Ron and Raven had met up after their classes, enjoyed a quick afternoon snack of leftovers, and had just left the busy dorm to take a walk when they were intercepted by Katsumi.

"I was told that you two really need to talk. Follow me please," she said, "I know just the spot."

Ron's leg folded under him as he turned to follow and he would have fallen had Raven not grabbed his arm. Even so, both of them nearly hit the ground.

Raven helped him stand up. "What the hell? Are you OK?"

"I'm fine," he took two steps with her still hanging onto his arm, "See? Everything is working. Still the clumsy sidekick, I guess." Sporting a goofy grin, he continued, "So, Katsumi-san, where is this spot?"

"A somewhat secluded area in the mixed baths in the onsen," the Ninja's eyes looked carefully at the blond with a touch of concern in her eyes then at the other girl.

"The mixed baths?! That doesn't sound private!" Raven protested as she caught the glance by the kunoichi.

The young ninja replied serenely, "It is the slack part of the day for people bathing. After dinner, it would be busier. Plus, the rules of the onsen include 'you may look but not stare' and 'you may hear but not listen'. There is a place in the back where one of the springs splashes directly into the pool. If you go back there and you speak quietly, then that is about as private of a place as you will find anywhere at Yamanouchi."

"I thought I remembered Ninjas as some of the biggest gossips I have seen," the blond said.

"We are. That you and Raven went to the baths, sat in the spot famous for privately confessing feelings and had a heart to heart conversation will be widely known and talked about during dinner," Katsumi giggled behind her hand then continued, "Particularly speculation on what you were talking about. But do you really care? After all, it will help solidify the perception that you two are boyfriend/girlfriend."

"Nope, not at all, come on Ronnie, let's go beat the traffic," Raven held onto her boyfriend's arm while Katsumi grabbed a hand and started pulling him.

Arriving at the onsen, they went behind the black curtain and put their shoes in a locker. Going to the changing area, Katsumi pointed out that none of the lockers were in use, "See? The Kami are looking out for you. Right now, there is no one here. She pulled their shower kits out of a shoulder bag and started undressing.

"Wait one second, Kat-san," Raven objected, "Why are you coming?"

"I was going to show Ron-san how things work and maybe scrub his back..."

"I am pretty sure I can do that myself, please and thank you," the goth said.

The smile on Katsumi's face made both teens believe that she had been teasing them, then throwing herself at each one to give them a hug, she added, "I am leaving for the United States this evening, so I probably won't see you before I go. Please take care of each other."

Raven reminded her, "Remember that in America, proper young ladies do not help young gentlemen in the shower."

She bowed low to the Americans, "But Mara-san, I am a proper Ninja, not a lady," and ran giggling out of the room.

Raven showed Ron where to put his clothes, gave him one of the entirely too-small towels "to use for modesty", they undressed, and walked into the washing area. A quick scrub (done separately and far apart, to Ron's disappointment) and they moved to the pool chamber. The front three-quarters of the pool was part of the building and finished in tile with convenient rocks of various sizes and shapes scattered around to sit on and lean against. The back section of the pool was roughly carved into the mountain itself. Maybe a thousand years ago it was rough. Time, water and the contact with generations of Ninja had worn the rock smooth. Following the sound of gently splashing water, they found almost a nook, by no means hidden from view, but out of the way.

There the pair found an "S" shaped rock where they could sit close and face each other. Ron had Kim settle into the steaming water, cloudy with minerals, first. He turned away from her as she took the towel she carried in front of her for modesty, folded it up and placed it on her head before slowly easing down into the very hot water. Getting settled, she admired his butt for a few seconds before saying, "I'm in," before leaning back and closing her eyes.

Soon the pair were submerged with just their shoulders above the water, their backs leaning on the inside curves of the "S".

After a short silence, Ron started, "So, how was your morning? When I got out of the shower, you were already gone."

"Nyx and Elsa dragged me off to an early morning class. Way too early. Did you do the Dragon Course when you were here as an exchange student?"

"Yeah, I remember how rudely early it was. I fell asleep during meditation practice. And I never got the hang of the 'disappear in plain sight' thing. You should have seen Rufus, he could do it all. If ever there was a Ninja naked mole rat, it's him."

