The Ninja and the Princess

Disclaimer: Even after a break I still don't own Kim Possible

Chapter Eight: Useless

please note all information scribed presented about regions, cities, and any other data should be considered a work in progress. New developments and new research can come to light or be presented at any time and archival staff may find it necessary to update relevant entries.

all information regarding important events, figures, concepts, and locations is provided courtesy of the royal archives in Middleton

please be aware that following the recent Royal Scientific Convention our archives are being updated with new information and records on general information may not be in proper alphabetical or numerical order for some time

-Excerpt from General Encyclopedia, Concepts Section, Volume XIII, subject Magic-

Anyone looking in the dictionary of the Royal Archives would see the following definition of magic, "Magic (noun): The art of producing effects or controlling events through the use of spells, charms, and rituals." This however is somewhat of a misnomer, in the widest sense of the word this standard definition is accurate and to allow for maximum accessibility of knowledge this is what is placed in general dictionaries. A more specific definition suitable for this entry requires us to consider the issue more in-depth. Magic as we understand it does not produce effects in the way the wider definition would seem to suggest, smoke and explosions are not only the purview of street performers but more often than not are a mark of incompetence. Real magic instead produces effects by altering natural properties, persons capable of Healing Magic use their powers to speed up and enhance the subject's natural healing. Other types of magic act in much the same way, a good rule of thumb for those seeking to understand magic is that magic cannot violate natural laws. Controlling events is a slightly more accurate definition but this must be presented with the caveat that more often than not it is the user of the magic who is controlling events rather than the magic itself. Persons possessing Mystical Monkey Power can use their powers to increase slightly their physical prowess, allowing them to perform great feats of combat and seemingly control events.

One thing we must note is the rarity of magic, research indicates that the ability to use any type of magic will occur naturally in at most two percent of the population. This two percent is roughly evenly distributed between Healing Magic, Mystical Monkey Power, and Kinetic Magic, some other forms of magic have been observed and reported but these are so rare as to be considered anomalies within an anomaly. The reason there are so few magic users in proportion to the general population, the actual number is far below two percent, is that of those two percent perhaps half will ever manifest any magical abilities, the other half never find themselves in any sort of circumstances where their magic might come out. Of that one percent of the population who has even one occurrence, fully two thirds of them will pass it off as a fluke and never have any further relationship with their abilities. Half of the remaining third will make some limited use of their abilities but never fully recognize them for what they are and so will remain limited in what they can do. This leaves one sixth of one percent who will actively seek to explore their magical talents, given the secrecy and dilute nature of organizations who might teach them we believe that only ten percent of these people will encounter others who can teach them the depths of their powers. Exact numbers are therefore fluid and uncertain but we can conclude with reasonable certainty that they are very small.

-Southern Rockwall Kingdom-

Captain Josh Mankey slowly dismounted his horse, slowly because his legs really hurt after that Drakanadian pikeman had managed to punch a small hole in his armor and put the tip of his pike about half an inch into Josh's leg. And then there was that hurt where his horse had fallen and he had been sent rolling, fortunately he and the horse had come out of it fairly unscathed but that didn't stop the multitude of bruises that now pained him. He could have gone on and on about the number of small cuts he'd gotten at various points during the day but that would have taken time he didn't have to think about all of those. He was in considerably better shape than the poor men being carried by on stretchers though. At best they would likely be stuck in a hospital tent for a week or more and far too many of them would go home missing an arm or a leg or worse yet never go home again.

There was nothing he could do about that though, just one of many things outside of his power to affect in the slightest. Just after he'd gotten back to the front a whole team of bards had shown up to compose an epic tale of his deeds. Josh had suffered through the smallest of his deeds being turned into some heroic quest, at the rate they were going he'd soon see standing in line for breakfast show up as some great crusade for justice and freedom. He was fairly sure the soldiers under his command were plain having fun with their answers, they knew darn well that he wasn't all he was made out to be and yet every time they got to rotate back from the trenches they seemed to top themselves in the deeds they could make up. And still he got the credit for nearly everything, he'd long ago learned that trying to outright deny doing anything would just be spun as modesty. The best he could do was try to spread that credit out as much as possible by saying that he couldn't have done everything on his own and his men had been critical to his success. And even when that worked it was always billed as 'Josh Mankey and…' but Josh had learned that settling for what he could get was about the best result he was going to be able to get away with.

He walked into his tent and making sure to not hit any sore spots took off his armor and chain mail before walking to his desk to check on the mail that had accumulated in the week they'd been in the trenches. It was mostly letters from people who bought into the stories about his being some great hero, by and large they wanted to shout his praises or encourage him to go out and single handedly defeat the Drakanadian army and end the war. One letter however caught his attention and caused his blood to drain out of his face into his feet, his parents had decided to write him. Before the last few days he would have looked forward to a letter from his parents, he looked up to them and they'd done the best they could with him. That was before he'd gotten the news that more than a few people thought that his supposed heroics meant he should court Princess Kim. If his parents got word of that they would all but move to Middleton to make the case that he and the Princess would make the perfect royal couple.

