Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Gold Digger Fan Fiction ❯ Golden Oportunity ❯ Chapter 01 ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Notes - This is a Ranma / Gold Digger crossover that has intreged me for some time now. I plan to cross this with a number of stories, but it will stay with its main crossover until the end. With Gold Digger it is possble to visit at least four other worlds and I hope to visit all of them before this story is finished. Who knows where I will go from those other worlds, I just need to find the right ideas and plot.

I have to say the Red Priest inspired me to write this with his own story, it just gave me a good number of ideas that I had not considered before. This is the first chapter and it is really long, about 100kb so take your time and enjoy. e-mail me and let me know what you think or if there are any major errors that I may have missed.

My site is at - http://home.talkcity.com/BookmarkBlvd/crose9/

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Golden Opportunity
Chapter 01
By C. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(c) 2002
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A sixteen year old Ranma stood at the cave opening looking out over the vast expanse of snow and stone as the storm raged around them. Him and his pop had been in the Himalayan Mountains for several weeks now searching for some fabled training ground that was supposedly hidden in a secluded valley. His father had heard stories of it from his old master, mentioning that he had visited at some time in the past. Genma wasn't sure, but he had hinted that it was where his master became so powerful. Ranma had his doubts about that, he just figured his father was remembering some drunken fever dream that had caught his imagination.

They had just been finishing up his last month of middle school when this trip came up and his father had given him the choice of going to China to find some ancient training ground to finish off the trip before going home or spending a few months here. Ranma chose here because it was something he hadn't done before, they hadn't spent much time in the mountains during the trip and there were some techniques he had yet to master that dealt with the mountains. The thousand fist mountain (or something like that) school that his pop had mentioned at one time a few weeks back, unfortunately he had to harness his Chi more effectively before he could learn it. According to is father anyway, it was to be one of the final things he learned before he knew everything about the family art. Of course Ranma had his doubts about this too, when his father started acting strange and sweating bullets it meant something was up.

The first thing he had learned was that he did not like snow, it was cold and seemed to go on for as long as he could see. Snow sucked and he wished he had taken the chance to go to nice WARM China. At least there it would only snow for a few months out of the year and not this year round crap. He was very happy his father had taken the time to show him how to use his rudimentary Chi abilities to keep warm, otherwise he would have been a frozen Ranmacicle by now. Ranma sighed and looked around the area outside the cave again, this area was dangerous so they had to keep watch for nearly anything strange. Unfortunately his pop seemed to think he needed more sleep than other people since more often than not he used his time on watch to sleep.

Over the years Ranma had learned that his father was an exceptional fighter and a powerful martial arts teacher. He had learned how to do things that would make normal fighters insane. He had met maybe twenty individuals in his life that were trained just as dangerously he had been and he had surpassed most of them in the last few years. Unfortunately his father was an idiot, if it dealt with anything outside of martial arts he seemed to think it was useless. Ranma used to agree with this, but at several of the dojo's they had visited had exposed him to certain things. It wasn't much, even he understood that, but he knew enough to understand that he had to learn more about life outside of martial arts.

He had done this over the years by 'borrowing' martial arts magazines from stores, some comics and other martial arts related material. They contained the most amazing things, stories, ways to look at life, articles, legends, and he could take an article that interested him and show it to his father and they would go look for it or learn it right out of the book. A Master Myagi had shown him how to use the books to expand his knowledge and keep his father satisfied that he was learning martial arts. He had even learned the trick of keeping one kind of magazine inside of another without letting his father know what he was reading. He couldn't do it to many times before his father caught on, but if he found a good technique it was always easy to distract him and learn it.

There wasn't anything to learn in those magazines about one's Ki and Chi, but he had learned a good number of meditation exercises that had helped him find his center for when he did need to use his Ki or Chi. He would spend a few hours a day learning to push his Chi into a visible battle aura, it was very hard and tended to use up a lot of his energy within a matter of minutes, but he was able to hold it longer and longer each time. His father had told him that those of his family were blessed with a greater amount of Chi than a normal person so they were able to put it to greater use than most fighters ever could. It allowed them to run faster, jump higher, and hit harder than almost anyone else. There were several other families that had this talent too, but their school had been designed just for their family and it's high levels of Chi reserves.

"Hey pop, it's early enough, get off your lazy butt and lets go and find that training ground you mentioned."

"ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZ...snort." Genma said and rolled back over and scratched his ass.

"Get up pop or I'll do to you what you did to me a few days ago!" Ranma yelled.

ZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzz...ZZ."

Ranma shrugged, he had warned the moron and he had been getting a little full of himself lately so it was only right to bring him down a peg. He adjusted his heavy weather coat and made sure it wasn't about to fall off or come undone, then walked over to the small fire he had kept going all night to keep warm and stoked it up to see if his father would wake up. The sound of breakfast was a good way to wake either one of them up, but this time his father was far to deeply asleep. Once in position he got into position...and kicked his father out of the cave with a loud grunt.

Genma awoke to a familiar feeling, flying through the air, he had experienced it with the master to many times to forget. He opened his eyes just at the ground was coming up and he screamed, hit the snow and started to roll down the mountain head over heels. "OOOFF....AGHHHHHH....RANMA I'LL GET....AGHHHHHHHHH....NOT THE ROCKS NOT THE ROCKS....AGHHHHHHHH...OOOFFF...." Genma screamed as he rolled down the mountain and landed in a large pile of snow with a grunt of pain. He could hear the boy's mocking laughter even from under the snow. He groaned and decided it was time to show the boy how to be more respectful, a good beating was in order.

Ruuummmmmbbblllleee!!!!!!!!

Ranma just stood back and watched as half the snow on the mountain seemed to come free and flow like water, burring his father and knocking a good amount of dangerous spots free of the unpredictable snow. He wasn't too worried about the avalanche, his father was strong enough to survive a little snow. He just smirked as the snow down below exploded upwards nearly twenty feet as his father launched himself into the air and landed on a rock a few yards away.

"You’re going to pay for that boy!"

"Just a little pay back for what you did to me old man."

"I never kicked you down a mountain!" Genma yelled, his face red with rage.

"No, you just dropped kicked me off the top of a water fall!"

"Foolish boy!"

"I believe you said a forty foot drop would be good training, toughen me up and all that." Ranma yelled back with a cruel laugh.

An eerie sounding roar filled the air around the two as they yelled back and forth and they both turned to look as a large white beast like creature rose up out of the snow and shook itself. Standing on its back legs it roared again and started bounding for Genma at amazing speed. Genma screamed in shock and started bounding from rock to rock as he ran up the mountain. Ranma just shook his head, these stupid things were all over the place. They had encountered seven or eight of them over the last few weeks. They had a lot of strength and stamina, but no brains what so ever and could be tricked pretty easily.

Ranma takes a quarter stick of dynamite out of his pops pack and lights the long fuse to wait for the right time to throw it. A few seconds later his father flew passed the cave so he stepped out and noted that the thing, he didn't know if they had a name, was about fifty yards down and gaining. With a lazy lob he threw the lit explosive and counted the seconds in his head to see how close he could get before it went off. He was a martial artist, timing was very important to a martial artist of his skill. The explosive went off to soon, the thing was still several yards away and it wasn't hurt.

Cursing under his breath Ranma waited to see what it was going to do and was surprised to see it rise up slowly, howl at them and run off. Ranma was almost relieved as it ran off, he hated to kill at any time and even if his father did like how they tasted when cooked up he would rather miss a meal than kill them. It was then as he watched the thing run off that he noticed something odd. The monster passed over a small useless hill that led to a cliff and simply vanished, not like it had fallen, he was watching for that. No, like it had taken a sudden turn and just vanished from sight and he could see for miles in that direction.

"Boy, why didn't you kill it?!" Genma yelled as he landed beside Ranma and swatted him on the head.

"I timed the explosive wrong that's why, I was off by a few seconds. Any way it may have been a good idea after all."

"Why is that boy, I was hungry."

"Your always hungry pop and you know it, so shut up."

"That thing ran over that small hill over there and just vanished..."

"So what, it fell off the cliff! Let's make breakfast okay?!"

"You do that, I'm going to go and check this out."

"Boy..." Genma started, but stopped as Ranma bounded away and muttered to himself. "Idiot boy, he is sticking his neck out recklessly. I checked out that area yesterday and it was totally useless, but I'll let him find that out on his own. If he's not back in time for breakfast it's his own problem."

Ranma picked his way carefully across the snow, never taking his eyes off his goal, he had a feeling that if he looked away for to long he would miss something important. Due to the small storm of snow that was still underway he had problems tracking the beasts tracks since they were nearly covered already. From his position above they were pretty easy to see, but when he was right on top of them they were almost totally invisible to the eye. He kept half an eye peeled for the cliff as well and remembered to stay at least fifteen feet from the edge as he moved. The thing had come this way and walked along the edge of the cliff before vanishing from sight, where had he gone?

Creeping forward, Ranma noticed that the snow seemed to be getting a little thinner as he rounded the hill. The wind died down and then he saw the cave in the distance, it was a little bigger than the one they had been using for the last couple of days. Why hadn't they used this to camp in, it was a whole lot better than the other one. He remembered that his father had went over this area the day before, how could he have missed this? Actually Ranma didn't have to think about it all that much, his father was a moron, he could ignore almost anything in favor of food. Their cave had been occupied when the decided to use it for few days, occupied by a bear. It had cooked up a little stringy, but not bad and given them about twenty pounds of jerky to add to their packs.

Idiot old man, Ranma thought as he made his way forward and into the cave. The wind stopped and nearly all sound vanished as he entered, it caught him by surprise and he spun around to see what was going on. Ranma gasped, the cave entrance was gone, only a blank wall of snow greeted him. Tapping at the snow he found it to be almost solid, like ice, he had never seen anything like it before. He turned around and noticed that the cave led deeper into the hill, every few yards was a weird looking torch that lit up several yards of the cave as he moved. At about ten minutes in he noticed that the torches had turned into electric lamps and that the floor was made out of cement.

"What the hell is going on here?" Ranma muttered to himself as he wandered down he hallway. Then he came to a door that seemed to be made out of metal and painted with the picture of an attacking dragon. Then he noticed a small sign off to the side written in Japanese, he blinked in surprise, then it started to scroll words across it's small screen.

