Disclaimer: The Walt Disney Company owns all rights to the characters and situations associated with Kim Possible. I borrow Kim, her family and friends for no monetary gain. I do this only to have time away from my bitchy, overbearing girlfriend. I guess that did work. She left me.
The Closet II
Chapter 14
Studies Away From Home
Twenty white clad fighters surrounded the two teens who were dressed in their normal mission outfits, standing in the middle of the courtyard.
Well actually, there were twenty bodies.
Only two of the designated enemy, Hirotaka and Yori to name them, were still standing and they were barely keeping their feet while the other eighteen students writhed and moaned on the ground. Kim Possible-Stoppable and her husband of barely a week, Ron Stoppable, where looking as fresh as the proverbial daisy as they quickly caught their breath.
"I believe this exercise is at an end," Sensei serenely stated as he stepped into the combat zone and assisted one of the white clad students to his feet. He walked over to Kim who was helping another student up and said, "The way you and Stoppable-sama fought side-by-side, yet independently without a spoken word, only proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that you have truly bonded."
"That was kinda amazing," Kim chuckled as she casually swiped an errant strand of hair from her brow back into place behind her ear. "The more Ron and I work together or spar the more I'm beginning to sense where he is and what he's doing, even without seeing him."
"I'm sensing the same thing about KP," Ron said as made sure a female student was able to stand and walk. When he got a weak, nodding smile from her he let the girl hobble off under her own power. "What's really weird is I can sometimes hear Kim's thoughts in my mind while we fight."
"I'm getting that too," Kim said as she linked arms with her husband, "though Ron's thoughts aren't coming through very clear some of the time. But he did talk to me telepathically once before."
"Telepathy is an unexpected occurrence," Sensei said in a bit of a surprised voice as he stroked his long white beard in thought. "The only other person to possess both the Lotus Blade and Mystical Monkey Powers at the same time was the warrior Toshimu, in the year 338 A.D. As you know Stoppable-sama, he is the one who constructed this school using only the Lotus Blade. But he did not have a partner, a wife or beloved one, with whom he could share the Mystical Powers with."
"So Ron and I are kinda in uncharted territory," Kim said as she, Ron and Sensei walked over to a building and entered. "That means our connection and how we can use and improve it should probably be the main focus of our studies while we're here at Yamanouchi."
"To tell you the truth," Sensei said as he led the teen couple into a room that appeared to be the school's library, "the bonding, Stoppable-sama's sharing of the Mystic Powers with you Possible-sama, was only conjecture and theory until you both proved it was possible." Shelves lining the walls of the tiny room were filled to capacity with seemingly ancient scrolls and recently dusted off, old books.
"Wait a minute," Kim said, taken aback by Sensei's last statement. "Are you saying that Ron and I got married and did IT just to prove a theory?"
"It was a theory," Sensei said as he sat at the table in the middle of the room, "but one that needed to be proven since it was postulated by none other than Toshimu himself. He was unable to convince any of the local women to marry him because they were all afraid of his great power and he supposedly died unwed, many, many centuries later. Still, he wrote down the knowledge he received from the Mystical Powers, and the bonding theory was something he was most adamant about."
Sensei grandly swept his hand around the room indicating all of the ancient texts around them as he said, "In this archive room you will learn all that is currently known about Toshimu, the Lotus Blade and Mystical Monkey Powers. Once you have that basic knowledge it should be easier to comprehend the situation you are in and delve deeper into your bond."
"But Kim and I don't know how to read Japanese," Ron said as he plucked a book off of one of the shelves, opened it and tried to recognize any of the kanji written on the page. He slowly shook his head, not being able to do so. "It'll take us decades to translate and understand all of this."
"That is where this room comes into play," Sensei said as he got up and toggled a book on one of the higher shelves. The shelf it was sitting on slide down into the floor revealing a small alcove that housed two desks sitting side-by-side, each with a computer screen and keyboard. "These two computers have all the pertinent information from the archive on them in English." Sensei turned to leave the archive, saying over his shoulder, "If you need assistance with anything, Yori and Hirotaka will be at your beck and call."