Raven giggled, "I fell asleep too. Nyx was impressed that I could sleep while sitting up in the Lotus position. I think the disappearing trick is based on residual mystical power from the temple, maybe leftover from Toshimiru himself. I might have gotten a teeny bit translucent!" She grinned, "So, how was your morning?

"Master Sensei started my training for controlling the MMP. Sensei Tōgai was worried that my brains would fall out the side of my head if I did too much running, so they had me swimming instead."

"I thought mom fixed the hole with bone grafts or something?"

"She did, but she told me not to get hit there for a couple of years. She put in some sort of fiber plate and seeded it with bone and it will take that long for the bone to grow solid. I think Tōgai worries that he will lose his favorite MRI subject. You know, for a place that has hot water on tap," Ron held up an arm showing the water vapor form from the cool breeze blowing across the hot water clinging to it, "You'd think they'd have a nice warm pool, but they had me swimming in a cold stream for nearly an hour."

"Without complaining?"

"Not a peep except the 'shriek of courage' when I jumped in," the blond grinned, "Kamiko was swimming beside me the whole time. Master Sensei said it was just as a safety precaution, but I think it was to shame me into not complaining."

"I'm impressed. What did you do after they thawed you out?"

"Master Sensei ran me through some Tai Chi exercises trying to help me work on my energy flow."

"Did it work?"

"Seemed to. At least I could feel heat flowing into my hands and feet, which was really nice. Turns out they have an MMP User's Guide, can you believe it? Of course, it's written in archaic Japanese and it's several hundred years old. One of their senior students is going to help me with it when he gets back from some kind of mission. Master Sensei is worried about my 'Zorpox aura' influencing my spiritual balance or something like that. A professor of Oriental Mythology/Mysticism from Eastern State University is coming out to talk to me. She's apparently an expert on Viking Berserkers and thinks that she might be able to help me keep my emotions under control when I fully call on the power"

"That's amazing Ronnie, I thought this would be one of those pilgrimages to the top of a mountain for self-discovery kind of things."

"Nope, apparently they tried that before and it was a complete disaster. The person went totally insane... and Master Sensei won't tell me any details. Ya know it would have been easier if they would have given me some of this info the last time I was here. Like a 'Welcome to Your New MMP' pamphlet or something."

"Still, you must be excited! Sounds almost too good to be true!"

"Yeah. It is too good to be true." The blond wiped the sweat from his face and stared up at the ceiling, "Seems like things are starting to look up just in time for them to come crashing down." Blowing out a long sigh, he continued,

"I think we need to rethink our relationship."

"Are you saying that you want to be released from your promise that we would be 'together forever, from now until the end of time'?" Raven knew that her boyfriend had self-esteem issues, but, what the hell?

"That promise goes both ways and it isn't fair to you."

"Not fair to me? Dammit, Ron, I get to decide that, not you! So, you don't trust that I am telling you the truth when I say that I will always be at your side!?"

"I trust you with my life and my heart, but... you should go out and do better, Kim," water splashed as he sat up straight and held up his hand to cut off her protest, "Hear me out, please." Seeing that she was going to let him talk, he continued,

"Never mind that Sensei Tōgai ran nerve conduction tests on my legs and back this morning. Those tests show that my nerves are fine, the increased clumsiness is due to brain malfunction. Never mind that the damage to my face will never heal to the point where I can leave this mask behind," he tapped the ceramic mask covering the side of his face for emphasis.

"You really think I'd drop you because you aren't one hundred percent? That you aren't 'pretty'? I choose to love you no matter what happens."

"I know that. But the real problem is that you've never found me exciting. I was never the 'hottie', the 'golden boy'. I'm not the boy you deserve." Seeing that she was still willing to let him talk, he hurried along,

"I was there when you were crushing on Josh, I saw how your eyes would fly wide from just seeing him. I was there when you first saw Eric and it was the same reaction."

"Well, yes," she admitted. "But with Josh, I had never really crushed all that much on someone before and with... Eric... he was someone completely new! I can't remember it all that well, but I can remember coming home from my first day of preschool, excited that I had made a new friend."

"I've seen pictures of you and Eric at the prom. You looked really happy and excited. The pictures of you leaving the prom showed the triumphant Empress of the Food Chain. With Eric at your side, you ruled, Kim."

"The food chain is stupid Ron, you know that!"

"You told me that you wanted to be a normal girl for one night and on that night, that normal girl ruled the prom. I saw the happiness and excitement in your eyes. You couldn't have done that with me. I'm not who you deserve."