GREETINGS STRANGER, YOU HAVE REACHED THE ENTRENCE INTO SHRANGRI-LA, THE HIDDEN CITY OF KNOWLEGE AND PEACE. ALL WHO ENTER ARE REQUESTED TO BRING PEACE AND HARMONY WITH THEM OR THE DOOR WILL NOT OPEN.

"Huh?"

WOULD YOU LIKE TO ENTER?

"Sure."

REQUEST ACKNOWLEDGED, THERE ARE A FEW THINGS THAT NEED TO BE UNDERSTOOD ABOUT SHANGRI-LA. IT IS HIDDEN FOR REASON AND TO REACH IT A SECOND TIME IN THIS MANOR IS NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE, MAGIC PROTECTS IT AND IF YOU LEAVE YOU MUST HAVE ONE OF THE KEEPERS PERMISION TO COME BACK. SECOND...TIME FLOWS DIFFERENTLY BEYOND THE DOOR, FOR EVERY DAY THAT PASSES WITHIN, ONLY AN HOUR WILL PASS IN THE 'REAL' WORLD.

"That is cool."

PLEASE STATE YOUR NAME.

"Um...Ranma Saotome."

WELCOME TO SHANGRI-LA RANMA SAOTOME

To his surprise the door groaned loudly and swung open without him touching it, light pouring into the hall and illuminating Ranma as he witnessed his first step into Shangri-La. Beyond the door was a surprise, it was huge city with large buildings, modern sights, and...he smelled food and smiled. Then he saw there was someone there to greet him, a rather large man that looked like a body builder, he was a little over six foot tall and totally bald. Ranma noticed a peaceful look in his eyes even though he was tensed up as if expecting a fight.

"Hello Ranma Saotome."

"Um...hello."

The man smiled. "My name is Kahn and I have been asked to show you around while you are here in the city."

"Ah...sure, can we get something to eat first?" Ranma asked as his stomach made its wants known, rather loudly. He grinned sheepishly and scratched the back of his head.

Kahn just laughed. "I take it you smell the food?"

"Um...yeah, I haven't had a decent meal in some time now."

"Come along, I'll take you to a great Japanese place just up the road."

"Um...I don't have much money with me, is there some way I can barter for the food?"

"Not to worry Ranma, for now the food is free of charge, there are very few that can pass through that door into Shangri-La."

"Huh, what do you mean? It seemed simple enough to get inside, no problems what so ever actually."

"Not so, only those of pure purpose can use one of the doors to enter, your father was found wanting yesterday when he neared the door and it did not make itself known to him. You on the other hand are a different story. When you were detected by the magic of the doors our magic users were alerted and they used their powers to look over various parts of your life to see if you could pass any of our other tests for entrance. There are several seers around right now that want to hunt your father down and make his existence as bad as what he has done to you over the years." Kahn said as he looked a little embarrassed.

"Pops is an idiot, but I don't want to kill him, he is my father and the only family I have left."

"You don't have worry to much, our laws prevent us from doing against him, but there are some people that would like to talk to you."

"Sure, whatever, first the food." Ranma said with a grin.

Kahn laughed. "A one track mind, huh?"

Ranma's stomach growls, loudly.

Kahn just smiles and points out the small restaurant just down the block. "We'll grab some food there. Eat as much as you want, we are used to big eaters like you."

It was called 'Chan's' and the place reminds Ranma of any number of places he had eaten at over the years as he and his father trekked all across Japan looking for training grounds. As he was entering the place he saw Kahn wave at the cute girl in a Chinese pantsuit of yellow and red. Ranma just smiled and ordered several bowls of food and finished them off Saotome style, so half an hour later he was full and happy again. With the Saotome bottomless pit slightly appeased Ranma decided that he wanted to see more of the city. This place was fascinating, he had never expected to find a large city like this out here in the middle of nowhere.

"So what is this place for?"

"We guard and protect others from the 'Library of Time', this entire city sprung up around us for that one purpose. Over the years things have changed slightly, but that is still our main goal, though we have others now. We collect all types of information and store it in the Library, we also specialize in helping people if we can, though that one is a little hard to do with us as isolated as we are."

"You collect information?" Ranma asked. He remembered one of his old teachers mentioning something long ago, knowledge is power, he had been collecting little things for years from all those magazines he had read. Maybe this place could help him find out how to fix some of his problems?

"Yes, is there something your wanting to know?"

"My idiot father trained me in the art of the Neko-ken."

"I don't know that one, but if our seer's reaction to your life is any indication I figure it was a bad thing?"

"The Neko-ken is a very powerful technique, unfortunately it can't be used unless I am insane, I want to either master it so I can use it or find a way to get rid of it."

"I am the current Librarian here in the city, lets head on over there and see if there is a book on the style and a way to help you out."

"What, that easy?"

"We are a very simple people Ranma, but we are also very willing to help others out. Your father has done some horrible things to you and the seers asked me to help you out and their opinion is very important to us. They help us to maintain the peace of this city and to help those like you."

"Ah...I see."

Kahn led him towards the center of the city and to a building that kind of reminded him of the large amphitheater in Sydney, Australia. His father had taken him there to spend some time with the native people who had devised some truly destructive talents. Aborigines or something like that, they had been a lot of fun to mess around with and could use some truly bizarre weapons. He had learned most of their various ways of fighting in the eight months he was with them and they in turn had learned from him the basics of the his family school of martial arts. The biggest thing he had learned though was thousands of little things dealing with plants and animals, how to make poisons, skin animals and make clothing, how to survive in the wild without the proper equipment and such.

Shaking his head, Ranma forgot about his trip to Australia and stepped inside the large building. To his surprise it was like one giant room filled with people sitting at tables reading and discussing things. To his surprise there was not a bookshelf in sight, not one in the entire room. The only thing out of place was a rather large machine set in the middle of the room, it was shaped like a piece of artwork with a large crescent moon on the front and a small...conveyor belt set up running in five directions around the machine. Ranma was about to ask where the books were when he saw a girl walk up the machine and talk to it in a strange language, a second later a whole opened up from the machine and three large books landed on the belt.

"So Ranma what do you think of the Library?" Kahn asked.

"I expected books."

"Most of the books are kept in a sub dimension and the reader over there can get them for you to examine, the originals can not leave the Library Ranma, but we can make a copy of a book if it isn't on one of our restricted knowledge lists. Let's see if there is something on that technique of yours."

They stepped up to the machine and Ranma was surprise when it spoke to them in in Japanese. "Welcome to the Library of Time, how may I be of use?"

"There your books Ranma, you have to ask it." Kahn said.

"Um...I want something on how to master the Neko-ken...and other advanced martial arts forms and techniques." Ranma said, adding in the second part quickly.

"Please state a more precise description of the books desired, there are currently twenty three books of that type in the Library." The machine said.

"The five most in-depth." Kahn said.

Five large books plop out and move along the belt until they stop in front of Ranma, he notices the titles. The advanced Egyptian fighting arts, Power of the Musk Dragon Arts, Advanced Ki Techniques and Training, Amazon Secrets, and The Kami Ha Mi Ha detailed as Fact or Fiction. Kahn looks over the titles and frowns a little, there was enough knowledge there to make Ranma a very powerful fighter. He really hoped he was as worthy as the seer's said he was.

"There you go Ranma, you know those are books I haven't had a chance to read through yet. I usually have to translate all the new books, but it looks like these were done by my predecessor."

"You have to translate them? What are you talking about, all of these are in Japanese..."

"The main Library is a separate dimension than this one Ranma and off limits to everyone but me, it is a very dangerous place where legendary animals make their home and feed off each other. One needs either high amounts of magic or technology to survive the area. The books are from all time and world in existence, one just has to find them and that is extremely hard to do. This means they are in thousands of different languages, as Librarian it is my job to translate them into readable languages, this machine is like a massive computer. I enter all of a books info into it and it can translate it into any language that it knows almost instantly, it uses a kind of energy to matter converter to create the books."

"Huh?" Ranma asked in confusion.

"Never mind, the machine can make the books in any language."

"Oh...cool, let's see what he have here." Ranma said and took everything over to a nearby table and opened the first book. At first Ranma just flipped through it, but he quickly found that it was like a giant training manual and was soon so absorbed that the didn't see Kahn walk off a few minutes later. Ranma lost track of time as he read, right in the middle of the first book he found the descriptions of how the Neko-ken was supposed to be taught and wanted to throttle his father. He had the pit correct, but the child had to have been trained in number of specialized meditations that would allow them to slowly take on a more feral state even before they were lowered into the pit, complete with head and groin protection to protect the eyes and family jewels. Once one finished that part the starved cats would be removed and treated if they needed it. The student, now in a feral state was allowed to sleep off the training without any treatment. Then once he woke up he was tossed some clothing and food and ordered to use his meditations to better focus his mind while a single small cat was sent into the pit ever six hours. The book said that the student would, with the help of the mediations, be able to control his fear and over come the side effect while at the same time slowly mastering his mind, body, and fear into the dreaded Neko-ken. Ranma also found that a good number of the skills he had were because of the training, skill his father had taken credit for.

His Ki claws for example were a manifestation of his cat side, he had been forced to make them so that he could be more cat like in his feral state. Kind of like using a sledge hammer to kill a fly, his strong Ki abilities were started up during that training, as was his quick healing abilities, and increased abilities. He had been subconsciously tapping into the Neko-ken all his life, only his fear had kept him from using it completely. Ranma also learned that once learned, the Neko-ken would affect everything in his life from his views to his actions subconsciously. It could not be removed with messing up his mind and either killing him or driving him insane.

There also seemed to be a time limit for how long one could go without finishing the training and he was long past it. Ranma's aura flared up and nearly destroyed the chair he was sitting in as he cursed his father in every language he knew. There were not to many failures detailed in the training, but he hoped that he could lesson the effect of the fear by mastering the meditation techniques he could control his fear of cats. While he was there he went through the other books as well and learned about techniques that would make him faster and stronger and more powerful. The Amazons book detailed forbidden techniques that were some of the most fascinating thing he had ever seen.