"Well if that's the case," Kim said as she sat down in one of the chairs, booted up the computer and turned on the computer screen, "let's get started."
"I shoulda known we weren't getting outta learning something on this trip," Ron chuckled as he followed his wife's lead and sat down next to her at the other computer terminal. "I guess class is now in session."
xxxxxx
Later
"Are you ready to eat something Ron-sama?" Yori jovially asked as she wheeled a cart ladened down with sushi rolls and a big steaming pot of tea into the archive room. "I remember the extent of your appetite from your last visit and you two have been studying now for three hours."
"Three hours," Ron groaned and sat up straight, cracking his spine back into alignment. He stood up and walked out of the alcove, into the archive room. "I think I am a bit peckish. Thanks."
"Yes, domo arigato Yori-chan," Kim said with a yawn and stretch as she turned in the chair. "I could use a break right about now too." She got up and joined the two teens at the table in the archive where Yori was laying out the meal.
"How is your research going Kim-sama?" Yori casually asked as she poured tea into three cups. "I was in charge of correlating and translating the materials onto the computers so I know how much data you need to pour through. It is a most daunting task."
"Ron and I divvied up the material," Kim said before biting into a California Roll. She briefly chewed and swallowed before continuing. "I'm reading the material on the Lotus Blade and Toshimu while Ron is studying all the information you have on the Mystical Powers."
"Which isn't very much," Ron added before he popped a Tuna Roll topped with a dab of wasabi and a slice of ginger root into his mouth and swallowed it whole. "I mean it's mostly theory and conjecture that Toshimu wrote down beside the stuff he was actually able to use during his life." He picked up another sushi roll, put a healthy amount of wasabi on it and tossed it into the air, catching it in his mouth and happily chewed it twice before swallowing.
"Ron, manners," Kim unemotionally intoned to her husband.
"Sorry KP," Ron shot back with a growing grin. "I guess I sorta back-slided since we're on the other side of the International Date Line." That brought a light laugh from the two teenage girls from Ron's minor joke.
"Anyway," Kim concluded as she gratefully picked up her cup of tea, held it close to her lips and deeply inhaled, savoring the aroma, "whatever Ron reads, I seem to suddenly know and understand."
"The same with me and whatever Kim is studying," Ron nodded in agreement.
"So you each gain the knowledge that the other one is comprehending," Yori recapped as she placed a few pieces of sushi on the plate in front of her using as pair of chopsticks. "If that is the case then you should be able to get through all of the material in half the normal time."
"Spankin', isn't it," Kim chuckled and sipped her tea.
"Hey," Ron perked up with a thought and turned to his wife, "maybe that's why I've been doing better in high school this last year. You've always been the better student KP. Maybe I've been tapping in to your knowledge through our bond and Oz-Moses."
"I believe you mean osmosis Ron-sama," Yori giggled, "but you can not be correct in your assessment. The bond between you and Kim-sama would not have happened until after you received the Lotus Blade, passed some of your Mystical Powers on to her and then bonded which only happened one week ago."
"But I dreamed of Ron using the Lotus Blade before he received it," Kim mused in deep thought, remembering her dragon slayer dream that was interrupted by Ron's first nightmare after the closet incident over a year ago. Kim recounted the entire dream to Yori as they ate. Ron intently listened in even though his wife had told him of the dream just after they had become a couple.
"Your premonition can easily be explained," Sensei calmly said as he enter the archive room. The three teens all stood and bowed in respect to the teacher before they sat down again at his request. "Wherever Mystical Powers are concerned, time is not linear."
"But I got my MMP after the nightmare and Kim's dream," Ron puzzled, still a little slow on the uptake. "How could it have affected KP's dream a few weeks earlier?"
