[Middleton Karaoke December 6th, 2003 9:40 PM]
"No." Kim said as she crossed her arms and sunk lower into her seat. Though she took care not to wrinkle her nice dress. She had dressed up for the night.
"C'mon KP. We all agreed to do this." Ron said as he leaned on the table. He wore a nice blue shirt, but he kept his cargo pants. "I took my turn, now it's yours."
"I never agreed to this. Besides, I don't want to go up there and make a fool of myself." Kim said as she closed her eyes and tried to ignore everyone around her.
"Kim, karaoke isn't about sounding good. It's about making a fool of yourself and having fun." Naruto said as he looked at Ann and James sing a duet. They weren't great, but the atmosphere was making everyone have fun. Naruto himself wore a nice button up shirt and some dress pants. Kim had asked him to dress nicely and he had obliged.
"If it'll make you feel better, I'll choose the song." Naruto said as he bobbed his head to the music.
"Naruto, you and my dad have the same taste in music." Kim said as she knew the kind of music that he liked.
"Hey, I don't know how that happened, it just did. Besides, I know you don't like my taste in music. That's why I had Monique give me a list of songs she knew you'd like." Naruto said as he held up a piece of paper.
"As long as there aren't any high notes." Kim she relented, but then she said, "This means that I get to pick your song though."
Raising an eyebrow, Naruto quickly tried to figure out if she was trying to embarrass him, but he couldn't find anyway she could. "Alright then. It's a deal. That means that you're up next."
Getting up from his seat, Kim saw him walk over to the DJ in charge of the music and begin speaking to him.
"What is he up to?" Kim asked herself as she narrowed her eyes at Naruto's back.
"No idea, but he seems pretty proud of himself." Ron said as he saw Naruto coming back. The smug grin Naruto wore made Kim nervous, but she couldn't say anything as her parents sat down from their turn at the mic.
"Oh that was fun." James said as he drank deeply from his water. Next to him Ann was giggling.
"Naruto this was a great idea." Ann said in between her giggles.
"And it's about to get better. Guess who's going to be singing next?" Naruto said with a shit eating grin, while looking at Kim.
"Oh Kimmie that's fantastic! I know you'll do great." Ann said as she hugged her daughter. Kim smiled even though she felt apprehensive.
"You know what we say Kimmie, anything's possible for a Possible." James said as he saw the look on Kim's face.
"You're right dad. I'm Kim Possible. I can do anything." Kim said as she stood up and went towards the stage.
"Oh she's going to hate me when she sees the song." Naruto said as he began to laugh a bit.
"What song did you pick for her?" Ron asked as Naruto was still smiling.
"Oh you'll see." Naruto said while continuing to smile. Pulling out his cell phone quickly, he called Wade. "Okay, start recording."
"You got it." Wade said before ending the call.
"NARUTO!" Kim yelled from the stage. Now laughing out loud, Naruto tried his best to stop, but couldn't.
Looking at the song he chose, Kim decided to just bite the bullet. "Go." She told the DJ. Seeing her nod, Kim took a deep breath.
Hearing the Kimmunicator beeping sound come through the speakers, Ron's eyes got wide and he slowly turned to look at Naruto. "You didn't."
Laughing even harder, Naruto tried to say something, but couldn't.
"Ooohh yeah yeah. I'm your basic average girl..." Kim began to sing and Naruto was finally able to get his laughter under control.
As she was glaring at Naruto, she tried to keep a frown on her face, but as she sang she began to remember how much fun she used to have doing it. Arriving at the part where she had to sing her name, Kim gave up trying to stay annoyed and just enjoyed her time singing. It also helped that the crowd was roaring with appreciation.
"You know that you always can call, Kim Possible!" As Kim sang Naruto smiled at seeing how much fun she was having. Kim could deny it all she wanted, but she enjoyed singing.
"I think you're in the clear now." Ron said as he leaned next to him so that they could actually speak to each other.
"I knew that she'd love it. I just had to make sure that she actually went up." Naruto said back as Kim finished her song.
"You do know that she's going to get back at you right?" Ron asked as he stood up and clapped with the rest of the audience.
"Oh big time, but it was worth it." Naruto said back with a smile.
x-x-x-x-x-x
"I need an embarrassing song for my friend to sing." Kim said with a smirk as she looked at the DJ.
"Most guys are embarrassed to sing love songs." The DJ said as she shrugged her shoulders.
"Perfect. Which one would you suggest?" Kim asked with a grin. This was going to be great payback.
x-x-x-x-x-x
"She's coming back and she's grinning. I don't think things are going to end well for you." Ron told Naruto as he saw Kim coming back with a giant grin on her face.
"Your turn next." Kim said as she grinned at Naruto.
