Thanks to Boris Yeltsin, whitem, captainkodak1, CajunBear73, Shockwave88, JCS1966, Mr. Wizard, LoPe21, Quathis, Charles Gray, daywalkr82, campy, Eddy13, Shrike176, Katsumara, the gray mage, screaming phoenix, King Of Anime, noncynic, Foxman2, Comet Moon, Joe Stoppinghem, and TearsAreFallingDownMyFace for reviewing and to everyone for reading.

Special thanks to campy for proofreading this chapter.

Leave a review and, as ever, I'll send a response.

KP © Disney; Original Characters © the author

I.

Ivan sat behind the counter, listlessly reading the web page of the Moscow Examiner. Looking at the news site of the Russian Federation's largest newspaper only served to remind the bored clerk of where he was: stuck in a stagnant Siberian backwater, three thousand miles east of Moscow, which was where he wanted to live but could not, given his lack of funds to travel to, let alone, live there. He was about to return to his reading when the door opened and a striking woman with a luxurious mane of red hair and ice-blue eyes strode in. Ivan wanted to say something, anything, but was tongue-tied, so he instead watched as she surveyed the room imperiously. He gulped when she settled her gaze on him.

"May I help you?" he stammered.

"Yes, Comrade," she replied, surprising the young man. He'd only heard old, usually bitter, people use that old-fashioned term of address. "I am in need of assistance."

"Uh, sure," he said tentatively.

"Good. You will show me how to crawl the internet?" she asked, gesturing towards the terminals.

"Surf," he said, nervously correcting her.

The woman coldly appraised him, nodded, then, to his surprise, smiled. "Surf. Thank you, Comrade. You will show me how to surf the internet."

"Yeah," he said, uneasily.

"Very good. Let us start," she said as she took one of the seats. "What must I do?"

"Pay," he said apologetically, not wanting to offend the woman, though he was not sure whether it was because of her great beauty or the sense of authority she exuded. "Ten rubles an hour. You can insert your credit card there," he explained, pointing to a slot in a small box that was attached to the computer's hard drive.

"I do not have a credit card," she said.

"Then, uh, you can pay with cash," he said.

The woman nodded, reached into her jacket and withdrew a wad of bills whose thickness stunned Ivan. Without thinking, he blurted out, "Did you rob a bank?"

She cocked her eyebrow, then smirked. "And what if I did?" she asked nonchalantly. "Do they not rob the people?"

Ivan considered the stories he'd read about the billionaire oligarchs in Moscow and St. Petersburg and found himself agreeing with his customer.

Then, for a brief moment, he wondered if he could relieve the woman of her cash – there appeared to be more than enough to enable him to move to Moscow. But the hard look on her face told him that she both knew what he was contemplating and that it would be a very grave mistake for him to act on the idea. Gulping, he took the money she proffered and walked to the counter, where he activated her computer. Then he returned and sat next to her.

"So, what are you looking for?" Ivan asked.

"Information, Comrade," Katerina answered. "The successful completion of my work requires that I inform myself about current events."

II.

Kim led the way as she and Ron made their way to the secluded beach on the Hawaiian island of Kauai using Navy-issued jet packs provided by King. The two teens swiftly descended from the Sea King helicopter that had transported them from the Enterprise, which was itself en route to Pearl Harbor. As they skimmed the gentle waves, Kim found herself musing that the military gear they were using was more than adequate but not as responsive as those fashioned by Wade, while Ron fretted over losing his shorts the moment they landed. It was a little before dawn, and the indigo sky was clear and the air still, when the duo set down on the beach.

"Ah-booyah!" Ron declared with gusto as he successfully shed his jet pack without losing his shorts.

"Care to explain?" Kim asked with a bemused smile.

"Graduation rocks!" Ron explained. "Now that I've got my pigskin, my plummeting pants problem seems to be part of the past."

"Nice use of allitera—" Kim was observing as her boyfriend began to shake violently. "Ron?" she asked with concern.

Before he could answer, his shorts dropped and he rocketed into the night sky with a roar. "Bad blaster boxers!" he cried out. "KP!!!"

Kim lost no time in donning her jet pack. She blasted off and followed Ron, reaching him just as his boxers sputtered out and he began to fall towards the beach below.

"Care for a lift?" she asked puckishly as she slipped her arms under his.

"Thanks, Kim," Ron said gratefully.

"No big," she said lightly – although not wholly convincingly, as she experienced a powerful surge of relief that he had not been hurt, the intense emotion highlighting for her just how much deeper the already close bond they shared had grown over the past few days.

"Wrong. I can always count on you," he said with feeling that communicated he felt the same as his girlfriend about the state of their connection. Seriousness faded, though, as Ron looked down at his polka-dotted boxers and groused, "Unlike my shorts and pants. When will it end?"

Kim snorted and slipped off her pack while Ron retrieved his shorts. She then sat down on the beach, and patted a spot next to her. As he dropped down beside her, the sun broke the horizon and the inky night sky began to brighten. They sat quietly, holding hands, watching as the morning light bathed the ocean that stretched out before them. Kim was startled when Ron sat up and began looking around.

"What is it?" she asked, wondering if her boyfriend sensed something with his new monkey powers.

"Have we been here?" he responded.

"Excuse me?"

"This beach. Don't get me wrong, KP, it's badical, but I feel like we've been here before."

"I don't remember being here."

"You sure?"

"Yes. I chose this spot because I wanted us to go somewhere new to mark the start of the next part of our lives," she explained before she grew quiet, realizing that the place did look vaguely familiar. She got up and surveyed their surroundings. "Now that you mention it, I do feel like we had a mission here, some whack sitch involving Drakken and …"

"… And somebody trying to kidnap Rufus!" Ron offered as he jumped to his feet.

"And there was a little girl who insisted on helping," Kim said as her brow furrowed.

"And she had a really weird blue dog!" Ron exclaimed. "Talk about sick and wrong!"

"I so can't believe this," she said, shaking her head.

"Tell me about it. I mean, who ever heard of a blue dog?" The expression on Kim's face encouraged Ron that he might want to get his head in the proverbial game. "So what do you think happened?"

Kim considered the situation for a few moments. "It must have been a shared dream like the one we had sophomore year," she concluded.

"Kooky," Ron said.

"Understatement much?" Kim observed lightly. "I guess that's just part of being us."

"You're cool with that?" he asked.

Kim looked into Ron's eyes, smiled warmly, and then answered by bringing her lips to his …

The End.