"As I told you on your last visit Stoppable-sama," Sensei said with a slight smirk, "the ancient scrolls foretold you were fated to receive the Mystical Monkey Power even before you received them and time is irrelevant. The Mystical Powers have been guiding you to your destiny, even before you were born."
"You mean just like Toshimu knew beforehand that he was going to receive the Mystical Powers even before he met the group of Monks who'd carved the four jade statues," Kim said in realization.
"I see you have been reading the Tomes of Toshimu," Sensei said to Kim with a knowing nod.
"I have," Kim affirmed as she sat back in her chair and rolled the cup of tea between her hands in contemplation. "Toshimu was a great warrior but he grew weary of battle so he decided to retire to this, his home province. As he traveled here, he stopped overnight at an abbey of Monks who were happy to let him stay the night. They were please to be able to show off their newly carved jade statues to someone from outside the monastery. As Toshimu studied their work, he was imbued with the Mystical Powers but he also dreamed it would happen a few days before he left the battlefield."
"The Monks became afraid of the statues and their unusual powers so they let Toshimu take the statues with him when he left the next morning," Ron continued the story. "When he arrived here at Mount Yamanouchi, he used his katana in its many forms to create the school and began teaching Monkey Kung Fu. He got his knowledge about Tai Sheng Pek Qwar along with the Power from the statues. At least that's what Kim read."
"I see the bond has grown even stronger," Sensei marveled as he gazed at the two foreigners.
"Well, KP and I have been… well, bonding a lot since we got married," Ron sheepishly chuckled as he rubbed the back of his neck in embarrassment.
"Bonding?" Yori queried, unsure for a moment what Ron had meant. Then the proverbial light bulb went on above her head. Her whole face reddened and she gasped, "Oh! You mean you and Kim-sama have been making… Oh, well, if that is the case there is one thing I do not understand Ron-sama," Yori said as she started to gather up the dishes from the meal. "With your status as a married couple now, you and Kim-sama could be living in the couples quarters where the rooms are much larger. Why do you and she wish to stay in the small cell for singles that you were quartered in last year?"
"Do you mean the bedroom that's no bigger than our closet back home?" Kim giggled in amusement as she grasped Ron's arm and snuggled close to him. "It's very simple Yori. It was a closet that brought us together so we really love the closeness of confined spaces like your single's cells."
xxxxxx
A Few Days Later
Taking a break from their reading and research, the redheaded girl and blond boy leapt and bound their way through the treetops of the forest behind the Yamanouchi school. Their moves were agile, almost graceful in their fluidity and were equally matched by the two dozen raucous monkeys that kept pace around the teens.
"This is a lotta fun Ron," Kim enthused as she pushed off one limb with her feet and caught the branch of another tree fifteen feet further along with one hand before moving to a third tree, "especially without using the grappling gun like we used to do. And your friends are a real hoot too."
"Yeah, they seemed to have miss me," Ron laughed as he deftly swung from one tree to another, moving ahead of Kim. "I know I kinda missed the little buggers."
"They did seem to be waiting for us when we walked out the back gate," Kim said as she preformed a double somersault from one tree to the next.
"Yeah I noticed that too," Ron wondered aloud as he peered over his shoulder at his wife. Not looking where he was going was a big mistake for Ron. He missed grabbing hold of the next limb and crashed through the foliage before landing hard in a jumbled heap on the ground.
"Ron!" Kim yelped in dismay as she grabbed a hanging vine and slid down it to land beside the blond boy. She quickly checked him over and found no broken bones but there was a nasty deep gash that was three or four inches long on his right bicep.
"Oh, Shiatsu!" Ron swore as he sat up and clutched at the deep cut. The monkeys stopped their chattering, quietly encircled the two teens and reverently sat on the ground and watched.
"That looks bad Ron," Kim assessed then stood up and looked around to get her bearings. "We'd better get back to Yamanouchi and have their doctor take care of it."
