Weeks passed, and the cub was now around the age that Simba and Nala were when they ventured into the Elephant Graveyard. She ran/leapt excitedly out of the den and gazed around her future kingdom. Or 'queen'dom if you want to get technical.

"Wow!" She said before running down to explore the Pride Lands.

"Whoa." Simba said, suddenly appearing.

He grabbed his daughter and gently set her down, but she started to run off again.

"Where do you think you're going in such a hurry?" He teased good-naturedly as he grabbed her around the middle with a paw.

"Daddy!" She giggled, trying to escape. "Let go!"

"Now I just want you to be careful." Simba said.

His daughter, instead of listening, started pouncing after a butterfly. Simba stopped her in mid-pounce with a paw on her tail.

"Kiara are you listening?" Simba smiled. "Accidents can happen, you can easily get hurt…."

"Hurt or stepped on or even get lost." Kiara finished, a little annoyed to hear the same old warnings that she had been hearing ever since she was born.

"And remember," Simba continued. "I want you to stay inside of Pride Rock at all…."

"'At all times', I know." Kiara finished, rolling her eyes. "'And if I see any strangers, don't talk to them, come straight home.' Okay, okay can I go now? Pleeease?"

"Very funny." Simba smiled.

Nala and my friends and I, just leaving the den, happened to overhear.

"Mind your father Kiara." Nala smiled, sitting next to Simba.

"Yes mom." Kiara said, half-annoyed/half-amused.

"And stay away from the Outlands." Simba warned, turning serious.

"Nothing there but a bunch of backstabbing murderous outsiders." Zazu added, just flying in.

"Zazu's right," Simba agreed. "You can't turn your back on them."

"Really?" Kiara asked. "How come?"

"Never mind, just run along now."

"But dad I…"

"You'll understand someday. Go on."

"Daaad." Kiara said, annoyed.

She nuzzled under her father's paw as the three of them purred before running off.

"And stay on the path I've marked for you!" Simba called after her.

Okay, quite a lot of us either hit ourselves on the forehead or rolled our eyes at that one.

"Simba," Nala chuckled. "Who does she remind you of?"

"Huh? What?" Simba replied. "Who?"

"She's just like you were when you were young." Nala smiled, nuzzling Simba.

"Exactly." Simba agreed. "Do you realize the dangers we put ourselves in?"

Nala playfully pushed him onto his back.

"You mean the dangers you put us in." She corrected, causing Simba to chuckle slightly as she nuzzled him again. "She'll be fine." Nala added before going back to the den.

But once she was out of earshot….

"Hey Timon, Pumbaa, c'mere." Simba said.

Timon and Pumbaa were gazing at the Pride Lands during the conversation.

"Good morning mon Capitan." Timon greeted Simba as Pumbaa walked over; Timon of course was on Pumbaa's back.

"I want you to keep a close watch on Kiara." Simba ordered quietly. "You know she's bound to run off."

"Don't worry Simba," Timon replied. "We're on her like stink on a warthog."

"Hey!" Pumbaa said, insulted.

"It's a hard truth Pumbaa, live with it."

"Guys I'm counting on you." Simba interrupted. "Danger could be lurking behind every rock."

"Aha." Timon said to himself.

Timon then looked left, looked right…and held his nose before he and Pumbaa left.

"Are there any dangers under those rocks?" Mandy said to Simba sarcastically.

Simba gave her a stern look before leaving to attend to his kingly duties. After that the team and the four of us all shook our heads.

"Doggone it," Numbuh Five muttered. "Simba changed worse than we expected."

"Yeah," Numbuh One agreed. "Sending Timon and Pumbaa after Kiara like that is pathetic."

"I agree." Penny P added. "Letting you know that a guardian is going along with you is one thing, but sending someone after you without letting you know is another. This will only result in startling Kiara, annoying her, and maybe even ironically causing her…."

"…To run off, I know." I finished. "That's the problem here, but unfortunately Simba doesn't seem to realize that. If only there was a way that we could make him see that his idea of 'protecting' Kiara will do more harm than good."

We all thought for a minute….

"I've got an idea!" Numbuh Two said. "You know how they say that a picture is worth a thousand words? How much do you think a moving picture is worth?" He grinned.

Understanding his idea, we all smiled.

"Okay Camera you heard Numbuh Two, get going." I ordered in a friendly tone.

"Roger that." Camera saluted…that is he would have saluted if he had anything to salute with.

He left at lightning speed in order to catch up with Kiara…

…Who was playfully chasing a butterfly along Simba's path. She probably would have succeeded in capturing it, but it was staying too high in the air.

"Hey, wait, come back." Kiara said to the butterfly. "I just want to play."

Instead of flying to a lower position, the butterfly landed on a rock in front of Kiara.

"Ah, mighty hunter has cornered her prey." She said to herself, crouching down in a stalking position.

She took a few steps and…missed, the butterfly flew away. Forgetting about the butterfly for a moment, Kiara moved to the top of the rock and looked at the view.

"Whoa, cool, the Outlands." She said to herself, sitting down. "Wonder what's out there."