Frustrated, the Goth replied, "I told you that I choose to love you and that's true, but you aren't giving me the chance to fall deeply in love with you emotionally and that's not fair. Why didn't you ask me out before Eric showed up? If you had asked me, I would have given you a chance."

"You shot me down when I brought it up," he told her. "Remember when I was crushing on Zita? Outside the theater, I said that we might date some day and you..."

"I told you that you were thinking too much," she interrupted. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have insulted you like that."

"So, after that and the 'not a date' thing at my cousin Reuben's wedding, I kind of wrote you off as 'out of my league'," he shrugged, his shoulders sending slight ripples across the water. "Eric showing up was the trigger that showed me that I could lose you totally. I started to realize that I wanted you more than just as a friend, I wanted romance, love, a life partner, I don't exactly know, just more than a friend. It really didn't ever cross your mind that maybe I could be your boyfriend?"

There was a pause as Raven struggled to figure out the words to use that would hurt the least.

"It had crossed my mind a time or two. You have been at my side both for fun stuff as well as helping on missions..."

"Yeah, the comic relief sidekick who loses his pants..."

"Yes, you're the partner who has lost his pants a time or two but also scuba dives, climbs cliff faces, skydives, can hold off, if not, take out a dozen henchmen. I never asked you partly because I was afraid that if dating went bad, I'd lose my partner as well as my best friend."

"And the other part?"

Raven leaned back and closed her eyes, unable to look at him, "You weren't dangerous. Not to me, only to villains. No mystery, I've known you all my life. You're right Ron, I'm an adrenaline junkie, you know that. My only risk in dating you would be that I would screw it up and lose you totally. Is having a girlfriend who loves you because she has decided that she would be a fool not to grab you, good enough for you? Is it important that you have a girlfriend who waits by the phone with her heart racing hoping that you will call? What about a girlfriend that doesn't get all excited because she hasn't seen you all day because she knows that you will be there for her because you always have? What about a girlfriend who doesn't want you to die alone? Come on Ron, give us a chance, we can even name our first child Rufus..."

"Ronald? Who are you talking to?"

Raven's eyes flew open, looking not at Ron, but behind him.

"Mom?! Mrs. Stoppable?!"

"Kimmy?! What did you do to your hair?"

STD 2018-

Vivian heard a "rockets are go" ringtone so she stuck out her tongue and touched the mic on her headset to answer the call coming in over the internal secure phone line. She was a serious 'Keyboard Master'. She thought that clicking on icons with a mouse was for small children and wimps. Why taking her hands off the keyboard to move the mouse would waste many minutes over the course of her day!

"Hi, James, what's up?" she cheerfully said, her typing rate dropping down to only fifty words a minute as part of her attention was transferred from the paper she was writing to talk to her good friend and colleague. The typing halted when she heard:

"Dr. Porter, James needs help. I've tried to help him, but I'm not really Anne. Can you send someone to help him?"

As her fingers jumped back into action, clicking keys with a rapid-fire beat, all her document windows minimized and new windows popped up on her screen. The comms window showed the call was coming from James's secret lab, the 'Personnel In/Out' window showed that James went into his lab yesterday evening and hadn't left for more than fifteen minutes at a time, probably bathroom breaks. Checking the times against the clock, James had been in his lab for the last two hours straight.

"Can I speak with James?" 'Damn,' she chastised herself, 'I told Anne I'd keep an eye on him.'

"No, he has a high fever and his speech isn't intelligible."

The cursor jumped into the comms window where she typed commands to turn on phone call recording then jumped to the security window where her typed commands reported an intruder alert and medical emergency in Top Secret Lab #3. It then jumped to the division's group chat window where she typed in a request for their boss Jaanai to meet her in James's lab; 'ASAP! Security & Medical Emergency!'. She entered one last command in the comms window to change the mode on her headset from 'local' to 'roaming'. Now she could continue talking anywhere in the building except the RF shielded, classified labs.

Slapping the keys to secure her workstation, she ran out of her office, heading to the stairwell. Even in four-inch heels, she was betting using the stairs to go down three floors would be faster than the elevator.

"OK, I'm on my way and I've told other people to come help too. Who am I talking to?"

"My name is Erica," the voice sounded steady and calm enough to trigger warnings in her mind. Need for air prevented her from talking until she reached the basement.