The book on the Musk was just as fascinating, but dealt with areas that didn't interest him as much as the others. It seemed the Musk were very dependent on their physical strength to fight and the book did have one technique that he though he would come in handy and used a handy coping machine to copy that section of the book and complete copies of the other three. He was going to be busy for some time to come, but he had to be careful as well to not let his father get his hands on these techniques. The old fool would try to steal them and use them for all the wrong reasons, his pop was a master teacher but a total idiot when it came to other things.

"Ranma!"

He turned to see Kahn walking over. "Hi Kahn, thanks for the books they are going to come in handy."

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Yeah, unfortunately I may not be able to do anything about my problem."

"Why?"

"After learning the first half of the technique like I did there is a four year period where it is possible to convert the fear into the true Neko-ken."

"How long ago did you learn it?"

"About eight years ago, pop taught it to me when I was only seven."

"Hmmm, there may still be a way for you to get cured, there are hundreds of people in the city that can use varying skills like magic and Ki and other odd forms of energy. We don't have any Jurians in the city at the moment but we can see what can be done."

"A Jurian?"

"Nobles from a far off Kingdom that can access powers just below that of a god, they can be quite useful at times."

"Um...right."

"So what would you like to do first?"

"I need to get some training in, there are several techniques in these books that I want to learn while I'm here."

"Do you want to learn them on your own, or would a teacher be more helpful?"

"There is someone here that could help me learn these?" Ranma asked in surprise, he had thought this was a city of...well, geeks.

"We guard the Library of Time, there are accomplished fighters here at all times."

"A teacher would be a great help."

Kahn had led him across the city to an isolated section that, to Ranma's amazement, sported several large buildings used as dojo's and training grounds. They crossed a couple of bridges and entered a small walled off compound that looked like something out of the Shogunate era in Japan. There were two old men waiting for them as they entered the house and dropped off their shoes. They rose and Ranma was able to get a better look at them and judge their skills a little better.

The first was dressed in a simple white silk Gi decorated with dragons at battle, he had a build that told Ranma that he had been training in martial arts for most of his life and had more power than what was obvious to the eye. Ranma didn't think to much of it though, his old man had the same feel and he was a thief and an idiot, just a good fighter. The guy also had a set of traditional Katana at his waist like a Samurai of old would carry and they looked like they had seen a lot of use too. He had wild white hair that hung down his back in waves, sectioned off with bits of string, there were scars on ever bit of exposed skin on his body, from his eyes and cheeks to his harms to the toes on his feet.

The second guy was a bit of a weird one, even for Ranma's jaded experience. Not to many guys could walk around in a skin tight black body suit and still look as dangerous as this guy did. He was just under six foot and looked to be in his late forties, the edges of his hair just starting to turn white and a scruffy looking beard that just seemed to just fit him perfectly. Ranma could feel massive amounts of power inside the guy as well and Ranma knew that he did not ever want to get on this guys bad side.

"Ranma, I would like you to meet Master Kaori and Dr. Diggers." Kahn pointed to each of them respectively.

"Hello." Ranma said with a little bow.

"Kahn tells me you were trained in the Neko-ken?" Master Kaori asked.

"Yes sir, my pop found a training manual that described the first half of the training and put me through it."

"How old were you when you did this?"

"Just before my eighth birthday sir."

"He used the corrupted version that has been floating around for some years now, the pit of cats, sausage and repeated attempts?"

"Yes sir..."

"What do you say Theo?" Kaori asked his friend.

"I'm not sure, my wife is more up do date on martial arts than I am and she did study under some of the best master on this world and Jade. Still from what I am seeing here of the boy's aura he has been trained in several of the more deadly techniques, his aura is wild and chaotic affecting his surroundings in odd little ways. I'd almost say that he was cursed in some way."

"Cursed?" Ranma asked, wondering just who this guy was.

"Yes, your aura is very odd, almost impossible for me to read accurately. Have you and your father ever visited any places that were said to magical in nature?"

Ranma snorted. "Pops seeks them out and more often than not finds them, we have been all over the world looking for new fighting techniques, both new and old ones. I've been inside the Cave the Dragon, Pit of Never Ending Doom, and a whole bunch of others, dozens of temples and monasteries where I leaned mediation, healing arts, and more of the Art."

"How about abandoned cites and such?"

"Yeah, those too, but we never stayed around after searching the place for new forms of the Art."

"What is the name of your style?" Kaori asked.

"Saotome Anything Goes Martial Arts."

Kaori frowned. "Anything Goes?"

"Is there a problem?" Kahn asked.

"Yes, I will not be able to teach him."

"What?! Why?!" Ranma nearly yelled.

"Anything Goes is a style that I have no love for, the Grandmaster Happosai is the worst bastard I have ever met. His school is notorious for theft, murder, and lechery. Any student of the school would be just as affected by the school as its victims, Happosai has trained several individuals in his Art and they are all very dangerous and unstable individuals. I...refuse to train you." Kaori said and walked out of the room.

"I don't thing he has ever refused to teach anyone before." Kahn said quietly.

"Who is Happosai?" Ranma asked.

"You don't know?" Dr. Diggers asked in surprise.

"No, I've been on the road all my life training with my pop, he has never mentioned the name before."

"I think I may have heard of him, but I'm not sure where." Kahn said.

Dr. Diggers crossed his arms and shrugged. "Master Happosai is a little over three hundred years old, he uses his Chi and Ki abilities to keep alive. He also uses his martial arts to do whatever he wants to women, he steals their underwear and absorbs the female chi out of them to make himself stronger. He will not listen to anyone and is good enough in the arts to make most masters think twice before attacking him right out. I don't know much more about him, but my wife could tell you since she may have trained under him at one time."

"I doubt that." Ranma said.

"Why?"

"Huh? Oh...I have been told to never teach my school to a girl, never."

"Who told you that?"

"My father, he thinks women are weak and useless."

"Weak and Useless?" Kahn asked. "How could anyone believe that?"

Ranma shrugged. "So far he has been pretty much right on that score, in the last decade of training I have yet to meet a girl that could hold her own against me. Even then I would not fight a girl in the first place, I don't like to hit girls, ever."

"You'd be surprised what girls can do Ranma."

He shrugged.

"Dr. Diggers, if Master Kaori will not teach Ranma what he needs, would your wife be willing to? She is a better fighter than Master Kaori and could teach him some of the other stuff he needs too."

"I already know what I need to!" Ranma growled. "I don't need some girl helping me to fight!"

"Why do you say that?" Asked an amused female voice.

Everyone turned to see Julia Diggers walk in and head over to her husband, she was just a little shorter than Dr. Diggers, had long red hair and was wearing a colorful outfit that showed off her body. Surprisingly she looked to be in her early twenties and a well toned body that only years of training can achieve. She looked Ranma over and dismissed him as a threat almost instantly. This irritated Ranma more than he was willing to admit and glared at the woman in front of him.

"Your a girl, that's way."

Mrs. Diggers blinked, looked down at her ample tits and hefted them experimentally, they bounced enticingly when she dropped them and nodded. "Yep, I'm a girl. I never expected a thing either..."

Dr. Diggers and Kahn just laughed.

"Hey cut that out!" Ranma yelled and turned bright red.

"No matter what you have been told Ranma, women can fight just as well as men. The only advantage you have is a male's strength while women are faster than most men. Depending on what type of martial arts a girl is taught they can negate any advantage a man may have through training."

"No, I don't think so. I've met a whole bunch of girls in my life and none of them were all that good at fighting."

Julia nodded, she had met this kind of thinking before and always had to prove the speaker wrong. I just irritated her to no end, she was a mother, a fighter, and she had ever intention of kicking this kids ass. "Alright then, I challenge you to prove yourself right, lets step outside and have a little match. If I win you will make yourself my student and allow me to changer your opinions on some of your view while I train you to be a better fighter."

"I don't hit girls." Ranma said stubbornly.

"I'm not a girl, I'm a master of my martial art and I say mine is better than yours boy. Are you a coward?"

"You take that back!" Ranma yelled. A small part of his mind cursed itself for falling for that line, again. "Let's just step outside then."

Julia and Ranma walked out the back door and into the back yard of the house, as this was Master Kaori's house it was designed for just such fighting and training. It was large enough to hold twenty students easily as they all trained. Even now there were several students out there and they made room for a master getting ready to pound on a new student, they had seen this before and always got a good laugh out of the show. Dr. Diggers sighed and wondered how often his wife was going to do things like this, she seemed to get into more fights than even he did. As for Kahn he was intrigued, he was a Librarian so only got to fight with monsters and stuff, it had been years since he had actually seen a fight between a couple of humans. This was proving to be a most interesting day, he thought to himself.

"Are you ready Ranma?" Julia asked.

"Bring it on lady, I promise not to hurt you to much." Ranma said with a smirk.

Dr. Diggers rolled his eyes.

From some unknown signal both fighters launched forward in a blur, there was an impact of flesh where they connected and Ranma flew back in shock from a blow that had been faster than he had ever seen. He could already feel a bruise forming on his shoulder as he landed on his back and rolled. Me and my big mouth, he thought as he came to his feet. Julia had also gotten him in the chin with that hit and he shook his head as if he was dizzy and smirked as the girl came in for another attack.

He was surprised to note that she looked a little disappointed, but didn't think much of it as he suddenly twisted and tossed her over his shoulder. She landed in a roll and was back in front of him in an instant as they started to trade blows at incredible speeds. The Julia lashed out with her foot and hit him in the stomach, chest, and face in quick succession. Dazed, Ranma lashed out instinctively from years of fighting his father, and kneed Julia in the face, spun around and slammed her into the ground. She rolled out of the way before he could hit her and made a small crater in the ground.

"Not bad."

"I'm sorry about that, it was instinctive."

"Quite holding back." Julia growled.

"I don't want to hurt you."

"Don't worry about me."

"I have no choice lady."

They blurred again and loud crack that echoed across the yard, almost as if someone had broken the sound barrier. Then Ranma staggered back several steps as bruises formed all over his face and the front of his shirt was turned to confetti. Julia just smiled and glared at him, this was more than she had expected from one so young. This Anything Goes may have had a bad reputation but it was differently effective if a teenager like Ranma could hold out like this against her.