"Oh Kimmie that was beautiful. I hope this means that we'll be hearing you sing more often." Ann said as she drank from her nonalcoholic drink. She was driving everyone home after all.
"I wouldn't get your hopes up mom." Kim said plainly. Singing had been fun, but her voice almost cracked on the higher notes. It was only through supreme effort that she hadn't.
"Well, even if she won't, you can just look up the video online." Naruto said with a grin. However that grin turned into a full blown smile, when he saw Kim turn her head slowly in his direction.
"What do you mean, video?" Her glare only made Naruto chuckle.
"Did you really think I wouldn't have Wade record it?" Hearing her sigh of resignation, made him feel a bit guilty. Grabbing her hand, he squeezed it a bit and looked at her. She smiled in return and squeezed his hand back. It was nice knowing that she wasn't angry at him.
"Well, I believe it's my turn. Wish me luck." Naruto said as he stood from the table and went towards the stage. Grabbing the microphone, he looked at the screen and saw the song name.
Speaking into the microphone, Naruto said, "Jokes on you Kim! I love this song."
Hearing drums being playing, Naruto began to sway with the music. At the table, James perked up. "Oh I love this song."
"We're no strangers to love..." As Naruto sang, he began to stare straight at Kim.
Seeing him look straight into her eyes, and hearing him sing the love song, Kim thought to herself, 'My plan has backfired spectacularly.'
As Naruto began to get more and more into the song, Kim realized that she was beginning to blush. His intense gaze combined with the singing was a bit too much at once. Grabbing her drink and purposely avoiding his gaze, she looked off to the side.
However, her blush became even worse when she saw that her mother was grinning at her. Except this wasn't a simple grin, it was one of those knowing grins. Her mother was going to talk to her when this was over.
At the same time though, she looked back up and saw that Naruto wasn't just focusing on her anymore. Though he did wink at her when he saw that she was paying attention to him again. She just smiled softly.
x-x-x-x-x-x
[Naruto's Home 11:30 PM]
"Are you sure you don't want to stay over tonight?" Ann asked as Naruto got out of the car.
"Thanks, but I have a lot of work I need to do that I've been putting off." Naruto replied as he pulled his keys out of his pocket.
"Well, alright then, just don't overwork yourself." Ann said, but then Kim cut in, "He's going to overwork himself no matter what we say mom. That's just him."
Smiling at her daughter, Ann just laughed. Waving goodbye at them, Naruto opened the door to his house and locked it behind him.
Sighing, Naruto began to unbutton his shirt. He looked great, but he enjoyed wearing looser clothing. Throwing that on his couch, which he now realized was getting dusty from disuse. He went down to his workshop. He had paperwork to fill out.
x-x-x-x-x-x
[Possible Home December 7th 2003 12:15 AM]
"Now Kimmie, did you know why I wanted to talk to you?" Ann said as she drank from her tea. It was late and she didn't want to stay up late from drinking coffee.
"I don't know. Maybe it had to do with the look you gave me when Naruto was singing?" Kim asked as she looked away from her mother's knowing eyes.
"You'd be correct. I don't like beating around the bush, so I'll just get straight to the point. Kimmie, do you have a crush on Naruto?" Ann asked seriously. As much as she wanted to poke fun, right now Kim needed her to be serious.
"I... think? I'm not really sure." Kim said as she looked down at her hands.
"Well, I think your reaction to Naruto singing that love song was a pretty strong indicator of what you're feeling." Ann said with a small grin.
"The thing is, I've been feeling like this for a while, but I don't really know if I'm crushing on him." Kim said as she started playing with her hands.
"Well, let's change Naruto with Ron. How do you feel about him?" Ann asked as she helped her daughter sort through her feelings.
"Ron? He's one of my best friends." Kim said raising an eyebrow at her mother's change in subject.
"And how do you feel? Do you feel the same about Ron as you do about Naruto?" Ann asked neutrally. It was interesting to see her daughter realize the different feelings she had for her friends.
"No. I don't. When I think of Ron I kinda think of him like a brother, but when I think about Naruto... things get weird." Kim said honestly. She had already known this, but saying it out loud made it seem much more real.
"Well, then it's obvious that your feelings for Naruto are changing. Though, the question is what are they changing into? Luckily though, you have plenty of time to figure things out. Don't rush anything and see what happens. Your feelings might revert back or they might even change some more. Who really knows?" Ann said as she shrugged her shoulder.
Smiling at her mother, Kim said, "I think I'll do that. It's not like I really have much of an idea of what I'm doing anyway."
"Well, you can always take solace in knowing that Naruto will never let you down. He'll never run around and desert you. He'll never make you cry. He'll never say goodbye." As Ann spoke, she gained a smirk once she saw her daughter was connecting the words.
