sparring with 5 of Global Justice's martial arts instructors. Actually, 5 masters of their various arts; GJ's pockets were deep when they staffed their training dojo, and their reach long.

oOo

Some, probably penny-pinching bean counters, might well have argued that employing the likes of a 9th Dan Shotokan master to teach low grade field agents how to defend themselves from henchmen was perhaps gilding the training lily, although given the size of the salary and benefits package, the Shotokan master himself was definitely not one of those likely to complain. Still, every once in a while he did yearn for something more worthy of his skills, and today he was reminding himself to be careful exactly what he wished for in future! The previous day had seen all 5 masters of differing arts and styles sparring with Kim in relays for the entire day. And they had made no impression whatsoever.

She was simply uncanny, reflected Bill Jones, as he offered his shoulder to the limping master of Jeet Kune Do who was struggling towards the men's locker room with a pained expression on his face. Bill had seen perfectly executed techniques from at least 7 other styles that he had recognised when he had faced Kim, and myriad blistering moves that he had never seen - or felt - before. Comparing notes in the canteen at lunch, they were able to tick off at least 14 styles of Kung Fu alone that they recognised between them, and some other moves that they thought might be from related styles or arts, not to mention at least three styles of karate, classical ju-jitsu, aiki-jutsu and tae-kwon-do. And they were all getting their backsides handed to them, gift-wrapped. Bill hadn't laid a finger or toe on her, only Hiro Kung had managed that, and then only the once all day with a Jeet Kung Do technique, and while she was demonstrating awesome control, he was not alone in getting sick of the staccato tap of her feet, knees, elbows and fists on his ribs, joints and head. Drastic action was called for, and they decided to introduce weapons into the training program for the afternoon. Not for Kim, but for them. Bill considered himself highly skilled with the Jo stick, a fearsome weapon against an unarmed opponent. After the first minute of his first sparring session after lunch with Kim, he had revised his objective from handing Kim her metaphorical butt to simply landing a strike on her. Just one.

As she back-flipped over the whistling Jo-stick for the 20th time and struck him with a jumping mae-geri in the chest just hard enough to mark him, he realised that even this limited objective might be unachievable this day. By the close of play that evening, the redhead was still bouncing cheerfully, and they were one instructor down after Kim dodged an overenthusiastic nunchaka strike that would quite probably have knocked her senseless, and the flailing handle instead struck the back of Sensei Po's head, providing instant retribution for his rashness and earning him a stretcher to the infirmary with concussion.

The next morning, Rasheed Singh cried off - he'd strained all the ligaments down the left side of his body hyper-extending in an attempt to kick Kim the previous afternoon, and found he couldn't actually stand up today. And now, Bill and his remaining two comrades held a breakfast council of war. They all agreed that there was nothing sexy about being humiliated by a 17 year old girl, however gracefully she moved, and they hatched a rather rash plan, in hindsight. Clearly Kim was incredibly athletic, but just because she could more than hold her own in a semi-contact bout, the strength and power - not to mention the pain factor - of full-contact sparring - would soon see her in her place. And thus it was that the three survivors broke out the head guards and the pads, and tried again. And this time, when Bill drove a fist that would have gone through Kim's chest and out the other side, if only it had connected, the sidekick that caught him in the solar plexus did more than mark him; it sent him flying across the room, knocked the breath out of him, and probably cracked a rib, in spite of the body pads.

In desperation, after three rounds of bone-crunching humiliation dealt out by a still chirpy Kim, another brief council of war during a pee break led them to play their final hand. They tried double-teaming Kim. And it nearly worked - Kim actually had to block one of his combination strikes instead of dodging it, as Hiro Kung synchronised his attack with Bill's. Close but no cigar.

By the time they decided to form a single team of three and attack her, they were all hurting inside and out. The decision to put the pads back on and make the final session before lunch full contact was perhaps as ill advised as any they had made when dealing with Kim Possible, but the urge to make her wince just the once was too great. Which is how Bill came to be hanging upside down from the wall bars at the side of the dojo, gasping for breath and watching Kim balletically despatching Hiro and Dick Shen to opposite corners of the mat. By the time he caught his breath and climbed down, there was nothing left to do but admit defeat and go eat some lunch. The depth of the bow indicated that he fully understood who had just given a lesson to who here. The news that Kim wasn't going to come back and whale on his 9th dan butt again after lunch actually lifted his mood quite considerably…

oOo

Kim bounced into the locker room, shut the door behind her and then slowed down to the relaxed walk of somebody who has just had an excellent workout, not that she wasn't mischievously enjoying deliberately giving the impression to the GJ training staff that she had yet to even break sweat, and gingerly explored her right bicep with her left hand. Yes, that strike really had taken her unawares yesterday, yes it had hurt like hell, and yes it was already bruising up, and would probably end up a hideous yellowy-purple colour. 'No more short sleeves for me for a while, then' she reflected ruefully. Although she doubted that there was much call for tank tops or bikinis at a martial arts tournament. And with that she stripped off the sweaty gi that GJ had lent her, peeled off and tossed aside the even sweatier panties and sports bra, grabbed a towel from the stack and padded purposefully into the shower area.