"Do you yield and accept the terms?"

"Not yet." Ranma growled and shot forward again.

Ranma wasn't holding back anymore, this fight was more serious than he had thought and he had given his word. He couldn't fail or he would trapped her being taught by this woman that was...kicking his ass worse than his father ever had. This time the took the fight to the air and used the signature moves of his school against Julia, but it was like trying to hit a ghost as the woman seemed to be everywhere at once. He took blows to his back, arms, chest, and face as they bounced around the area, but it was pretty obvious that she was the better fighter since he was the one bleeding. All he had managed to do was get her outfit a little dusty.

Why in the hell was he losing, he thought, he had taken out fighters that were much better than him on any number of occasions. Was she that good, could she actually stand up to his family style at its most deadly? Ranma didn't have time to think about it as Julia smiled suddenly and he had a sinking feeling that he hadn't had in years, her leg snapped out and hit him in the back of the head and everything went black.

Ranma crashed to the ground and lay there in a heap as Julia landed lightly and just shook her head. She was barely winded as she walked over to Ranma and knelt down to tap some shiatsu points to wake him up. "Wake up Ranma, you lost."

"..." Ranma looked at her and sighed as he sat up, rolled to his knees, and bowed to her. "I agree to be your student, Master Julia Diggers." Ranma said tiredly, but formally.

"Excellent, go have Kahn show you were to get cleaned up. I am leaving for home in a few hours."

"Alright." Ranma got up and slowly made his way into the house where Kahn led him off.

"Are you sure this is a good idea, dear?" Dr. Diggers asked his wife.

"Your not a fighter dear, that boy has the potential to be incredibly good and is already showing signs of it. He can't be more than fifteen and he could give a lot of my students a run for their money. He is unconsciously tapping his Ki to augment his actions such as speed and strength, to do those glorious jumps and I'll bet he can even heal near fatal damage in a matter of days."

"Julia, he is arrogant and completely uneducated from what I have seen."

"I take it you didn't hear much of his story from Kaori?"

"Nothing really, I'm just going off my first impression of him."

"Ranma has been on the road all his life according to what Master Kaori told me a few minutes ago. He went to check up on the boy after he left room earlier and called me over from the Library to check him out as a possible student since he won't have anything to do with the Anything Goes style."

"I still don't understand."

"Like I said, Ranma has been on the road all his life so he has no school, no friends, no fun or games, just training day in and day out all day long. His father has been delinquent in a number of areas and I plan to correct this."

"That's fine, I trust your judgment on this, but what about all our other house guests?"

"We do have that large underground complex, honey. Dozens of rooms, labs, and other interesting things. We even have that room that the girls gave me last year to practice my special moves in."

"That's fine by me, but then what about his father?"

"I do not like that man and from what little of what I've heard so far he is a horrible father. Ranma needs to be helped with his problems and I'm willing to bet that his father has no clue just what he has done to his son or doesn't care."

"We can't just take the boy from him..."

Julia glared.

"...don't give me that look dear, it is against the law to just kidnap a boy from his father no matter how much we may think it justified, we have no poof and even then it would still be wrong. He has been with his father for years now, I doubt he would willingly leave him."

She sighed. "Yeah I know, I just want to correct those idiotic things that were done to him."

"Well...he has agreed to be your student."

"Let's just hope he keeps his word."

**********

For the first time in a long time Ranma was on his own, he wasn't very comfortable with it either. Of all the things he hated to be, alone was one of the few that never went away. Here and there he had made a friend while on the road, sometimes for a few days, sometimes for a few months, but he was always forced to leave them behind in the name of training. Over time he had thrown his heart into the training to keep the pain of being alone away. Even to this day he missed his friend Uc-chan from when he was six, but they had eventually left him behind too. Now he was alone, he couldn't remember a time when his father hadn't been around. Sure his pop was an idiot, but he was always there to push him when he needed it.

He had lost that fight, against a girl at that, his father would disown him if he ever found out about it. Still, Ranma had to smirk a little, she was dammed good at what she did, he hadn't felt that outclassed in a fight in years. He had been kicking his father's tail for some time now, this fight had been on a whole new level and he was excited about finding a worthy teacher to make him stronger, it had been a long time since he felt like this. But what would happen to him when he was out training with Julia?

Would his pop stand back and watch or try and intervene in some way so that they could continue their training trip? Ranma didn't have to think on that one, his father was obsessed with his training and did everything in his power to make sure he was the best in every way physically. He was glad he had learned to sharpen his mind as well, to a better person than his old man was his life's quest. This Shangri-la seemed to the perfect place to help him gain some of that skill, but how long would he have to be here before he could leave and continue on with his life?

With a sigh Ranma followed Kahn into the house and into the bathroom, he stripped out of his clothing and missed the shocked look on Kahn's face as he took his shirt off. His chest and back were covered in scars of varying sizes, they were from the Neko-ken training, some training accidents, and his father's daily sparing sessions. It had been several years since he received something truly bad enough to scar him, but before that he had barely survived the training. There was no halfway with his father.

Ranma raised his arm and clenched his fist until the veins stood out on his arm, he had earned a lot of skill over the years, but this last fight had proven the didn't have enough to skill as of yet. That was going to change, he hated to be second best at anything, it just gave his father another excuse to call him names and hurt him more. He stepped into the shower and cleaned himself up for the first time in some weeks and was happy for the hot water as it relaxed his bruised muscles. That was another reminder of his failure, he was a student of Anything Goes, a style he excelled at, but Master Kaori wasn't the only Master to refuse to teach him because of the school's reputation. His father had complained about it before when he was younger, but he had understood enough at the time to know that a good number of the training 'games' were actually illegal. He grinned as he remembered the beating that he had given his father when he learned just how they had been getting food and money off of people.

He sighed as he got out of the shower and noticed that his clothing had been replaced by a completely clean set. All the holes were fixed and the stains were gone, everything looked brand new to him. Even weirder was that he could tell that his clothing hadn't been moved an inch from where he had tossed them. This place was just plain weird, they took such things as magic as if it was as common as sunlight. Either that or they had ninja's running around the place that could conceal their auras and not alert him to their presence. He shrugged and decided he would worry about it later, he had to go and see his new teacher.

He headed back outside and noticed that Master Julia and her husband were waiting for him, she looked nervous for some reason. He ignored it though and waved to her as he walked up. "What's up?"

"As my student we will have to head back to my home in America."

"America...oh...alright I guess, but I can't speak English all that good."

"Where did you learn English?" Julia asks in surprise.

"Me and pop strayed onto an American navel base in Japan and we managed to get the special forces guys to train us in some of their techniques. They really helped me when it came to water techniques and how to survive in harsh conditions. I was also trained in the use of a M-16 and several other types of weapons, but I didn't care for that part to much, it felt like cheating to me so I had them just focus on the hand to hand stuff and bladed weapons. Those guys are experts with small knives and stuff."

"Did they teach you anything else?"

"They tried to help me with my education, but pop said if it wasn't a martial art he didn't want them to know about it."

"That's stupid!"

Ranma shrugged. "That's pop for you, a total moron that thinks brains have nothing to do with being a marital artist."

"You don't think that do you?"

"Naw, but it has been hard for me to learn stuff under pop's nose."

"Well if you give me six months I can fix all that Ranma and improve your fighting skills, but what can we do about your father?"

"I have no idea really, I kind of figured he would come along with us."

"No, you won't get anything done while he is there. He is holding you back by not teaching you the way you should have been taught in the first place. Your skills are very good for one your age Ranma, but you have a talent for martial arts that very few ever have. It's in your blood and I can make you a lot better, but it will take a few months to do it."

Ranma grinned, he like that idea. "Get away from the old man for awhile? I like that idea, I never considered it before, it could work so long as I can find a way that won't make him hate you or me." Ranma thought about if for a few seconds and had an idea. "Your wanting to take me to America right?"

"Yes..."

"How are we going to get there?"

"My husband is a wizard, he is going to teleport us there, it shouldn't take more than a few seconds. Why?"

Ranma blinked, he had thought they would take a plane or something. This would be even better if it worked. "Have Kahn drop a note off to pop after we leave telling him what happened, but nothing about this place, and have your address at the bottom of the letter. It should take hi three to four months to American alone and another two or three to find your house."

"Huh? All he would have to do is buy a plane ticket to the closest city then catch a bus to where we are. A week at the most, not enough time to do anything really." Julia said.

"Naw, pop don't think like that, he's cheap and won't spend money on anything unless it's food. We swam across from Japan to the main land because pop was to cheap to buy tickets on a boat or a plane."

"You swam?"

"Yep, it was a pain in the ass too. "

"Ah, well that is one way to get stronger I guess. I've done something similar at times, though usually not voluntarily."

Dr. Diggers just shook his head as he listened, his opinion of Ranma's father had been dropping steadily ever since he heard about the man. Training was supposed to be hard, not nearly fatal or suicidal stupid. How Ranma had survived the last several years with his father was a complete mystery. Any normal person would have broken in someway, or even died under the harsh conditions that he had been told about. Tossing a child into a pit of starving cats, swimming in the sea for days on end with no rest and sharks hiding below the surface. Even on Jade this Genma would have been killed on sight by the local authorities for his training methods and child abuse.

"What do you think of Ranma's idea Theo?" Julia asked.

"It may work if I cast a spell on the note."

"A compulsion spell, something to affect him subconsciously."

"You could do that?" Ranma asked.

"Oh yes, there pretty easy so long as you don't try to make them go against what they would do normally. This would just make him react in the way we wanted him to, for example, say we wanted him to not eat something like a bowl of rice. To make him forget his hunger would be to hard so I would make him think he was hungry for something else instead, like some apples or chicken. He would go after those instead of the rice that we wanted to save. Just small changes."

"To bad."

"Huh?" Dr. Diggers blinked in surprise. He had been understating the effect to not get on Ranma's bad side.

"Pop's is a thief, a liar, and an idiot. He wants me to respect him as a father and yet is constantly doing things to make me disrespect him even more. About the only thing I will give him credit for is his fighting abilities, they are top notch. I was kind of hoping you could make him into a better person, but that is out I suppose." Ranma shrugged.