"He'll never tell a lie and hurt you." Ann finished before she burst into laughter at seeing Kim's face begin to blush as she remembered Naruto's performance. Covering her blushing face with her hands, Kim still smiled at the memory.
x-x-x-x-x-x
[Naruto's Workshop 2:30 AM]
Smacking himself on the forehead, Naruto tried to keep himself from screaming out in anger at himself. He had kept the Tiger Talisman overnight once and he had forgotten to run tests on it. Letting out a breath of frustration he decided that it was a lost cause and that he should just focus on what he could do now.
Bringing up the energy readings in section 13 Naruto looked at them for a moment before turning to look at something else. A moment later though, he froze. Turning his head slowly, he looked at the energy readings again and paid more attention to them. The readings had increased threefold. Going back into his records, he correlated the date and time and then he compared it to where he had been at that time.
Looking at the data told him that it was exactly what he thought it was. The Tiger Talisman had done something to the other talismans. It didn't stop there though. The energy of the Tiger Talisman had increased as well as a result of the other talisman's energy increasing.
Thankfully though, the large energy boost was only a one time thing. However, the talismans' energy was still increasing like before, but at a faster rate.
Bringing up the pictures he took of the Tiger Talisman, he looked up the symbols in his library. Finding the corresponding book quickly, he began translating it. In the mean time, he brought up Project Uber.
Looking up all of the candidate materials for Kim's battle suit, Naruto looked them over. Each one had a flaw in it that made Naruto hesitant to use it. Many of these materials were sturdy, but they weren't flexible enough. Others were flexible, but they weren't sturdy. Some would require that the suit become bulky and that wouldn't work.
Sighing, Naruto removed them all. He and Wade needed to create a brand new material that was flexible, sturdy, and that wouldn't need to become bulky. They'd also need the suit to be able to repair itself. They could use the nanomachines they had, but Naruto wanted nanomachines that thematically went with the suit. It was a tiny insignificant thing, but he was a perfectionist about the things he made.
Unfortunately, he didn't have enough time to invest to making a brand new material. The talisman's needed to be researched, his company needed to find that information leak, and he still needed to start thinking up a plan to take down North Korea. This wasn't even taking into account all of the projects his company was working on and that he needed to be up to date on.
Taking a deep breath, Naruto decided to break things down. The talisman's were an immediate problem, so that took priority. The information leak in his company, while worrying, wasn't that important as all that was leaked was information about him that would have become public knowledge in a few years.
The North Korea thing was where he hit a snag. It was obvious that at the moment he couldn't really do anything about it, but at the same time people were dying. He was stuck between making that his main project or bringing someone in to help. However, he couldn't really make it his main project as he had too many responsibilities.
Sighing, he pulled out his cell phone and with heavy fingers he began to put in the number to the only person who would be able to help. "Hello Betty. I'm going to need your help."
x-x-x-x-x-x
[Himalayan Mountain Range December 7th, 2003 9:00 PM Local Time]
"You like your new suit Rufus?" Ron asked Rufus as Team Possible walked towards the temple.
"Ya huh!" Rufus said as he nodded his head while wearing the knitted suit that Naruto had made for him.
"Why did you just make Rufus a Rufus suit?" Kim asked as she turned her head back towards Rufus and smiled at seeing Rufus wearing a bigger sized suit of himself.
"I thought it made him look cute." Naruto said seriously as he pulled his balaclava up to cover his nose more.
The Himalayan mountain range's higher elevation made it colder than what Team Possible was normally exposed to. As such, they were wearing warmer clothing than they usually did for cold missions. Each one of them wore a fur lined jacket with a hood and balaclavas to protect their faces from the cold. Along with that they wore goggles so that the cold air didn't sting their eyes.
To make sure that they were visible to each other in the snow covered mountain tops, their jackets were brightly colored. Kim wore bright red, Naruto bright green, and Ron bright blue. Rufus was inside Ron's pocket and with his cold suit he was quite toasty in it.
Walking inside the temple, Team Possible lowered their hoods and took off the balaclavas.
"Man it's hard to breath with those things on." Ron said as he scrunched his nose up and breathed in the air.
"It's that or you can just have your lungs freeze." Kim said as she put on the visor she got from Naruto during their mission to get the Dragon Talisman.
"Call Me, Beep Me, If you-" Naruto flipped his phone open quickly and turned away from Kim so that he wouldn't have to stare at her glare.
"Hello?" Naruto answered without looking at who was calling.
"Naruto? It's Sylvan Green." Eyes widening in recognition, Naruto now had his full attention on the phone call.
"Dr. Green! Is something wrong? I thought you were going to do all of your correspondence through email?" Naruto asked as the doctor had a preference for that.
"Oh, nothing is wrong it's just that I couldn't wait to tell you the good news. We've had a breakthrough modifying the fertilizer for crop production." Dr. Green said excitedly.