Like he'd told Ron he didn't have anything against Princess Kim, he just didn't know her and he wasn't a great fan of arranged marriages. And if his parents had their way he and the Princess would be married so fast it might as well have been an arranged marriage. Hands shaking he picked up a small knife and sliced through the seal on the envelope. Holding it upside down and gently shaking his parents letter fell out onto the table and partly unfolded itself. The trembling in his hands grew even worse as he slowly flattened the paper and began to read what his parents had written. Quickly he realized that his parents hadn't heard anything from anyone who thought he should court Princess Kim. However they had heard about his supposed heroics and as impressed as they were they wanted to know how he was going to 'use his newfound fame to find a respectable woman and give them some grand-children already.' Josh couldn't for the life of him imagine why his parents were so obsessed with finding him a wife, it wasn't like they were on their deathbeds and he wasn't in any danger of growing old stuck single.

Unfortunately for all that this letter didn't have anything in it he was too terribly afraid of it was nearly two weeks old. For all Josh knew his parents could be in a carriage to Middleton as he was reading their letter and another one could well be on the way saying they'd already decided on the date he was going to be marrying Princess Kim. From what he'd learned about the Princess she would likely take the news even worse than he would, and that was saying something as the only fights he'd ever had with his parents were over this exact topic. His best, and really only, hope to avoid his parents arranging a marriage was to be right thinking that Princess Kim's father would allow her considerable say in the matter. Knowing his luck though that wasn't likely, everything had gone right at the wrong time for him since this war started and it was foolish to think when he really needed it his luck would turn around.

"Captain Mankey?" A voice interrupted his increasingly morose inner monologue

"Yes," Josh turned to see his second in command, Lieutenant Ned, "what is it?"

"Two things sir," Ned stepped into the command tent, "the first thing is that a number of bards and message runners are asking to talk with you. I think they want to hear you talk about what you did up in the trenches since the last time they got any news."

"Haven't the men already had their turns spinning taller and taller tales about me?" Josh sighed.

"Yes sir," Ned answered, "But I think these people want to hear it from your mouth, it makes the story more popular."

"Not anymore true though," Josh grumbled, "can we just fend them off like always, say I'm planning our next move or something like that. Or maybe we should start saying I want the men under my command to do it so they can meet some real heroes, people in the trenches who don't get any recognition for it."

"We'll try sir," Ned jotted something down on a piece of paper, "sooner or later though you're going to have to go out there and lie to them some more."

"I'm aiming for later, much later," Josh wryly pointed out, "now you said there was something else you wanted to talk to me about?"

"I don't think I need to do much talking sir," Ned replied, "a messenger from the palace found me earlier today when I was setting up the camp with the advance party. He gave me a message with the royal seal and told me to give it to you."

"Wait a bit would you," Josh said as he took the letter, "if it's short I'll draft a response and have you run it out to our messengers so they can get our reply back as soon as possible."

Josh again used his knife to open the seal on the rolled up paper and with considerably steadier hands he unrolled it and began to read.

"Well congratulations Lieutenant," Josh stood up and extended his hand after he finished reading, "or should I say Captain?"

"Sir?" Ned asked.

"You've got a new job," Josh said, "mine in fact. And since a Lieutenant is not a high enough rank for such a command the General Staff has seen fit to take care of that by promoting you."

"But what's happening to you sir?" Ned had a slight air of disbelief around him.

"As much as I want to stop climbing the military ladder it seems I haven't yet," Josh rolled up the letter again and put it down on the table, "I've been promoted to Major and recalled to Middleton for reassignment. I leave tomorrow morning."

As Ned left to start spreading the word, Josh couldn't help thinking that he was still stuck in the right place at the wrong time.

-Middleton-

Kim Possible was not a happy princess. There was nothing wrong with her clothes, nothing was wrong with her hair, and there weren't any rodents around. Not that if any of those things were happening she would particularly care, clothes and hair were a minimal concern to her most of the time and she was perfectly capable of dealing with small rodents just fine on her own. Many a spell of naked mole rat sitting had proven that, she was glad that Ron had chosen to leave Rufus at Yamanouchi this time around rather than leaving his naked mole rat with her. Kim Possible was many things but shallow was not on that list. Kim was not a happy princess for one single reason, she was bored out of her mind.