Julia handed Ranma a small note pad. "Here, write up a note to him and we'll get it delivered to him."

"Sure."

**********

**********
Golden Opportunity
Chapter 01
By C. Rose
(c) 2002
**********


Genma was sleeping, he had been getting ready to go and look for his cowardly son when he just dropped to the floor of the cave snoring loudly. Dr. Diggers stepped from the shadows and glared down at the dirty and horrible man before him. As an Aura Magic user he could read everyone's aura quite easily. Genma's aura was as bad as they could become, the man was self absorbed and petty, he would sell out his friends for a little money without a second though. There were bits and pieces of a caring soul in there, but they were buried so deep he actually had to look for them underneath layers and layers of corruption. What was even worse is that the man's corruption had invaded every part of his being like a plague or cancer.

How this man could have raised someone like Ranma was beyond him, it seemed to almost impossible to him. Their decision to take Ranma away was looking better and better than it had little while ago, this man was monster in the making. For one of the few times in his life he considered using his magic to force someone to do something. He was strong in his chosen art and as corrupt as this man was, he was ripe for possession and other nasty things if they ever found him, if even a little part of him agreed with whatever came after him and it would be over, instant servant/toy.

Holding up the small note that Ranma had written out, he flared up and started chanting as he focused his magic through the paper. This idiot would cause Ranma more and more pain as the years went on, it was time to do something about it. After several minutes he stopped chanting and the paper flared with light and Theodore Diggers grinned, only his father could have done a better job on this spell. He walked over to the sleeping man and taped the note to his forehead, anywhere else and the idiot was likely not to see it when he woke up. The note glowed with white fire and outlined the large man, sending feelers of white magic into his body and through his aura.

Dr. Diggers had knocked out the man for this reason, that much white magic flowing through a corrupted body had to be painful, but he could see changes taking place already and smiled tiredly. It would take time, but the magic would do some of what Ranma had requested. By the time his father reached them in America he would be a changed man, hopefully anyway. It was still possible for the man to throw off the magic of the compulsion, all it took was will power and a bit of bad luck.

That was enough for now, he had done his job, if anything else he could deal with the man again when he showed up. Now it was time to get back to his wife and her newest student, in a flare of light he vanished and reappeared a few seconds later beside his wife. She hugged him and they smiled at the still gaping Ranma who had nearly fainted when he teleported away the first time. They had told him what was going to happen, but who believes in magic in this day and age.

"It is done, I cast a sleep spell on him in the cave and left the note with the compulsion on it. By tomorrow he should be away from here, but I have no idea where he will go after that. The compulsion will make him wait a few months before he heads for America, we should have five months before he shows up."

"Excellent, lets go. Do you have everything Ranma?" Julia asked.

He held up his heavy pack. "Everything I own is in here, lets go."

Kahn came up just then and handed two books to Julia. "Here is the book you asked for, I had to go into the central library to find it, but it seems to be in good condition. The second book is one Gina asked for, could you give it to her when you get home."

"Of course Kahn, thank you."

Kahn turned to Ranma. "Your in good hands Ranma, she can show you things you won't believe, good luck to you."

"Um...yeah. Maybe we'll meet again."

"We should, you have to return those books you know."

"Oh yeah. Heheheheheh." Ranma said and scratched the back of his head.

"We'll make sure he has them back in a few months or the next time one of us comes here again. It should only take a few days to have books made up and we can get the originals back to you."

"Excellent, I look forward to meeting all of you again."

With that Dr. Diggers made a gesture and light flared all around them, the world went white for a second then they were in a living room. Ranma looked around and noted that the place was very well set up. Every thing was either huge or expensive, a super sized TV filled one wall and was showing a cartoon of some kind. There was a hint of electricity in the air and Ranma wondered what it was, his danger sense was going off and it had him on edge. He took a relaxed defensive stance and looked around carefully.

"Is there something wrong Ranma?" Julia asked.

"My danger sense is flaring, the air in here feels funny."

"Oh that, my daughter Gina is a master of science and is always building new and better machines. It takes a lot of power so she built her own power plant down in the lower levels of the house. What your feeling is the power from that plant down below us."

"A power plant...I've seen a few of those in my travels, aren't they usually pretty big and dangerous."

"Not at all in this case!" Said a perky female voice.

Ranma turned to see a really cute girl walking into the room and nearly had a nose bleed at how she was dressed. She was about his height and had long blond hair, glasses that made her eyes look even bigger, and a lecherous smirk on her face. He noted that she seemed to have her eyes glued to his waist for some reason, but couldn't figure out why so shrugged it off as unimportant. She was wearing a pair of tight shorts that hugged her hips and showed of her figure. Up above she had on a baggy t-shirt that seemed to be designed to show off her rather ample chest, her nipples were rather obvious. Less than a year ago this sight would have had him fainting on the spot, but he had leaned to control the reaction. He wasn't as innocent as he used to be thanks to a couple of adult magazines he had found in the trash when looking for food and paper for a fire.

The girl got a gleam in her eye and sauntered forward to shake his hand, it didn't help that she bent forward to give him a good look at her chest and grinned at him. "Hi, I'm Gina Diggers!"

"H-hello..." Ranma said nervously.

"Are you single?" Gina asked as she leaned over and flashed a bit of cleavage at the flustered boy.

Ranma's blood trickled out of his nose and he fainted in shock, he wasn't as innocent, but that didn't mean he could handle really forward girls that looked like Gina did.

"Jinkies! That was unexpected." Gina commented and jostled Ranma around with her toe.

"Gina that was a little much don't you think?" Julia asked as she tried not to giggle. She had forgotten how forward her daughters were.

"Well, he is a little young, but he is so cute I couldn't resist."

"Well be more careful next time, poor Ranma here has been alone almost all his life with only his father as a role model and a poor one at that. I brought him here to train him and help him with a little problem he has with some martial training his father screwed up."

"What problem, can I have....help him out?" Gina grinned and blushed.

Julia sighed, she had heard some stories from the other girl of how Gina had reacted to Séance when he showed up and corrupted him thoroughly. "Calm yourself Gina, he is almost totally innocent of that kind of stuff, his father also turned him into a bit of a chauvinist and we need to work on that as well. As for his problem, he is afraid of cats."

"CATS?! BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!" Gina started to laugh and was soon rolling on the floor, cutely.

"Gina!" Julia yelled. Dr. Diggers took this as a good sign to fade into the back round and disappear.

"...heheheheheheheheheh....s-sorry mom, but Cats? How was that accomplished with martial arts training."

"Well, take a small child, wrap them in fish and drop them into a pit filled with starving cats. Multiple times until student dies or learns technique."

Gina stopped laughing and paled. "W-what?"

"Just what I said, several steps in the training were dismissed as useless by Ranma's father and not used. At least that is what I understand about it, I don't have the full story on what exactly happened.

"That's horrible, who would do something like that to their child?"

"Apparently his father, he went through the training when he was seven."

"What kind of problems will Brittany and Brianna cause him, they are werecheetahs after all, cats."

Julia blushed. "I hadn't even considered them when I offered to help him out."

"Mom!"

"Um...oops?"

"I'll go and explain the situation to them, Brit is in the gym lifting weights and Brianna is in her lab building stuff and giggling madly. I'll head on down to talk to them I guess, is there anything else I need to tell them? I'm assuming he is staying for awhile."

"Oh yes, Ranma should be staying with us for half a year or so while I train him. He is quite talented and has tons of potential for the Art." Julia said as Dr. Diggers appeared behind her suddenly and handed a book to Gina.

"What's this daddy?"

"Kahn asked us to give that to you, said you asked for it the last time you stopped by or something. What is it anyway?"

Gina looked at the cover and read the title. "It's a book on how to develop machines that can affect the mind. I'm trying to build a special helmet for my plane that will allow me to just think what I want to do instead of flipping switches and pushing buttons. There were a few snags with the first one, I asked for this to find out where I went wrong."

"Oh..." (Dr. Diggers is a wizard, he has no clue about the types of machines his daughter can build.) "Well let me know if you need some help or something." He says and walks off in the daze of the unilluminated.

"Sure thing daddy." Gina says and waves good bye. "Hey mom, who is the other book for?"

"Me, if I'm going to help Ranma I have to know about his fighting style. This book is all about the style and history of Anything Goes Martial Arts. Check out the author." Julia says and holds it up for Gina to read.

"Who is Ranma Saotome?"

Julia points to their passed out guest. "You know how the Library works, he will write this or an alternate version of him will write this in the years to come. The perfect way to train him in his own art don't you think?"

Gina giggles. "I would never have thought of that!"

"I'll have to make sure he never sees it though, it could cause problems in the future if he does. I just need to read it and return it in a few days and everything will be fine."

"Well good luck mom, I'll go and talk to Brit and Bri now." Gina said and walked off, she passed Genn as the Rakasha walked in.

"Hello Mrs. Diggers." Genn said and headed over to the prone Ranma and looked at him. "Who is this, he's cute."

"A new student of mine."

"What happened to him?"

"Gina."

"Ah, I understand that completely. Do you need any help moving him any where, the couch or one of the rooms?"

"Sure, drop him off on the couch for me. There's no need to leave him on the floor like that."

Genn nodded and shifted into a very attractive looking guy with a lot of muscles, he finds out almost immediately just how much Ranma's pack weighs and finds that he can't lift it. So he undues the shoulder straps and picks Ranma up, caries him to the couch and sets him down on the couch. Genn's body suddenly shifts again and he turns into a girl of total beauty, short dark hair, average chest and muscular body. She looks herself over and shrugs.

"Is that the type of girl he likes, Genn."

"I'm a little low on energy right now Mrs. Diggers. Ranma's likes are a little vague actually, I shifted to this form by accident. It is the closest I could come to his ideal, I don't think he had much experience with women."

"Your right about that." Julia says as she lifts Ranma's pack, arching her eyebrow at the weight. She hadn't carried anything like this in years, ever since her training under Master Leap. "You better shift to your neutral form Genn, I don't thing Ranma has ever met any supernatural creatures like you before."