"That was really quick. I expected this to take far longer." Naruto said as he scrunched his face up and tried to figure out if Dr. Green and his team was working for longer than they should. It had happened before when a few teams got too enthusiastic about their projects.
"I thought so too, but I forgot to include the resources you provided. As a result we've had far greater progress than what I was able to accomplish on my own during my retirement." Dr. Green said before he got excited once more.
"But that's not the reason I called. We've been able to successfully grow a number of crops in a matter of days when it'd usually take months to do so. We're currently running tests on them to see how they compare to their normally grown counterparts." Dr. Green said with barely controlled excitement.
"As of now I want daily reports. I don't care if it's just to say that nothing new has been found out." Naruto said considering how this would affect his future plans.
"No problem, but I've got to go. They're about to test the calorie count of the crops." Dr. Green said before hanging up.
Putting his phone away. Naruto turned around to see Kim examining the talisman they had come retrieve.
"You and Dr. Green are working together?" Kim asked as she handed Naruto the visor and the talisman.
"Yeah, I asked him to come out of retirement." Naruto said he looked at the Horse Talisman and flipped it over to see the symbols in the back.
Raising an eyebrow, Kim tried to remember what she could about Dr. Green. 'Retired weapons expert. His information is obsolete, so it's not about weapons. But he is the only person in the world with a super growth fertilizer.'
"The fertilizer?" Kim asked with a small smirk as she figured it out.
"Bingo. We're trying to see what we can do with it." Naruto said without revealing anything.
"Well, I can't wait to hear about it when you make it public." Kim said as she walked passed him to her snowmobile.
"You coming?" Kim asked with a muffled voice as she had put her balaclava back on. Nodding to her, Naruto put his back on as well and saw that Ron was doing the same.
Getting on the snowmobile behind Kim, Naruto wrapped his arms around her while making sure that the talisman was secured. Once done with that, he looked over to Ron and saw that he was ready as well. Getting a thumbs up from him, Naruto gave one back. Squeezing Kim's stomach a bit, she nodded her head at his signal and began to go down the mountain.
x-x-x-x-x-x
[9:30 PM]
"Remember when I told you that you'd find out why I didn't take the ship up the mountain? Now you know." Naruto said as he saw the avalanche's aftermath from the safety of the ship.
"That wasn't our fault right?" Ron asked as he saw tons of snow that had collapsed on top of the temple they had found the Horse Talisman in.
"Not likely. This entire area has been hit with a lot of snow in the past few weeks, so an avalanche was just waiting to happen, but I didn't want to risk the ship causing an avalanche." Naruto said as he tried to find any remains of the temple they had been in.
"Let's go put the talisman in Section 13 and then just go home. The sooner we put this one away, the sooner we can relax." Kim said as she stretched and snuggled into her chair with a blanket.
Looking at her, Naruto decided not to comment that she reminded him of a cat.
x-x-x-x-x-x
[Naruto's Workshop December 7th, 2003 11:30 AM]
Reclining in his chair, Naruto took pleasure in knowing that one of his personal projects wasn't running into any sort of problems.
The modified nanomachines for medicine project or MNM, as he labeled it, was nearing completion. It had taken him some time to figure out how to make the nanomachines break down into material usable by the body, but he had and afterward he assigned the project to a team that was familiar with medical technology.
They would handle any little problems the nanomachines might have when working within the human body. Naruto didn't really think it was necessary as the nanomachines were designed to operate within the human body without causing any damage, but it was a necessary precaution. The last thing he wanted was to have someone die because of a mistake on his part.
Unfortunately, Naruto's happy mood quickly disappeared once he began to think about his proposal to GJ. Betty had decided to consult her top agents to see if his proposal had merit, but Naruto already knew they would accept. Except that Naruto knew that it wouldn't be without him having to sacrifice something and he already had an idea about what it would be.
Hopefully, the entire endeavor would be worth it.
x-x-x-x-x-x
[Middleton High School December 8th, 2003 12:10 PM]
"Why is everyone staring at me now?" Naruto asked as he ate his lunch.
"I'd say it has to do with your new clothes. Which by the way, I approve of." Monique said while looking at Naruto with an appraising eye. He had done away with the orange t shirt and cargo pants in favor of a red collared shirt and jeans.
"You should thank Kim. She pretty much made me get new clothes on Saturday." Naruto said as he pointed to Kim with his fork.
Turning to Kim to ask something, Monique froze when she saw the glare that Kim sent her. Quickly connecting the dots, Monique got a small smirk on her face and raised an eyebrow at Kim in question. Realizing what she was doing, she stopped and tried to play it off, but Monique saw right through it.
Having an entire conversation using nothing but facial expressions, Naruto remained oblivious to the fact that he was the subject of their conversation. He was focused more on how Ron and Amelia were acting.
Their body language had changed.