She didn't much care that the war had more or less done the ball and gala season in and there wasn't likely to be another one for the foreseeable future. Her ladies-in-waiting were another story, she spent the better part of her day ready to strangle the simpering and giggling girls as she was forced to listen to them wail and moan about not being able to wear some gown or brag about how many men trailed after them at each opportunity. Well almost all of them, to her great relief one of them, a tall blonde named Justine Flanner, cared about as little as she did. Justine was a real math nut and considered large scale social events, that didn't have to do with math of course, a waste of her time. Kim didn't necessarily consider balls a waste of time, she appreciated that useful things could and did happen at the events but she hated having to put up with all the people who wanted to suck up to her or plead some hopeless idea.

"Excuse me Princess Kim," Kim looked up to see none other than Justine Flanner, "a word?"

"Sure," Kim motioned for her to walk into her study, "what's the sitch?"

"The other girls would like for you to sponsor a gala," Justine sighed, "I tried to convince them that it was a stupid idea in the first place and that you'd never agree to go along with it. But they didn't want to listen so I said I'd go ask you so when I came back with a no it would be from you."

"Well you can tell them no from me," Kim arched an eyebrow, "now did you really want to come ask me that or did you just want to get away from them for awhile?"

"A bit of both actually," Justine admitted, "They've been bugging me to ask you and I wanted to get a no from you just to shut them up. But I did and do want to get away from them, they go on and on all day long giggling about dresses this and men that."

"Tell me about it," Kim buried her face in her hands, "I don't even have to put up with it all day and I'm ready to knock some heads by the end of it. If you want to stuff some of the fluffy pillows in your lounge down their mouths to keep them from talking I promise I'll look the other way, after I watch you do it so I can cheer you on."

"Please tell me you aren't serious your highness," Justine said with some trepidation, "if you are I might go right back to that room and take you up on your offer."

Kim paused for almost a whole minute in thought, "Nah, I guess you shouldn't. It'd be fun and all but in the long run it'd be more trouble than it's worth. Make sure they know that my no to their silly little ball means any balls in the future and that if they press the matter I'll come shove those pillows myself."

"With pleasure," Justine had a smile on her face as she walked to the door, "thank you Princess."

After Justine left Kim was once again stuck by herself, whenever Ron was around she could always count on his company if no one else's, but he had been away on long missions for so long between his fateful mission with Yori and then rescuing Princess Bonnie that Kim was getting lonely without him around. Of course she wasn't alone, even with a war on there were still lots of people around the palace but aside from her family and Justine she really didn't know any of them. And even them she didn't connect with like she did Ron, in retrospect she would have been quite willing to naked mole rat sit Rufus just to have a small, in physical size at least, part of her best friend with her.

Finally her boredom reached a point where if she didn't get up and do something, anything, she would explode. Walking out of her study she decided to go find her parents, if there was anyone who could come up with something she could do to keep herself occupied it would be one of them. Not quite storming along she made her way down the corridors of the palace, past the multitudes of people who stopped to bow or curtsey briefly as she passed by, eventually reaching her parents private study.

"Mom, Dad?" Kim poked her head through the door.

"Kimmie cub," her dad looked up from his desk, "what brings you here."

"Not much," Kim stepped into the room, "where's mom?"

"Down at the hospital," her dad sighed, "she thinks that since she can help she should and as much as I hate to admit it we do need all the doctors we can get helping out."

"Yeah," Kim grimaced, "I really wish she didn't have to do that."

"We all do," her dad put the paper he was reading down on his desk, "now why don't you tell me what's going on with you."

"It's nothing important," Kim said, "I'm just…"

"Bored out of your mind?" Her dad filled in the blank.

"Yeah," Kim started thinking out loud, "My whole life I've been raised to do everything I can and now I'm stuck here when I should be doing everything I can to help save the Three Kingdoms."

"Well I just might have something," her dad smiled, "I've been trying to decide which of the many generals and admirals around here I should send to Upperton to oversee our buildup there to try and take this war to Drakanada. If you feel up to it I think you'd be the best choice to send, there's one person on the way from our lines in the Rockwall Kingdom I'd like to send with you but that wouldn't mean more than a few days delay."

"That sounds great," Kim said in mild amazement, "is there anything I need to read up on before I go?"

"I'll make sure it gets sent to you tonight," her dad replied, "before you go though there's someone I want you to meet, he's going to be filling the opening in your bodyguard. He's supposed to be meeting me right now about his duties but I see no reason he can't meet you."

The door opened and a young man a few inches taller than Kim with brown hair walked in and bowed quickly as he saw her. "An honor your highness, my name is Eric and I pledge to look after you with my life if necessary."

AN: Bad news I spilled orange juice on my laptop, good news me and a hairdryer showed that orange juice who's boss. So I know I'm evil to leave poor Tara in limbo another chapter, believe me I do know what happens to her. But I've got to keep Kim and Josh's plot threads moving along so you'll just have to wait for next Friday to find out what happens to Tara. Which you know, you should come back to find out what happens.