Genn nods and shifts back to his original form, a small child like being with long elf like ears. He, for now, just shrugs and sits down in a nearby chair to watch some TV as they wait for Ranma to wake up. Julia puts Ranma's pack in a room down the hall and decides she will wait on telling him about the house and her family until later when he is more ready. This was going to be an interesting six months, that was for sure, she wondered what he would say about this strange town. There was always something odd showing up, evil wizards, leprechauns, werecheetahs, a demon mouse, even Penny's friend Charlotte.

**********

Ranma opened his eyes and sat up slowly, visions of a very well endowed girl flashing herself at him running through his head. He looked around and sighed in relief when he noticed that she was gone and that he was laid out on a couch. He didn't remember sitting down here so figured someone had moved him. Whatever had happened he would figure it out later, right now he needed to find out what was going on. Swiveling around he moved into a sitting position and noticed a weird looking kid watching him curiously.

"Um...hi?"

"Hi, I'm Genn."

"Hello Genn, what in the world is going on?"

"You fainted." Genn said with a smile.

Ranma huphed. "Men do not faint!"

"Then what do you call what you did?" Genn asked in curiosity.

"Strategically removing myself from the situation to plan a counter measures and different ways of attacking." Ranma said wisely, just like his father. He knew it was load of bull shit, but had picked up certain habits from his father over the years.

"Right." Genn said sarcastically.

"Why do you sound funny?" Ranma asked.

"What do you mean?"

"I'm hearing your perfect Japanese, and yet your mouth seems to be saying something else. It's like looking at a cheesy dubbing of a movie."

"Oh that, I have a minor amount of ESP that allows people around me to understand what is being said in their native language. I do it automatically, I don't have to even think about it or anything." Genn said proudly.

"What is ESP?" Ranma asked as he scratched the back of his head.

Genn face faulted. "What do you mean what is it? Everyone knows what ESP is, I know, the little four old down the block knows, how can you not know?!"

"...Um...of course I know what it is...I...just wanted to see if you knew...yeah that works." Ranma said quickly.

"Right."

"Well, what is it?"

"If you actually have no clue what it is, it would take me to long to explain. Just think of it as a magical power or something."

"Oh okay, that I can understand I guess." Ranma said as he stood up and stretched, he was starting to feel a little stiff from that fight he had earlier. He spotted a door that lead into the back yard and headed out. Once out on the lawn he started to go through several kata that he had developed over the years to deal with wore out muscles. He had been forced to do some of the oddest things over the years in the name of training. Running for fear of his life in the swamp while various animals chased him, jumping from back to back of gators to keep from falling in piranha filled waters. Wading though bee nests while half asleep because his old man had decided he had been slacking in his speed training, because he had twisted his ankle the day before.

He soon lost himself in kata after kata, eventually starting to move faster and faster while staying fluid and graceful while maintaining his strength. Had he known he was being watched he would have stopped, if he had known who it was a girl he would have been scared, had he not just jumped thirty feet in the air doing an extremely hard kata he would have noticed the hearts in the watchers eyes as she drool at him as she plastered her face to the window of her room. She had her own lab in the house just down the hall from Gina, she was tall and well built and a very different type of person. She was Brianna and she was already making plans to add this boy to her collection of...conquests. She smirked evilly and ran for her bedroom, dirty thoughts running through her head as she envisioned the hunk she had just seen.

Ranma kept his training up for a few hours, he was going though some of the kata that the books had described. He wanted to have them down before he started to master the harder aspects of the moves. Currently he was working on a body hardening move that would let him eventually shatter rocks with a single finger strike. It had been in that Amazon book, but he understood that these were another schools techniques and didn't want to steal them like his old man would. That meant that if he wanted the technique he would have to find a different way to do the same thing or improve on it in some way.

He was not a thief, he would not just steal the move, but what he was trying to do would either work or he would fail. He had done this with several moves over the years by doing this to fool his old man. It had given him an insight that few fighters had, but it had been forced on him because of his way of life. He was also glad for his limited Ki control, it would help him to master the altered versions of the move when he managed to do it. He still had that book on Ki to go through as well since he had only had time to glace through it before. The Neko-ken training had been occupying his time.

Landing in a specialized crouch, Ranma took a deep breath and ignored the sweat as it dripped down his face. It took a lot more concentration than he had thought it would, but he managed to finally tap his Ki and lit up in his battle aura of bright blue light and felt it's warmth fill him. According to the book the move he wanted found the weakest points in a solid object and by forcing a bit of Ki into that point one could cause it to explode violently. The explosion would them pound his body with rocks and harden his body. Ranma had a feeling if he managed to do this he would be in for several weeks of pain if he survived the first explosion. He was strong, but could he just stand there and allow himself to be a center of a violent explosion.

For the next hour or so he sent his Ki senses into the ground around him and completely failed to see what he wanted to. It was only his determination that kept him going after that, he was used to picking up techniques pretty easily. He figured it would only take an hour or so to do what he wanted, it was looking like it would take a lot longer than what he expected and eventually stopped and relaxed. He felt like he had just gone ten rounds in a pit fight and barely won, he sighed and sat down to rest. The final part of his workout was the meditation techniques he had read about, though he rarely meditated, he knew how and quickly went into the trance he needed.

Inside the house Brianna stepped out of her room dressed in a tight pair of shorts and a tank top. She was about six foot and had long blonde hair that fell down about her shoulders, it was covered in brown and black spots. She had blue eyes and a black stripe that ran from above her left eye and down her cheek. For the last three hours she had been watching the hunk in the back yard train at speeds she had never seen a human move at before. As a half clone of her sister Britanny, she had the were-cheetah speed and only half of the weaknesses with things like silver.

She wasn't sure who the boy in the back yard was, but he was absolutely adorable and she wanted to meet him. They had guests at the house all the time, but a lot of them were not used to the strangeness that permeated the town. She wanted to make sure he didn't leave before she had a chance to get to know him...better. Making her way through the house, she practiced the stealth techniques her adoptive mom Julia had shown her a few months before, but stopped in the kitchen when Mrs. Diggers stepped in front of her.

"Brianna."

"What's up mom?" Brianna said nervously.

"Where are you going?"

"I wanted to meet that hunk in the back yard."

"Well that 'hunk' is my new student and he has been practicing for some time now, I was hoping you and Brittany would stay away until I managed to break him of a fear he has."

"Fear?"

Julia wondered what had happened to Gina and that little talk she was going to have with her sisters, but shrugged it off. "His father tied him up with fish and other stuff when he was a little kid and dropped him into a pit of starving cats."

"WHAT?!"

"This has given Ranma an intense fear of cats, if he is around one for to long he will go insane and attack whoever he thinks of as a threat."

"B-but I'm not a cat..."

"You and Brittany do happen to look like cats though, that is why I want you to stay away for now."

Brittany frowned and sighed. "I wanted to meet him to."

"Well you can in a few days..."

BOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!!

The whole house shakes and the back door is blown off its hinges, slamming into both girls and sending them to the ground. Windows are shattered and a scream is heard from the outside. Julia growls as she throws the door off her and jumps to her feet, reaching for a sword that is not there. Dr. Diggers appears behind her and hands her the weapons she is looking for while Gina and Brittany run into the room. Julia noticed that both girl looked as if they had been fighting over something, she unsheathes the sword and glares at everyone around her.

"What is going on? Are we under attack or did another one of your experiments blow up?"

"Were not sure mom, the blast was in the lower levels and I haven't had time to check on it just yet. Since my room is in the lower part of the house a few levels below, the closest one is here in the kitchen." Gina says as she taps a spot on the kitchen wall and it opens to reveal a powerful computer that was already scanning the damage below. Gina tapped away for a few seconds as she read the status report. Britanny stood behind her and tried to read the computer language that her sister used, but couldn't read a thing on the screen. She wanted to know what was going on too.

"We have an intruder on the third level, whoever it is by passed the regular security on those levels by magic."

"What kind?" Asked Dr. Diggers.

"...I'm not sure yet, the readings are familiar though."

"It's probably Ionis." Said Britanny out of the blue.

"Ionis, why do you say that?" Gina asked as she turned to look at her sister.

Britanny pointed out the back window and into the back yard. "Because Daishi and Zelda are out there fighting with some guy I've never seen before." Britanny said.

"That is Ranma Saotome, a new student of mine, all of you stay here for now I want to see how he handles this." Julia said.

"Julia dear, Ranma is still recovering from his fight with you just a few hours ago."

"I know, but he wouldn't like it if I interfered with his fight. He is full of pride and arrogance and I know the type, we will wait until he either wins or is out of the fight."

"..." Was the general answer, all of them knew not to do or say anything when Julia used that tone of voice.

**********

Ranma could feel the meditation doing what he wanted as he focused in on the area of his mind the usually tried to ignore. There was a dark area that contained his memories of the Neko-ken and he had to remember that horrible time when he was little. Under normal circumstances he would have avoided this, but the book had said he had to learn these techniques if he was ever going to Master the dreaded technique. A shiver ran through him as he actually touched the pain and got flashes of the PIT and a wave of fear him. He grit his teeth and lost his focus as it nearly overwhelmed him, gasping for air he leaned forward and sighed.

He steeled himself and sat up just as his danger sense warned him of something and he went from a sitting position to ten feet in the air in an instant. He saw a rather well muscled girl in a green body suit land where he had been, her fist buried in the ground and created a small crater. Ranma landed several feet away and took up a deceptive and relaxed stance as she studied her. She stood just under six foot and he noticed that she was completely bald. Ranma glared at her and folded his arms across his chest.

"Who the hell are you to attack me from behind?" Ranma snarled.

"Huh?" She said, what the hell kind of language is that.

"Well?"

"I can't understand a word your saying, cute stuff." The bald lady said as she stood up and looked him up and down like a piece of meat. "I'm Zelda and your in my way."

A man dressed in some kind of ninja outfit seemed to appear right behind the girl and he looked Ranma over for several seconds before nodding. "Zelda, he is Japanese and it is obvious that he doesn't know or knows very little English. I'll take care of him, go and finish the mission."

"Hey!"

"Shut up and go Zelda, Ionis need back up for what he has to do."

"Alright, but don't do this again." Zelda said and ran out of the yard.

The man turned back to Ranma and bowed. "I am known as Daishi."

"At least you can speak Japanese."

