Author's Note: I once again apologize for the delayed update, things have still been dodgy with my computer lately (What else is new)? Also, the next fanfic will start to be covered in the next chapter, and it will be "Someone Like You" by the author Kari Gilmore.

On another note, I typed this chapter rather late at night and didn't get around to posting it until today, so if there's anything that seems off or out of place here, let me know so I may revise it. With that said, I do hope you enjoy, and please review!

Chapter XXII

Kopa took a few steps back in horror, his eyes bulging and his body quivering. Besides Kovu, Timon and Simba, no one had a clue in hell as to what was even going on here.

"Uhh no, no I don't!" Said Kopa in a quivering voice. "I... I wouldn't know anything about that."

Vitani quickly shook her head, appearing to be just as distressed as her mate was at that moment. "Y-yeah! We don't know w-what's going on with the Water Hole either!"

Simba simply chuckled to himself, shaking his head softly. He turned himself around to face the two of them now as Vitani got close to Kopa's side. Both of them felt like Simba's eyes were so intent on them at that moment, that they could burn holes right into their bodies if they wanted. But they were not menacing or angry, for they almost appeared to be smug and immensely self-satisfied in a way. They thought that was even worse than being angry for how Simba was approaching this.

"Come on, Kopa. You and Vitani both know exactly why the Water Hole tastes different."

"No we don't!" Kopa lied cowardly. "C-come on dad, what're you talking about?"

Simba just sighed, becoming more and more amused by this scene going on in front of him. The lioness that was Minara took a step forth out of curiosity, and she glanced over to Nala, deciding to keep quiet for the time being.

"Simba, what is going on here?" The queen asked him curiously. "What does Kopa have to do with...?"

Simba winked at her suddenly, which made her raise her eyebrow in confusion. He said to Nala in a tone that made it clear that he was building up to something with this, "Oh trust me, Nala. I think Kopa knows something about it all right."

Kopa and Vitani looked absolutely horrified as they both began to step back as far as they could, moving backwards to the rear side of the den. Simba, upon seeing what was going on here, decided to play along and walk forwards to them and forcing them further back. The entire time, he had a smug smile on his face that made it clear he was only toying with them at this point.

"S-stop this, dad!" Kopa said cowardly. "We don't know what you're talking about!"

Simba laughed. "Come on, Kopa... tell Minara what you know."

As this went down and the couple was being forced to the back of the den, everyone else was staring upon this with bewildered and dumbfounded looks. They looked almost the same as they did when they listened to The King's Heir.

"Should... should I go now or wait until later to ask?" Minara questioned awkwardly. Nala shook her head.

"I get the feeling there's something happening here Kopa didn't tell us about." The lioness replied with just a hint of amusement in her voice while a weak smile emerged on her face. Next to her, Kiara turned to Kovu, who was also grinning a bit smug-like.

"Do you know what's going on here?" She asked. Kovu slowly nodded. "Something I'm going to enjoy, no doubt."

A few seconds of awkward silence passed before Simba had backed Kopa and Vitani as far behind as they could go, with their back legs now against the declining stone wall. They both looked upon Simba with fear that their secret was going to be revealed. Seeing as though they were farther back than anyone else and figuring no one could hear them if he whispered, Kopa saw his chance to get something through to his father. Glancing at Vitani for a moment, he put his face close up to Simba's and he whispered sternly,

"Come on, dad, don't make me do this! I can't tell them we had sex in the Water Hole, they're gonna kill me!"

Simba laughed. "Maybe you should've thought of that before you two chose to get busy." He said tauntingly. Kopa blushed in embarrassment.

"Father" he said pleadingly. "If you love me as a son, you will not make me do this!"

Although the prince attempted to make himself sound serious and sympathetic, it came out as more childish and inane instead, which got his father a laugh. He whispered back to his son,

"Would you rather have me tell them instead?"

Now it was Vitani's turn to blush. She looked over to her mate for a moment and opened her mouth to say something. But she was cut off not by Simba, but now by Nala.

"What is going on back there?" the queen asked. "Why are you three whispering like that?" Simba turned his back to Kopa and Vitani to face his mate, looking as smug as ever. With the couple behind him looking on in terror, Simba began.

"Well Nala, it looks like Kopa doesn't want to tell Minara what he knows about why the Water Hole tastes different. So... I guess I'll just have to say it myself, then."

Abruptly Kopa jumped out in front of his father. Desperately, he said, "Something died in it! Y-yeah, that's it! I... was out hunting and a z-zebra accidentally got into the Water Hole, so I killed it in there!"

Nala cocked her eyebrow. "Really?" She asked. "Since when do you hunt, Kopa? That's for the lionesses to do, you don't hunt."

The prince gulped in embarrassment. Beginning to sweat with fear now, he said, "Oh... r-right, yeah sorry mom. I meant it was Vitani! Yeah, Vitani was hunting by there the other day! She killed something in there, not me, what was I thinking?"