It used to be that they almost seemed scared to express how they felt about each other, but that didn't seem to be the case anymore. They were relaxed, happy, and, best of all, completely at ease with each other. Something had changed yesterday when they separated after delivering the Horse Talisman.
Hopefully that meant that Ron would finally introduce Amelia as his girlfriend to Kim.
x-x-x-x-x-x
[Naruto's Home 4:20 PM]
"You know, when you told me you were going to introduce Amelia to Kim and that you wanted to do it at my house, I thought that was smart." Naruto said as he sat on the steps in his backyard with Ron and Rufus.
"Thanks, I wanted a neutral location, you know? In case things got ugly." Ron said as he picked up a rock and threw it as far as he could. He didn't have to worry it hitting anything since Naruto lived on an air field, or aerodrome as he called it.
Nodding at Ron's reasoning, Naruto continued. "However, I can say without a doubt that I didn't expect to be kicked out of my own home by Kim as she interrogated your girlfriend."
"I didn't expect Kim to kick you out either." Ron said as he got tired of rock throwing and just looked off into the distance.
"Why do you think she needs the whole house for?" Naruto asked as he turned his head to look at Ron.
"I have no idea. Don't you have this place set up with all kinds of security cameras?" Ron asked in response.
"Of course I do." Naruto said rolling his eyes.
"Then why don't we see?" Ron asked as he stood up.
"I trust Kim not to do anything bad. She's probably just asking a bunch of embarrassing questions." Naruto said as he squashed the urge to look through his security cameras.
"Oh god, I hope not." Ron said as his eyes widened.
Raising an eyebrow, Naruto decided not to ask and instead decided to lay back, but a call on his phone interrupted him. Pulling it out of his pocket, Naruto flipped it open and answered, "Hello?"
"Mr. Uzumaki."
Sitting up, Naruto replied, "Betty, you got back to me pretty quickly. I'm guessing things went well when you gave them my proposal?"
"There were a few who were wary, but overall we have decided to go through with it, but on a few conditions." Betty told Naruto as he tried to get a feel for her response. Unfortunately, she was a super spy for a reason.
"What conditions?" Naruto asked while imagining the worst possible scenario.
"While we might have unlimited funding, even we can't produce the material that the plan would need quick enough and as a result we need to modify a few things." Betty said but before she could explain more she was interrupted by Naruto.
"Don't worry about the materials or the cost. I'll provide everything and no I won't tell you how." Naruto said as he already knew that she was going to ask that.
"Very well then." Betty drawled out slowly before returning to her list of conditions. "North Korea is a dangerous place for anyone. We are going to need something that can help us stay safe while inside the country."
"I already talked it over with my buddy and we agreed. We'll provide GJ with the stealth technology that you're currently having trouble creating." Naruto said as he knew that would guarantee GJ's support for the plan.
"How do you know about that? Was it online?" Betty asked with emotion for the first time in the call.
"No, I got that from when you hacked into my systems to get my phone number." Naruto said with a smirk.
"I never received word that we were hacked." Betty said in a tone that let Naruto realize that someone was gonna get chewed out.
"My system is designed so that when it's attacked it attacks back. Unfortunately, all I was able to get was information on the stealth technology you have been developing." Naruto said honestly as the GJ's systems had been able to repel the attack soon after it was initiated.
"I see." Betty said before sighing. "The final condition has to deal with the conditions you put forward."
Staying quiet, Naruto listened as she explained the last condition. "You wish to enact a nonviolent revolution in North Korea. Something like that is incredibly difficult to do and you wish to do it within a matter of months. We have to extend the deadline."
Closing his eyes, Naruto knew that the longer a revolution took to succeed the more likely it was to turn violent. As it was by the end of summer was pushing it. Opening his eyes, Naruto replied, "We can't do that. The longer this takes the greater the risk of violence."
"You want to remove a dictator from power. There will be violence. The best we can do is minimize it." Betty replied calmly.
"Not if we get the military on our side." Naruto replied smoothly.
"You are asking us to turn nearly 10 million people against their own country." Betty said incredulously.
"When you say it like that, it sounds impossible." Naruto said jokingly before he answered seriously. "People are people no matter where they're from. No one wants to be the cause of despair for someone else."
"What about sadistic murderers who enjoy inflicting pain on others?" Betty interrupted finding a flaw in his reasoning.
Sighing, Naruto said, "I was trying to make a point about how we're all human and because we can help people we should. Now you went and ruined the whole thing."
"My apologizes. Would you like to start over?" Betty asked, regretful that she had interrupted.
"No, the moment's gone." Naruto said sullenly before he followed it up with, "Anyway, even if they're soldiers they're still human. All we have to do is convince them a few at a time and then when the time comes we get them all to follow through. The ones that don't we capture and detain before anything can happen."