"Such an honorable language isn't it, now I would like to challenge you young one."

Ranma smirked as he took up a more offensive stance, he may have been tired, but he would never turn down a challenge. "Bring it on."

They leapt at each other and were soon moving at faster and faster speeds, blocking and attacking in ever more impossible patterns. Ranma just continued to smirk as they exchanged blows, he could recognized at least ten different styles of martial arts in his opponents moves. His Anything Goes style was designed to fight just this type of fighter and he was having the time of his life, it was like fighting his father so far. The only difference he could see was that this so called Daishi uses a different style. Ranma spun and dropped to grab Daishi's ankle, using his momentum to send him flying across the yard.

He landed in a roll and was flipping through the air before he came to a stop, but Ranma was on him a few seconds later. Then Daishi changed tactics and grabbed Ranma's hands and grinned noticeably under his mask. "Well punk, since I'm on a time schedule it is time to end this."

"Huh?"

Daishi blurred and Ranma felt a number of kicks and punches rain down on him like the wrath of god. Within seconds he had been beaten black and blue and barely noticed impacting against a tree in the back yard or collapsing to the ground in a daze. Pain filled his body, only his iron will keeping him from fainting from the pain. It reminded him of one of his father's crazy training ideas, felt the same too. He coughed up a little blood and crawled to his feet and staggered a little, grinning at the surprised look in Daishi's eyes as they both settled into comfortable stances.

"Your a lot stronger than I thought."

"I won't give up, ever." Ranma panted out.

Daishi bowed his head to acknowledge a true fighter.

They ran at each other with a yell and came together with a the grisly sound of flesh meeting flesh. They turned to look at each other before Ranma fell to the ground, knocked cold by Daishi's superior strength and endurance. He hadn't come out of the final attack unscathed though and dropped to his knees and bit of blood dripped off his lip. He was more than a little surprised, he had thought the boy would be easy to beat. As the fight went on he had learned the hard way just how good the boy was, he only lacked in experience in areas that he himself was very familiar. He rose to his feet painfully, holding his ribs, and walked to the house.

It was at this moment that Julia and Britanny stepped out of the house, Britanny was kneeling by Ranma in a second, checking him over for wounds. She was a little surprised to find that he was almost healing before her eyes. Nothing extreme like her werecheetah healing, it was still pretty impressive for a human. She could see bruises visibly fading as he lay there, his breathing becoming less labored, and his cuts and wounds quickly scabbing. She had never seen anything like it before.

"Well, well, if it isn't the werecheetah. I've been looking forward to this for a long time now." Zelda said as she walked over to Britanny.

"Whatever it is Baldy, go away or I will hurt you."

"Not this time, Lord Talon has made me invincible." Zelda said with a smirk.

"Not against me your not." Britanny said as she stood up to her full seven foot height and cracked her knuckles. She smiled and flashed her fangs, she had been a little bored lately and fight was just what she needed.

Zelda took up a stance and flared up with power. "Daishi has been showing my his Ki attacks and I'm a natural at them because of Lord Talon's augmenting of my body."

"Daishi's Ki attacks have yet to be very effective against me Zelda, go away and I won't put you in the hospital."

"Hah!!" Zelda yelled and struck out with a series of kicks, but Britanny yawned as she blocked them with ease.

"Is that all you've got Baldy?"

"Not by a long shot you hairy monster!" Zelda yelled.

An aura flared around Zelda, glowing a slight yellow color, and she brought her hands forward to fire off a blast that struck Britanny in the chest. The werecheetah was actually surprised when she actually felt pain, a lot of pain and was blown across the yard. Zelda crowed in victory and took off after the werecat. Britanny snarled as she thrust her arm out and used it to rebound off the ground and flip to her feet and sliding back several feet, her face a mask of rage.

The instant she was fully stopped Britanny shot forward to sucker punch the bald woman, but much to her surprise, Zelda's aura flared up and she started to block the high speed punches. Britanny's eyes narrowed and she suddenly altered the pattern of her punches as Julia had taught her. She grinned as hundreds of punches slammed into the woman and sent her flying back, where she slammed into the side of the house. Zelda didn't stay down though and she slowly rose to her feet and grinned.

"I told you, I am invincible now, that felt like a baby's slap werecheetah. You can't hurt me anymore." Zelda said and started to cackle.

Britanny stalked forward and snarled at the woman, she stopped when she felt something grab her ankle. She looked down to see the guy she was trying to protect, the was looking up at her, his eyes glazed a little from the blow he had taken. "f-focus all t-those fast punches into one vital spot in the sternum." He gasped out.

"Okay." She said and continued forward. The guys advice had barely been hearable by her werecat hearing, so she knew that Zelda wouldn't hear a thing. It was a good idea too, with her full strength the attack was going to do some damage though, but Zelda deserved it though.

In a burst of speed, Britanny flashed forward in an attack that mirrored the one she had used earlier. Again Zelda started to block them, "Come on werecat, where is all your originality, this is the same pathetic attack you just did."

"Okay." Britanny chirped happily and her fist broke the sound barrier and blasted through Zelda's defenses. It slammed into the bald woman's body, over 300 punches in the blink of an eye with enough force to shatter steel. She was suddenly glad that Lord Talon had enhanced her body, unfortunately it didn't stop the pain as it overwhelmed her. Zelda screamed as she was lifted off the ground and body slammed into unconsciousness.

"Not bad, but that took you longer than I expected Britanny." Julia said as she tossed the unconscious Daishi on top of Zelda.

"She was enhanced again, faster and stronger than the last time I fought her."

"Still, I noticed that Ranma told you how to defeat her." Julia said as she checked out Ranma's injuries.

Britanny blushed. "I would have taken her down anyway."

"I know, I'm just teasing."

"What do we do with these two?"

Julia reached out and tapped several pressure points on both of them to make sure they stayed unconscious. "We'll call the police and let them deal with them."

Britanny shrugged. "Won't do much good, Pee Wee will just get them out or abandon them."

"Well lets deal with them later then."

"Okay."

**********

Watching from the bushes beside the house next door, Erwin Talon, the twelve year old genius curses under his breath as his useless servants are once again taken out. They had lasted a little longer this time, but he was still angry at them. Time after time they failed to do what he wanted, how much would it take for them to win one of these matches? Their bodies could only be altered so much, Zelda was actually beyond the limit that he originally thought she could take. She had lasted against the damned cat girl, but was still no match for her...that blasted werecheetah took the all down to easily.

Erwin growled and leaned back against the house to think, what was he missing, were there flaws in his thinking? Could that be it, was he going about his goals in the wrong manner? He didn't know, but there had to be a reason why they always failed to take down the Digger sisters. Now after seeing their mother he had to consider the whole family was very dangerous it seemed, all of them had above average skills in science, fighting, and magic. The only conclusion he could come up with was to alter his plans or find a way to combat this new set back, to give up his goal was out of the question though.

With a flash of energy, Ionis appeared beside Erwin and bowed. "I managed to trick them Lord Talon."

"Y-you succeeded?" Erwin gasped in surprise.

Ionis held up a disk. "I distracted the security system with a number of illusions and sent the rest of them off in a wild chase. Daishi and Zelda managed to distract the family while I got this."

"Wait, what about the father, the wizard, where is he?" Erwin said, he couldn't remember him participating in the fighting.

"I didn't see him sir." Ionis said.

"That is because I'm right behind you."

Dropping the spell that had made him invisible, Dr. Diggers glared at the two and held out his hand to fire ball them. Ionis had been in this position to many times to talk about and he was as tired of it as Erwin was. He snapped a word in magic that he had cast before this fight started, so him, Erwin, Zelda, and Daishi flared with light and vanished from sight before Dr. Diggers could stop them. He cursed and cancelled his spell and tried to trace them, but could not find a trace of them. He wasn't sure what was on that disk, but he hoped that it wasn't all that important.

He doubted that very much, but there was always the hope that they may have taken the wrong disk by accident.

**********

"Gina, how is Ranma doing?" Julia asked her daughter as they sat down at the kitchen table about four hours later. Britanny and Brianna had taken Genn and Stripe out to a movie when Julia had 'suggested' it earlier. They had been more than happy to go, after sweating a bit and trying to decide if it was a threat or not. Her husband was in his magical study trying to find out how Ionis had gotten past the magical traps he had set up all over the house.

"I've got him down in the lab right now in a healing tank, Daishi managed to shatter his rips and caused him some pretty serious internal damage. He needs to spend about twelve to twenty four hours in there before he will be well enough to move around again, he's currently sedated."

"Healing Tank? Is this another of your newest inventions?"

"Well...I've had it for while now, but until just recently it still had a lot of bugs to work out. Me and a friend have been working on getting those corrected for the last few months now, mostly while you and Brianna were on Jade."

"Oh."

"I did want to ask you some questions about the boy though." Gina started.

"Like what?"

"My scans were pretty thorough and they turned up some things that have me worried, X-rays show that he has had at least a 107 different broken bones with some of them, broken more than once, muscle mass is four times what a normal human would have for his age and places him in the meta-human range, but he shows none of the latent gene characteristics of a meta-human. He is radiating some kind of energy that I don't recognize either, and finally he seems to have a bit of brain damage from some kind of accident the had some years ago. There is a small area on his skull that shows signs of an impact of some kind, there were microscopic bits of bone embedded in his brain tissue."

Julia blinked in shock, she had known that Ranma had survived some kind of major martial arts training and that his father was mostly responsible, but this? "How extensive is the brain damage?"

"Surprisingly enough, it seems to have affected his personality centers in some way and I think it may have damaged his learning abilities as well, but I can't tell that for sure."

"Ranma has been on a Martial Arts training voyage for the last ten years or so and his father hasn't been the best teacher in the world, he expects perfection out of Ranma and more and the boy has survived everything the man could send at him. As I told you earlier I brought him here for two reasons, to cure him of his fear of cats because of his Neko-ken training and to train him. The boy has more potential that anyone that I have ever seen, even when he was barely conscious he told Britanny how to take down that Zelda girl. He just keeps amazing me and that is pretty hard to do."

"Do you have any idea how your going to cure him of this? I don't want him going crazy every time Britanny or Brianna show up in their hybrid forms."