The lioness whispered sternly to him, "Way to put this on me, Kopa!"

He whispered back to her, "You got any better suggestions?"

Now it was Kiara's turn to debunk his lie. "But how can that be?" She asked. "We haven't been out on a hunt since the laptop got here. Anything that died in there would be long gone by this point. And if it did die in there, wouldn't someone have taken it out by now? Hunting kills aren't something you would just leave in the water without eating it."

Her brother quietly swore to himself, enraged and annoyed that his story wasn't doing any good. Minara then took a step forth, being careful not to step on the computer.

"So what do you know, Simba?" She asked him.

The king couldn't have been happier that she asked that. Clearing his throat, Simba answered at last, "Well Minara, Kopa certainly had something to do with the change in taste. Timon was a witness, and he was the one who told me about it."

While Simba said these words, he walked back to the front of the cave, coming up to the rest of his family once more. They could tell by the look on his face that he knew something that they didn't, and that he couldn't wait to spill the secret. And at the same time, Kopa and Vitani cowered against one another, their bodies pressing up against one another in terror.

Simba continued, "Kopa and Vitani went out to the Water Hole the other day. They said they were exhausted and just wanted to bathe in there for a while..."

He said this slowly and a bit mysteriously, as though he wanted to draw this out as long as he possibly could. Kiara and Nala were oddly amused by it, having a good feeling about where this was going. Kovu and Timon already knew what he was going to unveil to them, so they simply waited in anticipation to see the reactions of the others.

"But they wanted to get some things out of their heads, so... they decided to do something to help them forget."

"Well what'd they do, Simba?" Nala asked curiously, wanting to know more.

At this point here, Kopa and Vitani could take it no more. The lion whispered to his mate, "That's it! We're bailing on this! Come on!"

As fast as he could, the prince spun around and dove down to the lower part of the wall behind him, now furiously digging through the loose stones and gravel of the rock with his claws unsheathed. Vitani didn't understand what he was doing at first, but then she realized it. Kiara had once told her that she escaped from Pride Rock to find Kovu after his exile by breaking a hole in the back of the den to slip through. It appeared as though her brother was going to use that same idea for a different purpose. And at the time, she wished to do the same.

"Oh, they enjoyed themselves there in the water for a while all right." Simba continued to say. "You know... Getting comfortable in a lot of ways."

Gasping in horror and realizing Simba was about to spill their secret, Kopa and Vitani tried to dig through the rocks with their paws as fast as they possibly could, now desperate to get away from the den. They would have simply taken the main entrance, but they knew for certain that someone (Most likely either Simba or Nala) would try to stop them now that they were on to them. As far as they were concerned, this was their only way to avoid a lifetime of embarrassment. But regardless of how much they dug, they just couldn't seem to make a hole to let any sunlight in. Desperation filled them entirely.

"Kovu found them there a little bit later, and then Timon came around. And according to what Timon told me, You could say that he was... surprised to see them in their position."

"Dad no!" Kopa whispered under his breath. He didn't know which was going to be more embarrassing- his father having to tell everyone, or himself having to.

By now, Nala, Kiara and Minara all had at least vague ideas as to where Simba was heading with this, but the ideas of what they thought he was going to say were too sick to seem realistic to them, so they brushed those ideas aside in their minds. Little did they know that those idea were more accurate than they would have ever wanted them to be.

"What position are you talking about?"Minara asked. Simba sighed, realizing that his son was really not going to own up to this. Giving up on him doing so, he started to say, "Well... it turns out Kopa and Vitani were-"

"We had sex in the Water Hole! Okay, are you happy now?!"

The sudden echoing outburst surprisingly came from the prince, now looking back in fear to them all. Simba smiled. He had finally owned up to it after all. Following a few exasperated gasps, Kopa repeated sounding aggravated, "Okay? We mated there in the water. Now are you satisfied?! Are you happy now, dad?"

Simba nodded.

Nala, Kiara and Minara were the first ones to react to this. Nala suddenly cringed in disgust, Kiara's mouth fell open in shocked revulsion as she gasped, and Minara took a step back in horror. An incredibly awkward moment of silence passed before Nala shattered it.

"You did what in the Water Hole?!"

Kopa's eyes bulged, as did Vitani's. Nala stood up and stared them down from the other side of the den, looking nothing short of infuriated and disgusted at the same time.

"Run for it." Kopa said.

And with that, the couple abandoned the idea of breaking out from the backside of Pride Rock as they suddenly stood back up and bolted for the entrance, simply trying as desperately as they could to make a break for it. But they had no such luck. For once they quickly ran past the laptop, Nala angrily stood up and forcefully used her paw to grip hard onto Kopa's tail, making him fall to the ground. He screamed as he was painfully restrained from moving forth with his mother gripping his tail tightly. He felt like a little cub being scolded all over again, which made his cheeks burn in embarrassment. Vitani started to run for the slope leading to the ground, but she heard Kopa's scream and stopped dead in her tracks. The lioness saw Kopa being embarrassingly held back by his mother in a rather juvenile way, forcing her to go back and stay with him. She stood just on the outside now, watching Kopa stagger back up while Nala pressed her paw down to the ground with the end of his tail, which was immensely painful for him and made him wince. Nala growled at him.