"I'll discuss this with my people." Betty said before hanging up. Hearing the line go dead Naruto looked at his phone with narrowed eyes. "Not even a goodbye?"
"You're gonna give up your stealth tech?" Ron asked completely surprised by what he had heard.
Turning to look at Ron in surprise, Naruto had forgotten that he was there. "Yeah. It's the only way I was sure that GJ would actually go through with the plan."
"But that's your and Wade's most prized work. I remember how you two would work for days at a time trying to get it to work." Ron said as he looked at Naruto intensely.
"Yeah, but if we get GJ's help with this then it's a small price to pay." Naruto said looking away from Ron.
While the stealth technology was something that he and Wade had made together, it legally belonged to him. However, Naruto didn't feel right just giving it away without Wade's approval. Thankfully, Wade had been understanding. Unfortunately, it did nothing for the feelings of guilt he now carried.
"Don't tell Kim." Naruto said suddenly without looking at Ron.
"Dude, she's gonna find out." Ron said as he saw that Naruto was doing his best to not look at him.
"Yeah, but I want to be the one to tell her. I don't want her to feel guilty about this." Naruto said as he turned back to look at Ron and let him know how serious he was.
Whatever Ron was going to say was cutoff as the backdoor to Naruto's house was opened.
"Ron? Amelia wants to talk to you." Kim said before holding the door open for him.
Watching Ron walk into the house, Naruto raised an eyebrow at Kim as she sat next to him and laid her head on his shoulder. Laying his head on hers, Naruto closed his eyes and breathed in Kim's scent. It was a nice smell that he never really bothered to identify.
"She's really nice." Kim's sudden statement, brought Naruto out of his zen like state.
"Well, if Ron's dating her then she can't be that bad." Naruto said in response.
"Well I wasn't really expecting it. I really thought she was just going after him as a way to get closer to you." Kim said as she grabbed Naruto's arm and started playing with his fingers.
"Ron's got a way with people. He can usually bring out the best in them when he doesn't try to be someone he's not." Naruto said as he just observed Kim playing with his fingers.
"That's true." Kim said as she stopped playing with Naruto's hand and just held it.
Enjoying the moment, Naruto decided to ruin it. "I contacted GJ about helping us bring down North Korea."
"I don't see why they wouldn't help. This is right up their alley, isn't it?" Kim asked as she remembered reading about the many classified missions that GJ had done.
"Oh yeah, but they had a few issues with my idea. One of the problems was the deadline. We want to finish it by the end of summer, so that we don't have to worry about it during the next school year." Naruto said as he began to comb Kim's hair with his fingers.
"So then what'd they say?" Kim asked with her eyes closed as she enjoyed Naruto's ministrations.
"They're wary, but I offered them something and I'm pretty sure that they'll accept." Naruto said as he knew that Kim was about to ask what.
"What did you offer?" Kim half asked half mumbled as Naruto's fingers were putting her to sleep.
"I offered them my stealth tech." Naruto said without missing a beat and continuing his activity.
Kim though, had a different reaction. Her eyes shot open as she realized what Naruto had said. Getting off his shoulder, Kim looked Naruto in the eyes. "But that's..."
"I already talked it over with Wade and we agreed that it's a small sacrifice if we can take down North Korea." Naruto said cutting off whatever Kim was going to say.
"Besides, the stealth technology is already a few years old. We needed a new version anyway." Naruto said with a small grin.
"I can't let you do that." Kim said with a frown. She received a snort in response.
"Kim, I'm not asking for your permission." Naruto said as he looked directly into her eyes. "I'm telling you this so that you don't raise a fuss later on."
"I don't like it." Kim said as she turned her head away.
Rolling his eyes, Naruto responded. "It's not like I'm giving it to them and then destroying mine. I'll still have my stealth technology. It's just that Wade and I won't be the only ones with it anymore." Naruto finished with a shrug.
"If you're sure." Kim said as she looked back and saw that Naruto was smiling.
"I am. Now, let's go bother those two lovebirds. I don't want them to start mating inside my house." Naruto said as he stood up.
"Eww, why'd you have to go and put that image in my head?" Kim asked as the thought wormed its way into her mind.
"Because I just thought of it and if I had to suffer, so do you." Naruto replied with a cheeky grin.
x-x-x-x-x-x
[6:00 PM]
"We aren't going after the remaining talismans today." Naruto said into his cell phone as he looked through his fridge.
"Why?" Jade asked as she browsed the internet on her laptop.
"There's an eight hour time difference and it's about 2 AM, so we'd get there around 3 AM." Naruto replied as he tried to find some food that wasn't expired. Looking at the expiration date of some milk, he was repulsed by how long ago it had expired.
"What about tomorrow then?" Jade said as her attention was drawn to the website she had found. It was for InfiniTech.