"No KP, I got a better idea," Ron said as his left hand started to glow with a light blue aura, enveloping the wound. "Don't you remember when I read about the MMP having a healing power associated with it?"
"Of course I remember," Kim said as she knelt down next to her husband and wrapped her two hands around his left. Kim's hands started to glow and the pendant around her neck shone brightly. "Toshimu wrote that he was able to heal one of his student's broken bones after the kid fell while jogging in the mountains."
After a minute, the monkeys started to chatter and jump around excitedly as the blue glow started to fade. Ron and Kim lifted their hands off of the wound and saw that the gash had been sealed but their was still a nice healthy scar present.
"Now that just might come in handy after one of our missions," Kim marveled and laughed a she helped her blond husband up off the ground. "Come on Ron. We should head back to the archives and see what other special powers we might have."
"You got it KP," Ron said as he and Kim started their walk back to the school. He looked over his shoulder at the small furry creatures and laughed, "Don't worry guys. Fun time might be over for today but we'll come back to play real soon."
"You can count on that," Kim added with a good-bye wave and broad smile to her new furry friends.
xxxxxx
It was the day before Kim and Ron were to depart and as usual the teen couple ran through the dragon course with little difficulty, just like they had done every morning since arriving. But unlike usual when the two would normally break away from sparring with the other students to head for the alcove to see if they'd missed anything in the ancient texts, Yori, Hirotaka and the rest of the Yamanouchi students stepped in front of them, effectively blocking Kim and Ron from making their way to the room.
"I am sorry Kim-sama, Ron-sama," Hirotaka said with a reverent bow to the couple, "but Sensei wishes for you to join him this morning in the building behind us."
"It is the same challenge you faced on your last visit Ron-sama," Yori informed the blond with a similar bow as Hirotaka's.
"Except this time you're sending the whole school against us," Ron casual said a he peered at the three or four dozen students between him and the building. They appeared to be armed to the teeth with every single weapon ever seen in a martial arts film. Swords, spears and bo staffs were in hand as well as bows and arrows, nunchakus and kusarigamas (a small sickle attached to a spiked ball by a length of chain,) to name only a few of the weapons. The blond let go with a lopsided smile as he said, "You realize KP and I could decimate you all with the martial arts skills and Mystical Monkey Powers we both have."
"We all understand the battle we face," Hirotaka firmly said as he took up a defensive posture, brandishing a bo staff.
"And we are not afraid to participate in this battle," Yori stated with her countenance set in stone as she too took up a defensive stance and unfolded her favorite weapon, twin fans with razor-sharp edges. "I know you are not afraid of battle now Stoppable-sama so let us begin."
"This is the gauntlet I told you about KP," Ron nonchalantly said to Kim. "Are you ready?"
"Ready, willing and able," Kim said as a slight smirk appeared on her lips as she casually stood with her hands on hips.
"Are you not going to draw the Lotus Blade?" one of the older students close to the front of the ranks incredulously asked.
"Nah," Ron shrugged and took Kim's hand in his as a blue globe formed around the couple. ""Why should we use brute force when we can simply use the power of our imaginations?"
The blue orb raised a few inches off the ground and slowly moved forward, as if it were a sailboat blown ahead by a slight breeze.
Yori slashed a fan at the glowing sphere while Hirotaka smashed his bo staff against it. Both blows bounced off the globe as if their weapons were wet noodles and the globe was made of solid titanium. The other students took their turn trying to break the seemingly unbreakable barrier, all ending in failure as the sphere slowly wafted along its path.
After a minute, the orb settled on the porch of the building. Sensei walked up to it and simply poked the sphere with a finger, dissipating it with a loud pop. "Very clever Stoppable-sama," the old man chuckled. "You have won the battle without firing a shot this time."
"As Yori-chan told Ron on his last visit," Kim said to the teacher with a slight bow, fist in open hand, "Sun-Tzu wrote, 'To subdue the enemy without fighting is the highest skill.' We may've not have subdued our enemy, but we did reach the building..."