"You had sex with Vitani in the Water Hole?! Are you insane?!" She shouted. "We have to drink from that, Kopa!"

Cowardly, Kopa replied, "W-we didn't plan on it, mom! It just sort of happened!"

"You could've just gone some place else to do that!" Kiara said to her brother. "Was it so hard to just get out of the water and find a bush or something?"

Kopa replied to her, "At the time, yes, Kiara. Yes it was!"

"Great, how am I supposed to tell this to the other huntresses?" Minara said as she placed a paw on her face, rubbing her eyes in disgust now. Vitani walked back inside the den, blushing vibrantly.

"You? What am I going to tell them? I'm the one who has to hunt with them again!"

A second later, she gently followed this up with "I'm so sorry, we should've known better."

Minara leaned into Kiara. "So the mood swings already started, huh?" She whispered. Kiara nodded awkwardly. "You should've seen her earlier."

Seeing some possible opportunity from his mate's sudden mood swing, Kopa looked back to his angry mother and said to her, "Y-yeah, we're sorry, mom! We didn't mean for it to get so far at first! We just needed to get that smut out of our heads and we wanted something to help relax us!"

Timon snickered to himself, "You guys really need to learn what a hot tub is, then."

Simba decided to speak up earnestly to his son now. "Well Kopa... at least you were honest about it."

Kiara, who still had a look of disgust on her face, turned to Kovu. "Geeze, good thing I drank out of the river yesterday."

"Same here, Kiara." He replied. Suddenly Kiara perked up to her mate. "Wait, so you knew about this before?"

Kovu gave her an awkward smile before before saying, "Yeah, remember when I said I was gonna look for him after we saw the stuff about you? Well... I kind of walked in on them doing it right then. It sounded like someone was getting murdered with the way they were shouting and splashing all over the place!"

Kiara managed to crack a soft chuckle at that. "Sounds like they must've had a hell of a time, then... hey wait a minute." She said curiously. "You walked in on them... and they just kept going after that?"

Kovu shook his head. "Kiara, the less that either of us know about what was going through their heads right then, the better."

Nala spoke to her son once more now. "How could you not control yourself, Kopa? You're better than that!"

Kopa bowed his head. He spoke sincerely now, not meaning for any humor or childishness to come from it this time. "I know, mom. I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. I didn't intend for things to go that far. I... I deserve to be humiliated like this, I admit it."

"It could be days before that water's safe to drink again!" Nala scolded. Kopa sighed. "I'm sorry, alright? I deserve this. I can admit that... we really should've controlled ourselves. I made the first move anyway."

"Yeah, I'm sorry too, Nala." Vitani added. "We just needed to unwind from the horrible stuff we saw before that."

Nala opened her mouth to say something, but decided against it. About half a minute passed while she thought. Although the lioness was still aghast that her son and daughter-in-law would do such a thing in the main place that they drink, she was admittedly surprised at her son's words. She expected him to just deny it over and over again, or perhaps beg for mercy like some others would to their parents. But he was owning up to it at least, which was more than she could've expected before. She exhaled loudly before her expression lightened.

"Well... it could be worse." She said as gently as she could right then, with her anger slowly wearing away.

Minara sighed, doing her best to cool down as well. "I can't believe this, prince Kopa. What could you have possibly seen that made you that upset at the time?"

A moment of silence passed as all eyes suddenly turned to Minara. The looks she was getting said it all with the eyes bulging and the mouths dropping.

"She doesn't know..." Kiara said to Kovu.

"What?" Minara asked. "What is it?"

Another few seconds went by before Nala finally lifted her paw off of her son's tail, where he promptly flicked it around for a bit to let the blood flow to it again. Minara was officially confused now.

"Is... is there something going on here I don't know about?" She asked. "Er, something else I don't know about, then?"

Then her eyes darted around the place for a moment before they rested upon the laptop. She perked up.

"Oh yeah, before I forget... that's another thing the others wanted me to ask you." She said. "W-what've you guys been doing in here for the past three days? We could really use Nala, Kiara and Vitani back out there."

She glanced up to Simba before looking directly down at the laptop. "And what is this... thing you have here? Where'd you guys get this? What're you doing with it?"

Kovu was the first one to respond. "Well... uh, maybe it is time we tell you guys about this."

A few of the others grinned excitedly to one another, realizing that Minara had no idea that the Internet so much as existed yet. Simba smiled and poorly held back his laughter laughter while Kiara whispered to Kovu, "Boy, have we got some stories to tell her."

Kopa laughed before he said to his father, "Looks like you're the one who has some explaining to do now, dad."