"I'll probably go alone later tonight around one or so, and with the eight hour time difference and the one hour of flight time, I'd arrive at around 10 AM, or so. That way there's plenty of light." Naruto said as he looked at how much trash he had pulled out of his fridge. Using his Omniband, he sent out four cables which encompassed the trash in a sphere. With a few thoughts, the trash was completely converted into energy and absorbed by the Omniband.
"Wait, are you gonna go after both?" Jade asked once she registered what Naruto said.
Looking into his empty fridge and deciding that he needed to go grocery shopping, he replied, "If I can. Though, if any of the others have been any indication I probably won't be able to."
"Tell me about it. Did Jackie tell you what happened when we got the Monkey Talisman?" Jade asked as she looked through the website and found a catalog of things they had made. Most of it was just stuff that wasn't useful on its own.
"No, he just told me that you had some trouble. I didn't really ask for details because I don't think he wanted to talk about it." Naruto said as he created a new clean trashcan.
"We had retrieved the talisman, but we were marooned on an island by a freak storm. I didn't come to until later in the day and a monkey had stolen the talisman. I was able to get it back, but apparently the Monkey Talisman is voice activated." Jade said as she remembered being turned into a monkey simply because she had said it out loud.
"What did it do?" Naruto asked as he focused on the story and leaned against the counter of his kitchen.
"It apparently transforms you into any animal. Luckily you can change back to normal pretty easily." Jade said with obvious relief in her voice.
"Hmm, so only the Dragon Talisman is inherently a weapon." Naruto said out loud without realizing it.
"Wait, what about the Dragon Talisman?" Jade asked now wanting to know what the Dragon Talisman did.
"Shit, I said that out loud didn't I?" Naruto said exasperated at accidentally breaking his word to Jackie.
"Yes, now what does the Dragon Talisman do?" Jade asked excited to know more about the magic talismans.
"I promised Jackie I wasn't going to tell you, but if I don't you'll just go and use it yourself won't you?" Naruto asked even though he already knew the answer.
"Yup." Jade said in a cheeky tone.
Sighing, Naruto decided to tell her, so that she wouldn't do something dangerous. "The Dragon Talisman releases a fireball that explodes on contact."
"No way." Jade said breathless as she imagined using it.
"Don't use it." Naruto said immediately after.
"I wasn't going to." Jade said trying to deny the fact that it did occur to her to use it.
"I agree with Jackie that the Dragon Talisman is too dangerous to be used lightly. Jade, you should only use it if you're in danger." Naruto warned as he knew that while Jade was a good kid, she was a bit rebellious if her continued dismissal of Jackie's warnings was anything to go by.
"Fine." Jade relented as he was right about it being dangerous.
"Good. So, how was school? Did you get detention today?" Naruto asked as Jade began talking about Ms. Hartman being a jerk.
x-x-x-x-x-x
[Naruto's Workshop 10:25 PM]
"Shouldn't you be going to sleep soon?" Naruto said into his phone, as he read the report that Dr. Green had sent him.
"I would, but my giant teddy bear is gone." Kim said slyly, as she looked through the winter catalog of Club Banana.
"You don't have a giant teddy bear." Naruto said confused as to how he had never seen it in her room.
"I'm talking about you dingus." Kim said with no rancor.
"I've been demoted from best friend to teddy bear?" Naruto asked incredulously as he stopped reading the report to put his full attention on the call.
"No, you just got new duties to perform. Ever since mom and dad told us that they've known that you sleep over, I've gotten used to having you there." Kim said honestly as she enjoyed the physical contact.
"I still don't have any idea why your mom and dad even allowed it when they found out years ago, or why they even let us keep doing it." Naruto said honestly as it was something that just kept bugging him.
"Weren't you the one who once told me not to look a gift horse in the mouth?" Kim asked amused that it was bugging him so much.
"Yes, but this is different. No sane parents would allow a young man to sleep in the same bed as their daughter." Naruto said without realizing he insulted James and Ann.
"Are you calling my parents crazy?" Kim asked as she frowned and put her catalog down.
"Of course not." Naruto said without even knowing that Kim had gotten close to getting angry at him. "But they aren't normal that's for sure. Then again, we aren't either."
"What do you mean?" Kim asked once she knew that Naruto hadn't meant to insult her parents on purpose.
"Think about it Kim, a brain surgeon and a rocket scientist. Both of them easily near the top of their respective fields. Your mom does brain surgery almost daily with such skill that she gets asked to video tape her surgeries so that others may learn from them. Your dad is in charge of the Hephaestus Project, a secret government research project to create actual cybertronic technology and they're actually making headway.
The thing is though, both of these jobs are stressful as hell and yet they only work from about 9 to 5. That shouldn't be possible for normal people, and then they have children.
One of them ends up being a teenage hero who goes around the world helping people and saving the world when the called upon to do so.