"I'll have to use one of the third level rooms and follow the finally training process in this book." Julia said as she pulled one of Ranma's books from subspace.

"One of the third level rooms, I don’t' know, several of those were damaged in Ionis' blast, but even if they weren't don't you think those rooms are a little much? They were designed to take incredibly high amounts of damage and stuff."

"The very nature of the Neko-ken makes it that way I'm afraid, you see as Ranma is right now, the mere sight of a cat can send him into this totally irrational fear of cats. Eventually his mind will retreat until there is only this mindless being that acts like a cat, in that state he can use his Ki to cut through metal, rock, and even flesh and since Ranma isn't in control of his actions he could very well kill everyone around him just by flicking his wrist. That is why I need the room."

"How long with this take?"

"Three weeks to a month I think, maybe a little longer if his fear is too deep to reach."

"Who all is going to help with this? Just you or anybody else?"

"I was going to have Theo work some spells on him to help control the fear if it was needed. Now that I know about the brain damage though..."

"Don't worry about that to much, I've already taken steps to correct it. It was only minor damage anyway, the healing tank will fix pretty much everything that was broken or damaged. By the time he wakes up he should be in better health than he ever was before, the only thing that worries me is that strange energy that I was picking up."

"We can worry about that after he wakes up, for now lets worry about the damage to his body."

"Sure."

"What about those people that attacked us, did you figure out what they took?"

Gina frowned and nodded. "Brianna has been working on cataloging all the magical areas left on the planet, places like 'The Retreat', gate ways to Jade and the Undead Realm, and a whole host of magical hot spots used by people of all races. The disk they took was one with a list of these places that we do NOT want to go to under any circumstances because of evil magic, traps, or dangerous guardians. This includes that site in the arctic where we were nearly killed by the place's guardian and my friend Penny made off with that giant diamond. *

"Oh yeah, didn't she use the money from that to rebuild something that you broke?" Julia asked.

Gina blushed and looked away, it wasn't her fault Penny had left that thing out where anyone could find it. How was she supposed to know that it was so fragile that just touching it would make it disintegrate and ruin nearly six months of work. It wasn't her fault...

"Yeah, yeah...I already apologized for that."

"Good, good, now let's get lunch made up for your sisters. We need to have several tuna fish subs ready for them by the time they return."

"Oh...sure." Gina said. She opened one of the doors in the kitchen and had several very large cans of tuna drop out on her head, picking them up and handing them to her mom, she glared at the cupboard. Her sisters had this thing for fish she just couldn't understand sometimes, the didn't buy the stuff by the crate, they bought it by the pallet and could finish the stuff off in a weeks time.

**********

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT HUNK IS ONLY 16 YEARS OLD?!" Brianna screamed. He dreams and fantasy's crashing down around her as she fell to her knees, her eyes brimming with tears.

"He's only a teenager Bri, what did you think he was?" Gina said.

"He's a hunk, that is what he is!"

"Don't tell me you were making plans to have your way with him were you?" Britanny asked curiously, the boy was cute but nothing like her husband Stripe.

Brianna blushed and nodded.

Gina and Britanny face faulted.

They were all in Gina's lab where Ranma was floating in the healing tank, his wounds being slowly corrected by the fluids he was floating in and computer controlled nano tech that had been injected into his body. Gina was still amazed at the readings she was getting from the boy, they were...fascinating. She dragged herself up and sat down at her terminal and started to tap away while she decided to help Ranma out in a few things as she finished off the reprogramming of the nano tech devices. He would thank her later.

"Gina, it's been about 18 hours since you put him in there, how much longer before he comes out?"

"Not to much longer, I just need to let the nano tech finish off the last of their programming and wash them out of his system. I think he should be ready to come out in about an hour."

"Well you geeks have your fun, I'm going to go and play with my husband." Britanny says and saunters out of the lab, her sisters giving her dirty looks.

"CHEETAH!!"

"Haha...Oh Stripey!" Britanny yells as she leaves the room.

"I can't believe her!" Gina snarls and drops herself down in her chair again.

"I know what you mean." Brianna said with a sigh, she perks up suddenly and smirks at Gina. "Have you seen Genn around, I might have a use for him."

"Don't bother, mom has him running around town gathering up a number of weird supplies for Ranma's training. Cloth, herbs, foods, manuals from storage, and a whole host of other things to inflict on poor Ranma here."

Brianna nodded in sympathy. "Mom tried to teach me some of her fighting techniques once, I had to bow out after several days of agony and pain. Only Cheetah seems to be able to handle her training and even she has problems handling certain portions of it I think, I've seen her walking around limping to many times to wonder."

Gina looked puzzled for a second, then burst out laughing. "I remember that, you walked around for several days looking like you were an old west cowboy that had lost her horse. You were bow legged and limping all the time, all you needed was a cowboy hat and stirrups."

"Humph! I seem to remember the time mom tried to teach you too 'little miss red bottom'."

Gina glared and blushed at the same time. "Don't go there!"

"Hey mom watch as I try to do this triple axle from a standing position!" Brianna mocked in a high pitched voice before she started to giggle.

"BBRRIIAANNNNAA!" Gina growled.

A bell went off and Gina turned to look at her terminal and blinked in surprise, the nano tech was finished and Ranma was ready to come out anytime now. That was a lot quicker than what she had thought, it had only been a few minutes since she added in a few of the little added perks she thought he might need. Gina motioned for Brianna to take a nearby terminal and they both started to go through the data that had been gathered, both of them were thinking that something had gone wrong or screwed up.

Instead they are shown an amazing thing, Ranma has been completely healed, his body is in better shape than it should have been. The brain damage is just gone, no sign of it anywhere on the scans and portions of it are now active. They are not sure what is going on, but it is just pain weird. Keys are tapped and the cylinder that Ranma is floating in begins to empty out while a specialized field is in place to hold his limp body up. When empty the cylinder slowly pulls itself into the floor and Ranma is placed on a bed, his body completely naked.

"Gina, are you sure he is only 16, I've never seen a man that...big, before." Brianna says.

Gina nods, hiding her own blush as her machines go to work doing a post tank scan of his injuries and tallying up the data for both girls to read through. Brianna frowns and points to one line and looks over at Gina. "What is this?"

"That is his body's health level, before he went into the tank he was seriously malnourished and had developed a number of problems because of it. The tank took care of them, but he will be a little weak for the next couple of days, the nano tech did a lot of work on his stomach and intestines."

"Every time I hear about this boy's father I want to hurt him, does he even know what love is, does he even care?"

"HAH!"

Gina and Brianna turned to see Ranma looking at them from the examination table, his eyes were a little unfocused though. "How are you feeling Ranma?" Gina asked.

"I'm a little dizzy actually, what happened and where am I?"

"Your in my lab, Daishi caused you some pretty extensive damage and we had to repair your body. Your dizzy because you've been under sedation for the last 18 hours or so, it will take some time for it to work it's way out of your system."

"Daishi...oh yeah, I lost a fight against that guy. Pops isn't going to like this one bit..." Ranma mumbled.

"No need to worry Ranma, Daishi isn't quite human anymore because of Pee Wee's genetic tinkering of his body. He was enhanced to be stronger, faster, and more deadly than the strongest martial artists and only the most powerful can stand up to him. You managed to do just that, I think that if you had just had a year or two of training you might have beat him. There are few fighters that can stand up to him in a head to head fight like that."

Ranma shrugged. "It's not the first time I've lost, it's just been a long time and I thought I was better than that."

"Well with my mom's training you can correct that problem. Mom took him down after his fight with you with her first blow, you had injured him that much." Brianna said.

"At least I wasn't useless and could help out, why was this Daishi and the bald chick here for anyway?"

"Bald chick?" Brianna asked Gina.

"I think he means Zelda."

"Oh, Pee Wee's first try at DNA splicing and alterations."

"Yeah her, that was the name Daishi called her, she was supposed to go and meet some other guy in the house."

"After you were knocked out Ranma, another guy named Ionis broke into our labs and stole some information out of your computers with Zelda's help. It wasn't all that important to us, but what he took could be very dangerous in the wrong hands."

"Well let me up off this table and we can go kick his ass..." Ranma looked confused all of a sudden. "Hey, why can I understand you now and speak perfect English?"

"While you were in the healing tank I had the computer tap into your subconscious and teach you how. It is a quick way to learn, but the human brain seems to have a limit to what it can take so only a limited amount of information can be placed."

"Um...okay." Ranma still didn't understand, but he understood English now and that was a plus, he didn't care how it had happened.

Gina tapped a few more buttons and the metal clamps holding Ranma down disengage and lift up to set him free. He slowly sat up and rolled off the table and stretched and noticed something, both girls were looking at him hungrily. He looked where they were looking and paled, he was naked, his an manhood was hanging there in full view. "Where are my clothes?" Ranma asked as he nervously scratched the back of his head.

"Gina are you sure he is only 16 years old?" Brianna complained.

"..."

"Yo, my clothes?" Ranma snapped, girls were weird, he would never understand them.

"There a-are some new clothes for you in the locker o-over there Ranma, mom said for you to get used to w-wearing them." Gina said hesitantly, her thoughts echoing her sisters as Ranma walked across the room, naked. Who ever had come up with the term buns of steel had never met Ranma, she could see the muscles moving just under the skin as if he was trying to tempt her. She drooled.

Ranma found the right locker with his name on it, inside he found a set of his regular clothing, red long sleeved silk shirt decorated with attacking dragons, black pants, boxers, and new pair of shoes. To Ranma's surprise, the clothing had to weigh more than he did, they were also designed to take more damage than normal clothing and twice as thick as they should have been. The only difference was that he wasn't wearing his winter clothing anymore. To adjust to the clothing he did a complicated kata to settle the weight and inadvertently put on an almost erotic show for the girls.

"Gina are you sure..."

"YES BRIANNA!" Gina yelled.

Brianna pouted.

**********

* Gold Digger Comic V-1 27-28

End Part 01


End Notes - For those who know Gold Digger and it's story, I am having to make certain assumptions on various parts, like Britanny's skills and power. The two ton thing is from a mention in the beta story line and her speed is from the Dragon Orb story where she breaks the speed of sound running for the tower.