"…And that was our main objective," Ron finished her sentence as he too bowed to the elderly gentleman.
"When Kenji asked if you were not going to draw the Lotus Blade," Sensei said as he led the two teens into the temple-like building, "you answered that you would use your minds over brute force. Your answer is almost the same as a Koichi Tohei quote. 'Power of the mind is infinite while brawn is limited.' You two used the power of your combined minds."
"Ron's always had the power of imagination," Kim giggled as the old teacher led them over to a low, glass display case.
Sensei opened the glass door and gently lifted a long wooden case from the lowest shelf before he turned to the two teens. "You now have the Lotus Blade, but Toshimu possessed more fighting weapons than that. These also were used by him and are now yours." Sensei opened the elegantly carved wooden case and showed the teens what it contained. Inside was a broad bladed knife with a sharply beveled, V-shaped tip and a slender long sword that was probably ten or twelve inches longer than the Lotus Blade.
"They're beautiful Sensei," Ron said in awe as he picked up the long sword and held it up close to his ear, as if he were listening to it. "The sword is telling me that it has Mystical Powers too." Ron gripped the hilt with both hands and held it out at arms length, tip pointing up. The metal blade flashed blue and it changed into a necklace exactly like the one around Kim's neck. Ron deftly fastened it around his neck.
"That is correct. Toshimu had all three blades with him when he received his Mystical Powers from the Monks, Stoppable-sama," Sensei said as he took the knife in hand and put the case back on the shelf, "so all three received Mystical Powers. You are familiar with the katana, the Lotus Blade, but it is also called the Lotus Blossom. The long sword you now wear around your neck is called the Lotus Stem and the last blade, the Lotus Petal, is for Rufus-sama."
"I remember reading how Toshimu named all three of his weapons after parts of a Lotus flower," Kim said as she lovingly clutched the aquamarine hued gem hanging around her neck. "The stem is slender and long but has to be very strong to hold the flower in place during stormy weather. The Blossom is the main part of the flower just like the katana was his main weapon in battle and the petals are the smallest parts of the plant. All parts of the flower are extremely strong and very durable."
"Rufus buddy," Ron chirped as he opened the front pocket of his gi. "We're getting parting gifts just like last time."
"Cheese?" the naked mole rat excitedly begged as he poked his head out of the pocket and looked around.
"The feast will come later tonight," Sensei smirked to the small pink rodent as he held out the seven inch long knife to Rufus. "Right now you are to receive the last of Toshimu's mystical weapons."
"KP and I have the other two," Ron reassured his diminutive friend as he held out the gem dangling around his neck so Rufus could see it, "and we all think you should carry the third one. Maybe you can change its shape to make it a necklace just like ours."
"I'm not sure how you'd look with a necklace Rufus," Kim chuckled to the naked mole rat, "but you can give it a try."
Rufus took the dagger from Sensei's hand and held it high. The blade flashed blue and disappeared before it reappeared in the form of a small, rodent-sized choker collar with a blue jewel set in it. The mole rat placed it around his neck and, with a broad smile and wagging tail, looked to Kim and Ron for approval.
"It looks spankin' on you," Kim laughed at the mole rat's antics before she turned to the head teacher of Yamanouchi and reverently bowed. "Thank you for the gifts Sensei. Now all three of us have a piece of Toshimu's history."
"You will need all three Lotus Blades if the world is to survive the coming menace," Sensei cryptically said as he turned and walked out of the room leaving the two teens and one naked mole rat to ponder the meaning of his words.
"Huh?" Rufus chirped and looked in confusion to his two human friends.
"Don't worry Rufus," Kim assured the naked mole rat as she held her hand over the gem around her neck. "Ron and I already have an idea about what Sensei is talking about." Kim looked to her husband who nodded in agreement.
Rufus covered the jewel in his choker with a fore paw and began to smile brightly. The naked mole rat nodded to his two humans and chirped, "Understand."