Then you have the twins. Both of them are geniuses, even though right now they're more interested in blowing stuff up, but geniuses none the less.
Kim, some of the rockets they've tested over here are amazing. I'm actually kind of scared to see what they could do if I actually let them have access to more dangerous materials." Naruto finished with a small chuckle.
Taking a moment to gather her thoughts, Kim realized that Naruto hadn't actually said anything about himself. "What about you, Mr. Billionaire?"
Taken by surprise that Kim knew he was a billionaire, he asked, "How do you know about that?"
"My dad mumbles a bit when he wakes up. He said something about you and billions and I kinda just took a leap." Kim said, proud that she had figured it out.
"Uh huh. Well to answer your question, I'm weird too, but not just the good kind. Obviously I'm an insomniac, but it goes away when I'm near a certain redhead which shouldn't be possible, but somehow it is.
I'm a genius and I have my own multi-million dollar company that's fit to expand and grow into a billion dollar company in a few years, if I play my cards right." Naruto said without going into too much detail about himself.
"That's it? Come on, Naruto. You know you can do better than that." Kim said teasingly.
"I'm just talking about the things we've accomplished." Naruto said as he returned to reading the report on the super growth formula.
"Really? That's all the genius teenage billionaire has done?" Kim said while trying to make Naruto say more about himself.
"Yup." Naruto said while already catching on to what Kim wanted him to do.
"What about-" "Lights out Kimmie."
Turning her head, Kim saw her mother flipping the light switch. Now in the dark, Kim knew she had to end the conversation. "This conversation isn't over."
"It is for now." Naruto said with a smile. "Goodnight Kim."
"Goodnight."
Hearing the call end, Naruto went back to reading the report. Though he now realized that he had no idea about what he head just read. Starting over, and actually paying attention to what he was reading let him know that the quickly grown crops were about a third less nutritious than their normal counterparts.
The report continued on saying that the results were promising and that more testing needed to be completed before it hit the market to be sold.
Incredibly pleased with how the fertilizer was coming along, Naruto archived the message. Looking at the time he saw that he still had time to go over some more work he needed to finish.
x-x-x-x-x-x
[Netherlands December 9th, 2003 10:20 AM]
Prying the Dog Talisman out of the wall, Naruto took pictures of it. Once he was done with that, he put it away. Walking out of the windmill he walked towards his ship. It seemed that he had just been paranoid when he thought that things were going to go wrong.
x-x-x-x-x-x
[Bavaria Clocktower December 9th, 2003 11:00 AM]
Shooting a grappling hook into the air, Naruto saw it latch onto some rails. Lifting himself up, he came face to face with the mechanical pig that had the Pig Talisman on its forehead. Pulling it free, he took some pictures of it and as he prepared to climb back down he heard a voice.
"Angry Crow Takes Flight!"
I'm very sorry that this chapter took so long to come out. My excuse is two fold. My old laptop crashed and I lost some data. I was able to recover it, but still I wasn't going to risk it again. Then when I got my new laptop, which was a big upgrade from my old one, I found out that I could finally play the games I had. Of course this meant that I marathoned through a few of them. Just the other day I finished the Mass Effect Trilogy. It was fun, but it ate up all of my free time.
Also, school is tiring. It might not be difficult, but god can it just zap your energy.
Now let's talk about the story itself!
The last two talisman's have just been recovered, but as Naruto was recovering it something happened! This chapter will probably be the last calm chapter before things start heating up, so I hope you're looking forward to that.
I had Jackie and Jade go through some hijinks when retrieving the Monkey Talisman, but not to the extant that it happened to them in the show.
Some of you are probably wondering where the Dark Hand is right? Well with Naruto having the exact location of the talismans, they think that they are just beating the Dark Hand to them. However, we all know what's really going on, and I'll expand on what they're doing later on.
One final important note, this story is going to start to go through more adult situations. What I mean is that since this is a story about teenagers going through high school and a big thing that happens in high school is learning and dealing with things like drugs and sex. Just to nip it in the bud, no one in this story is going to start doing things like cocaine or meth, that's just crazy. Another thing is death. People will die in this story. Not our main characters obviously, but people will be dying.
Also remember I'm following the timeline of 2003 in our world, so world events are going to be affecting our characters. Of course, in the future, the timelines will begin to divert and then become completely different.
This means that in the future I might be forced to change the stories rating to M. Oh and another thing, I'm not going to do any sex scenes. They will be implied, but they aren't going to be written. There are many reasons for this. One of them is that I don't write that. Another is that I don't believe that my story would flow well with them in. It'd just ruin the tone of the story.
This does not mean I'm asking for people to write them for me. I'm not, and I will not put them into my story even if you do write them.
Like always leave a review or PM me if you have any concerns, questions, or you just want to talk about the story.