"OK, I'm almost there," Vivian panted, bursting out of the stairwell and racing down the hall to the lab, "Open the lab bay doors, Erica."

"I'm sorry, Vivian, I'm afraid I can't do that." The monotone voice made chills run down the A.I. expert's spine.

"What?! WHY?! You can just push the door from the inside and it will open, it's a fire code thing!" panting, she stopped outside the door.

"James told me to never open the door and go outside."

'DAMMIT! James, YOU IDIOT!' she mentally screamed, 'You made an A.I. and didn't put in fuzzy logic for tasks!'

Security came running up, two men in body armor and a third carrying a medical bag.

"We need this door opened, you guys got a master code?"

"No Ma'am, this lab was designed for the most secret work. We've got someone coming with a fire ax, that's our master code."

Vivian touched the mic with her tongue and said, "Erica, you still there?"

"Yes, I'm here."

"Get a chair and push it hard against the door. That will let you open the door enough for help to get in without any part of you going outside."

There was a bump and the heavy steel door opened several inches.

STD 2018-

"Ronald? Ronald? Look at me, dear." Ron had hoped his brain would just totally self-destruct and save him, but no, the cruel organ decided to function perfectly. Even his heart hadn't had the decency to seize up and leave him dead in the water. No, wait, Mrs. Dr. P was a doctor, she'd just revive him. Turning around he saw Master Sensei, his mom, and Mrs. Dr. P. Standing in the water with nothing between his eyes and certain doom besides small towels.

But he survived the shock, even survived the (one-armed) hugs from both moms. Master Sensei wore his inscrutable face, but his eyes did seem to twinkle with amusement. They had moved to a more spacious part of the nook where submerged time-worn rocks allowed them to sit in a circle.

Ron looked the redhead in the eyes, carefully avoiding the appearance of looking lower.

"Surely this isn't the first time you've been mixed bathing, Ronald?" Blue eyes gleamed with amusement. Eyes made black from special contacts narrowed waiting for his answer.

"Anne, stop teasing Ronald," looking seriously at her son, she continued, "Son, we heard the discussion coming over, you two were speaking rather loudly. Anne and I think we should all have a talk, right Anne?"

Dark eyes registered that the blonde was blushing a bit. Guilty conscience or just the hot mineral water?

"If you will excuse me, I need to go check on a class, I will catch up with you all after dinner, perhaps," Master Sensei stood, showing pretty solid abs for an old guy, turned and, to be accurate, fled both the area and the matriarchal wisdom about to be imparted.

"Son, you need to take it slow and easy with Kimberly, honey. You're the rebound guy and while in basketball, rebounds are good, in relationships they can be kind of shaky."

"Ron is not my rebound!" Raven sputtered.

"No, he's not a rebound..." Anne started to speak.

"Thank you!"

"He's actually a double rebound, honey," Anne waited for her daughter to stop sputtering then continued quietly, "Kimmy dear, first you gave yourself to Eric only to be betrayed by him. Then it appeared that Ron might die and then later, he didn't remember you as a friend. In less than 24 hours you lost two men that you cared deeply about and that you thought loved you and that left a serious wound in your heart."

"Is that why she sees Eric when I kiss her?"

"Ronald, James discovered that the only significant difference between Eric's and your personalities is about three years of maturity. I don't know if that matters, or if it's even relevant. I'm supposed to meet with Dr. Tōgai after dinner and go over the tests he ran on you and Kimmy." blue eyes then sparkled with amusement, "Did he really do a full body MRI on you two while you were making out?"

"We were only kissing! He took full body pictures!?" 'Rebound Boy' was starting to worry about trips to blackholes.

"You can rest assured, Ronald, that your data is protected by doctor-patient confidentiality. James will never see it."

"But we're getting off the topic," Jean looked at her son with sympathy, "Ronnie, the problem with being Kimberly's rebound is that her heart hasn't had nearly enough time to emotionally heal from her loss of Eric. She can't give it to you until it heals."

"Mrs. Stoppable, this isn't your typical 'girl breaks up with guy' sitch," the goth protested, "Eric was a synthodrone created to distract and humiliate me. He didn't leave me, he was destroyed by giant cockroaches. It's not like I'm going to run into him again or lay awake at night wishing we could get back together somehow."