The training dojo was designed to cope with groups of up to 50 GJ recruits in training at a time on occasion, and the ladies locker room had a design capacity of 30, although space was necessarily tight in an underground complex. Consequently, there was a single open plan shower area, scoured by powerful jets of hot water from adjustable nozzles spaced around the walls, so Kim promptly adjusted several to point at one spot and then stood in the target area. She loved taking the kind of shower that threatened to peel a layer of her skin off - it made her feel so much cleaner afterwards, and the pummelling water massaged her tired muscles. Her shower at home was kind of wimpish by comparison. As she stood, almost luxuriating in the powerful jets of invigorating hot water, she turned slightly and put her bruised bicep straight in the way of a powerful stream of water, the sudden stab of pain catching her attention again with a start. She examined the growing bruise ruefully for a moment, then reached for the wall-mounted shower-soap dispenser and started to wash herself, beginning with the bruised bicep and its counterpart and then working down her arms.

Another dollop of the cleansing gel and she attacked her sweaty 'pits with vigour, realising as she did so that she could feel the sandpaper-like sign that she needed to shave them again. Kim frowned inwardly at this point, cursing the gender stereotyping that indirectly made her feel the need to spend time shaving off perfectly normal body hair.

Because who had ever heard of a head cheerleader with hairy armpits?

So Kim dutifully played the game and performed contortions with disposable razors every few days, but she had always seethed inwardly while doing it. One of puberty's less welcome gifts, she considered, alongside acne and of course periods.

On the plus side, though, there were boys, and breasts. She loved her breasts. And at that moment she suddenly realised that she had now been absent-mindedly "soaping" them for rather longer than was entirely necessary. The realisation made her blush. And then she scolded herself for prudishly blushing over nothing, rehearsing the mantra "exploring your own maturing body is perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of" that she had first heard spoken in an amusingly flat monotone by the narrator of one of those grainy videos she had watched in health class some years previously.

However, her soaping would be easier if her hands were actually soapy, so she revisited the dispenser to collect a couple of palmfuls and then attacked her chest again, this time making sure she generated a decent lather. Then she scrubbed underneath each breast, and in between them as well, two places that always seemed to feel particularly sweaty after a good workout. Looking down to pay attention to what she was doing, she noticed almost as an aside that where she had been absentmindedly fondling herself moments earlier, her nipples were still standing out proud like little pencil erasers. 'Just like they do when I think about Ron' thought Kim.

An image of Ron in his prom suit swam into her mind's eye and before she could stop herself, and without meaning to, she had mentally undressed the image down to its polka-dot boxers and was mentally pressing herself against the rather optimistically ripped physique of the imaginary Ron. She felt the sudden bloom of heat in her groin, and a tingle of electric pleasure both there and in those protruding nipples, and blushed an even deeper red. The open plan shower in the locker room of the GJ training dojo was no place to be getting hot and bothered about Ron, and certainly no place to... well, she hardly ever did that even at home, for all she knew that it was "perfectly natural and nothing to be ashamed of"; the embarrassment if anybody heard her doing it would kill her stone dead, she knew, so she could only contemplate it when she could absolutely guarantee that she would have the house entirely to herself, and that only seemed to happen three or four times a year.

No, she told herself, she was just going to finish cleaning up and grab some lunch before her briefing.

She grabbed another squirt of soap and started purposefully lathering her stomach, but she couldn't help herself from imagining it was Ron touching her, and the tingling sensations got stronger. She desperately tried to grab a hold of her rampaging hormones and get them back under control by force of will alone. But then she turned slightly to the right and arched her back to reach the soap dispenser with her left hand, and one of the powerful shower jets connected directly with the nub of her clitoris, and the bolt of pure electric pleasure momentarily swept every inhibition before it. It was only for a second or two, but by the time she remembered where she was and how embarrassed she ought to be, she was standing legs slightly apart and thrusting her crotch into the stream of water from one of the shower jets, while her fingers teased her rock-hard nipples, and her mind's eye played images of the aesthetically enhanced imaginary version of Ron doing things to her that she ought to be shocked by but wasn't at all. As part of her decided she didn't care where she was and surrendered to the building sensations in her body, another part was coolly analysing what she was doing and why. It was the combat, this small part of her decided. Not the exercise alone, but the thrill of combat. And the better the opponent, the hornier she felt. Kicking henchman butt hardly tweaked her libido, whereas the aftermath of fighting with Shego always left her sexually frustrated and needing a change of underwear. Meanwhile, something big was building, she was experiencing sensations that she had never felt before, however hard she had tried, and she hoped and believed it was an orgasm. Her mind's eye was full of disjointed images of Ron, most of them extremely erotic, but the one that bought her rushing towards her first ever climax was of Ron between her widely spread legs, driving into her.

That was when that other small part of her brain thinking about why on earth she was brazenly jilling off in a locker room put Shego's name into her mental movie projector, and suddenly she wasn't seeing Ron thrusting into her, she was looking at Shego's head between her legs, her tongue working at Kim's clit.

Instead of being the terminal passion killer that Kim would have imagined that image would be, on the contrary, in her disinhibited state it flung her right over the edge and hard! Kim Possible came big style, her first ever orgasm also a full-on five-alarm special. Her whole world exploded and next she knew, an indeterminate time later, she was laying panting and in a crumpled heap on the floor of the shower room, with zinging aftershocks pinging through her body. Her legs twitched involuntarily as she lay there, utterly spent, brain fried. Time stood still. Now she knew why people wanted orgasms. If they were all like that she'd need to ration herself if she wasn't to die of pleasure!

After 5 minutes, she felt able to try to stand, and started to wash away any evidence, real or imagined, of what she had just done. Her legs felt like noodles - she couldn't wash that away. And neither could she wash away what mental image had actually pushed her over the edge to her first orgasm. But she didn't have time to try to unravel that drama now. She hoped she would forget about it, but she didn't believe it for a moment. For now, she compartmentalised.

She'd deal later.

If she could.