Camera, wondering what she was thinking, turned on his most rarely used feature: mind reading. Here's what Kiara was thinking: Of course I'm not really going to the Outlands, don't want to get backstabbed, but still, it looks like a cool place to visit with the Superwolves.

Huh, it looks like Kiara is smarter than Simba was back when he was a cub.

Unfortunately, Kiara was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't notice anyone hidden in the tall grass behind her. Camera did and watched the movement in the grass…whatever was in there got closer…it neared Kiara…heck, you can almost hear the theme music from Jaws playing…it was just a few inches from the rock…Kiara suddenly sensed someone stalking her…she turned around slowly…and screamed! Timon screamed, Pumbaa screamed, Kiara screamed again, Timon screamed again, Pumbaa screamed again, then all three of them screamed at once…and Kiara backed away until she slipped into the pond below!

"Ooh don't worry Kiara! Uncle Pumbaa's comin'!" Pumbaa cried as he jumped into the pond.

"Oh no!" Timon cried before saying to himself: "Uh, ah, let's see, eh, 'gee Simba, the good new is: we found your daughter. The bad news is: we dropped a warthog on her. Is there a problem with that?'" He added nervously.

Meanwhile, in the pond, Pumbaa realized that it wasn't as deep as he first thought.

"Kiara?" Pumbaa said, looking around the water and not noticing the bubbles underneath him. "Kiara?"

"PUMBAA!" Timon called down. "Let me define: babysitting!"

Pumbaa was at first confused, until he realized that he accidentally landed on Kiara! He quickly leapt backward, allowing Kiara to come back up onto the surface. She came up spluttering, and then glared at Pumbaa once she caught her breath.

"Sorry." Pumbaa said sheepishly.

He and Kiara began to leave the pond.

"Now princess Kiara, as Simba's daughter, you know better than to go off all alone, you could've been hurt." Pumbaa said sternly; well, sternly for him anyway.

"Buh…buh…." Kiara stammered protestingly.

Okay, two descriptions of the irony here: it's sickening, and so thick that you can cut it with a knife!

"Hurt?" Timon said, worried, as he leapt off the rock. "Oh, Simba would kill us. You didn't slip a disk didja?"

"But…but." Kiara protested.

"…Get a fever? Get a hangnail?" Timon continued, taking a look at Kiara's paw.

"Timon!" Kiara said, annoyed, as she swiped her paw away.

"I had one once." Timon added, not listening to Kiara.

"Very painful." Pumbaa agreed.

"Excruciating." Timon agreed.

He then plucked one of those types of grasses that has long leaves on it and held it over Kiara's face.

"Darling, with your complexion you should stay outta the sun." He pointed out.

Kiara angrily swiped the grass blade out of Timon's hand.

"What?" He asked, confused. "Do you wanna wrinkle?"

"Will somebody please just listen to me?" Kiara complained.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't listening, didja say something princess?" Timon asked.

"I'm not just a princess you know, that's only half of who I am!"

"Oh, uh, who's the other half?" Pumbaa asked, curious.

"Well…I…um…uh." Pumbaa stumped Kiara with that one.

"Well while you're figuring it out, let's eat!" Timon declared.

Timon went over to a log and snapped his fingers, and Pumbaa lifted the log off the ground.

"Grubs!" Timon added, holding a leaf of bugs just like he did with Simba long ago.

"The other white meat." Pumbaa added, tossing the log aside.

Heh, another bit of irony there.

"And so high in protein." Timon agreed, offering the leaf of bugs to Kiara.

"Ewww!" Kiara said. "Gross!"

"No? How 'bout you big boy?" Timon asked Pumbaa.

Pumbaa sniffed the leaf of bugs deeply.

"*Ahhh*, love grubs." He declared.

"Not like." Timon agreed.

"Love." They both said.

Pumbaa then grabbed a bug and bit in one move…but then unexpectedly made faces that translated into 'picked the wrong one' and spat out the rest of the bug back onto the leaf.

"Oh, you always do that!" Timon complained. "You take a bite outta every one and then put it back, it drives me crazy!"

"But you can't tell from the outside which are the really slimy ones!" Pumbaa explained.

"Slimy?" Timon repeated, grabbing a grub. "Oh Pumbaa, my corpulent compadre, it's the crunchy one that make the meal."

Kiara rolled her eyes as Timon ate the grub.

"Slimy." Pumbaa corrected.

"Crunchy." Timon disagreed.

"Slimy." Pumbaa argued.

"Crunchy." Timon shot back.

"Slimy."

"Crunchy."

"Slimy."

"Crunchy."

"Slimy."

"Crunchy."

"Slimy."

"Crunchy."

"Less filling." Pumbaa said, changing the pattern.

"Taste good." Timon said, joining in.

"Less filling."

"Taste good."

"Less filling."

"Taste good."

"Less filling."

"Taste good."

"Less filling."

"Taste good."

And they continued on, but Kiara didn't hear more than that because she saw an opportunity to escape…and took it in one particular direction. Camera didn't follow her because he knew that it was now time to alert the team and the four of us to what we had expected from the beginning.