"Kimmy, that's your brain talking, what is your heart saying?"

"Uh, Mom, I'm going by Raven now. I think my heart is telling me to give Ronnie a chance."

"First, give each other some space," suggested Jean, "No more talking about forever. I expect that forever will happen, but not if you keep worrying and arguing about it. Be friends, I don't recommend friendship with benefits, I think that will hurt more in the long run if this forever thing doesn't happen. Most importantly, have a relationship instead of worrying about a relationship." finished Jean, not saying that she worried that her son was the fragile one in this situation.

"So, I should leave Japan and go back to Middleton?" asked Raven.

"We'll talk later just the two of us, honey. But I don't think you need to be in a hurry to go anywhere just right now."

Jean's watch beeped. "Time to cool off, Anne." Both women stood up and boosted themselves up to sit on the rocks that they had been leaning against. They left their towels balanced on their heads.

"Whoa! What are you guys doing!?" Raven was scandalized.

"The water is too hot to sit in for long periods of time." said Anne, "You'll overheat and get dizzy when you stand up to leave. Get up here yourself, you've been neck-deep in that water longer than we have. Besides, sitting on this rock puts your back to the room, so it's not like your flashing anyone." with a smirk, she added, "Well, except Ronald."

Ron boosted himself up on his rock, putting his towel in his lap then swiveling around so he didn't face the women. Raven boosted herself up on the rock between the two moms and tried to wrap her towel around her front. Unhappy with the coverage, but happy that Ron wasn't looking, she finally put the towel back on her head.

The four sat on the rocks with the cool breeze blowing small streams of water vapor off of the hot water clinging to their skin.

Anne looked her daughter over, seeing the black contact lenses, the black hair put up in a bun and noticing that 'the carpet matched the drapes'. This was about as serious of a change of appearance that one could do without surgery. Was this 'Raven' still the daughter of James and Anne Possible?

"Hi," the surgeon said brightly, looking at the girl, "I am Anne Possible, I'm a neurosurgeon, wife, and mother of three. Would you tell me your name and a little about yourself?"

The goth looked confused for only a second, then continued, "Hi Anne, my name is Raven Mara. I am a junior in high school and have come to Japan to look at finishing high school here with my best friend in the world, Ron Stoppable. I have a small team that helps people out, we occasionally fight supervillains. The girl that I am replacing killed two villains. She believed that she had no choice, but I believe that a true hero can always find a way to avoid killing people. She also had this strange idea that she had to do it all because if you rely on others you increase the chance of failure."

"And what if you can't find another way, dear?" asked Jean.

"Well, I am experimenting with Goth philosophy with its concept that eventual failure is an inevitability. But in the meantime, you relax, enjoy the dying of the light as best you can and still try to help others."

"Mom, where's Dad and Hana?" Ron had a sudden vision of Hana dancing all over the onsen.

"Gene is playing with Hana. Yori insisted that 'it was her honor' to watch Hana until we got to the school. The poor woman had to be exhausted by the time we walked up the mountain. I hope she's taking a nap."

"Mom, where are Jim and Tim? Too shy to come into the baths?" Anne's heart did a little happy dance that this 'Raven Mara' persona had called her 'Mom'.

"Hirotaka offered to take them to this geek and comic book mecca called Akihabara. Wade suggested that they check it out. I'm a little surprised not to see them, I figured they would have gotten here before I did."

Anne's watch buzzed, interrupting her train of thought.

"Oh, I need to go meet with Dr. Tōgai. Ronald, please come with me and show me where his office is. You should be there just in case we want another scan or something." Seeing Raven starting to move, the surgeon added, "That's OK, Raven. You should stay and finish your soak with Jean in case she needs help finding her way back." She held black eyes with her own until the girl nodded in understanding. Standing up the surgeon held her arm out to Ron. "Ronald, dear, I'm still a touch woozy from the heat, please hold my arm to steady me."

Raven slid back into the milky water as Ron turned around. She watched Ron and her Mom wade to the edge, her blond most courteously gave her mom a hand out of the pool and they walked to the washing area.

"Mrs. Stoppable, you know how to get back, right?"

"Call me Jean if you like, Raven. Yes, I know this campus pretty well. Gene and I have spent several weeks out here if you add up all the trips we've made. But since we are here, can we talk?"

"Ron is having trouble with occasionally falling, perhaps I..." The Goth was pretty tired of talking to be honest, but she did like Ron's mother. Plus, she figured that her mom wanted to get him alone to talk.

"Anne will see that he gets there safely. Asking him to hold her arm was to steady him, not her. Just out of curiosity, why did you and Ronald decide to have a talk naked in the baths?"

"Blame that on me. This Ninja named Katsumi decided to help us settle in. When she suggested that this place would be a good place to talk sort of in public but where people wouldn't hear you if you talked quietly, it sounded good to me. A relaxing soak in hot water, a chance to have a normal boyfriend/girlfriend chat. At least there wouldn't be snakes dropping in on us..."

The blonde mom blinked, started to ask something, stopped and finally said, "Tell me about the snakes later, honey. That sounds like a story you'll end up repeating anyway. Do you and Ronald often do things naked? Like homework?"

"No! Nothing like that! I know it sounds weird, but Katsumi claimed that people sometimes bathe like this as a family. I guess I hoped that relaxing naked in hot water physically would relax Ronnie's mind and lower his mental defenses if that makes any sense. Ronnie is the kind of person that I don't have to worry about taking advantage of the lack of clothing sitch."

"You know, there is something to be said of a woman having the ability to drive her guy crazy with lust. At the appropriate time and place of course."

"Frankly Jean, I can't imagine Ronnie being driven by lust. Lust for Tex-Mex maybe, but not for me."

"Let's talk about Ronald and his inadequacies."

"But Ronnie isn't inadequate!" Raven felt like she just got mental whiplash, surely his mom wasn't saying that he needed to be more lusty for her?

"I'm glad you think that. He worries about not being good enough or fast enough to protect you. Sometimes, not often mind you, but occasionally he wakes us up with a nightmare that he was seconds too late to save you from a collapsing lair or something."

"I'm not so incompetent that I have to be saved all the time!" the teen hero objected, "But I guess to be fair, I know that I can push closer to the edge because he is there to catch me if I fall. Did you know that no cheerleader has been hurt in a fall since Ron has been the Mad Dog mascot and spotter? That's wearing the dog head. Imagine how much better he is without it. No, Ron is a great partner, true, he's a little goofy and unfocused at times, but I really couldn't do what I do without him."

"His father and I are quite proud of him from the little we have heard about your missions. We've heard more here than we ever did in Middleton. You are an amazing young woman and being able to keep up with you is something that maybe one percent of the young men in this world could do. Maybe not even that many."

"Have you told him that? Has he ever heard either of his parents say that they are proud of what he can do?"

"No, I know that sounds terrible, but Ronald tends to become big-headed easily. We have been afraid that he would push himself even harder and get hurt if we told him how proud we were of him. Still, the bottom line is that he worries that he isn't good enough for you. We had hoped that moving to Japan would give him some space to find himself without being constantly in your shadow."

"You think we should split up?" Raven was torn between anger and being hurt.

"We aren't suggesting that you two split up, we have promised ourselves for years that he would be free to fall in love with whoever he wanted without Gene or I interfering."

"Does that have anything to do with his being a ballerina that one year for trick or treat?"

Ron's mother laughed, "No dear, he's always been a little different, but I do think he self-identifies as male."

Turning serious, the mom continued, "I didn't believe for a second that moving to Japan would split you up totally, just maybe reduce the time you spend together a little. We worry about him comparing himself to only you. We simply thought that here, he would have a chance to compare himself to more people in this "hero" business that are around his age."

Sliding down into the water so she was eye-to-eye with the object of her son's angst, she asked, "What are your intentions with my son? I heard the part of the discussion where he doesn't excite you. Are you just making sure that he will be available as a partner? With the brain damage from his fight with Shego, I wonder how he is going to be able to keep up with you."

"Mrs. Stoppable... Jean, I will make sure that Ron can keep up with me."

"Oh no, dear, you can't hold back on his account, that would destroy him."

CREDITS

All characters are the property of the Disney Company. This is a work of fan fiction.

Suzie Chin (Subira Chen) and her partner in Ninja-hood Wanda Wang are all from Sentinel103 and his "Once Again" stories.

Authors Note: Thanks to CajunBear73, Daccu65, and Sentinel103 for basically being beta readers, editors, and plot bunny wranglers. Lots of dialog help this chapter. Except for the bad dialog, that is mine.

Posted September 15th, 2018