Ranma 1/2 Fan Fiction / Gold Digger Fan Fiction ❯ Golden Oportunity ❯ Chapter 02 ( Chapter 2 )

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

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Golden Opportunity
Chapter 02
By C. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
http://home.talkcity.com/BookmarkBlvd/crose9/ (c) 2002
**********

Two weeks had passed since Ranma had gotten out of that healing tank and he
was beginning to wonder what was going on with this strange family. Gina and
Brianna were always around to help him, but the other sister, the one called
Britanny, seemed to be avoiding him. She was tall, he knew that, and that
there was something different about her, but he had no idea what it was. He
just figured she was either busy or didn't want to meet him for some reason,
according to her sisters she was married too. It was 6AM in the morning and
he was out back going through his daily workout and for once missing his
pop, the moron. Master Julia had been pushing him harder than what anything
he had ever gone through ever before, even his idiot father would have been
proud of her.

Julia had told him to push himself to his limits and beyond while also
trying to learn the meditation techniques the books had mentioned. So far
things were going pretty good, and she was even getting a room ready for his
retraining in the Neko-ken. It had to be set up in such a way that he could
not escape form it very easily. Just thinking the name made him shiver in
fear, he could still hear the cats as they swarmed over him to get at the
food wrapped around his body, clawing his arms as he protected his face and
coward in fear, screaming in terror. Julia had told him that he would have
to follow the teaching in the book almost letter for letter and that meant
that he was going to be exposed to cats again, and again, while forcing
himself to mediate in a certain way.

Eventually it would break his fear or leave him in the Neko-ken
permanently, a feral insane boy with no mind except that of a cat. He feared
that even more than the cats themselves, at least right now he was still
sane, but he hoped he was strong enough to pull through this and master the
Neko-ken after all these years of fear. Ranma wouldn't admit it out loud,
but he was very nervous about what he was going to go through, his father
would have called him a coward and for once Ranma was almost willing to
agree with him. Only his iron will kept him from running away, as it was,
even the meditation exercises were a little weird to understand because they
were used to release him from that iron control. There were three in all and
they were eroding his control slowly, he sighed, just as they were supposed
to do.

He could feel this anger growing inside him as each level of control was
reduced, anger at the world for what the was forced to go through, his
father for doing it to him, his mother for allowing it to happen and
abandoning him, even his few friends in a way for not being strong enough to
help him. Not that there was any way a little kid could have helped him, but
with the loss of control came a bit of blame that had to be placed.
Yesterday he had spent some time talking to Dr. Diggers about what was
happening and he had explained that he was actually breaking down the walls
he had built up to hold the Neko-ken insanity in place, it was something he
had to let loose and consciously control without being a danger to those
around him. That was where mastery of the technique came from, that block
needed to be removed completely so that he access it without fear. His fear
of cats was his greatest weakness, he knew this and would do almost anything
to get rid of it and that meant a good deal of training to get him in even
better shape according to Master Julia.

Then there was the other thing his new teacher was doing to him currently,
she said he possessed tons of chi in his body and that it had been building
for years, perhaps even from when he went through the Neko-ken originally.
Now he was learning to control that too with the very same meditation
techniques he needed to master the Neko-ken, but after only a few days he
hadn't made to much progress at it. He could produce an aura now, but it was
barely visible to the eye. She also told him that under no circumstances was
he to use one of his emotions to access his Ki because it was unhealthy and
dangerous to the balance of his soul and body. So he was learning how to
draw what he needed from nature itself while tapping the 'true' power in his
body. Using his emotions was a bad idea because he would have to focus on
one emotion and as it grew in strength and power, his other emotions would
grow weak and useless to him.

She hadn't been all that forthcoming with information on how to do that,
but Ranma understood enough of what she said so that he could feel the power
inside his body and pull tiny amounts out and hold it in his hands, like his
aura is was barely visible. He now understood the true meaning of the 'horse
stance' that was the first thing taught to all martial arts students of ever
school. A perfectly balanced stance that would allow him to touch the live
around him and pull tiny amounts of it into his body, pull it into his
stomach and using that to flood his system with power. Not that he had been
able to do all that much just yet, he had tons of practice ahead of him to
master the move with any kind of power. Julia had been amazed when he picked
up on it almost right away, but Ranma knew better. His father had been
teaching him in a round about way for months now, but he just hadn't know it
for what it was. It was just more of the daily practice as far as he had
been concerned.

As Ranma worked out he pushed himself to the next level and was soon
soaring above the house practicing the midair combat kata he had spent his
life learning. Doing thirty to forty foot jumps and hanging in the air for
longer than seemed possible. In the house Julia, Brianna, and Gina watched
him with keen eyes as they all had an early breakfast, they were once again
a little stunned by Ranma's almost natural skill. Julia had also noticed
that Ranma picked up and learned new moves like a sponge and she silently
wondered if Ranma had the potential to become a weapon master like herself.
Long ago she'd had a dream to become a Grand Master of battle in all it's
forms, but it was something even she had never quite been able to do, she
had grown old far to fast.

Then just recently she had mastered the 'Healing Breath' technique from
Master Leep an old lecherous teacher of hers and found out that it had a
weird side effect besides healing all wounds. It seems that it healed the
effects of aging too and now she had the body of a twenty five year old
again, much to her husbands delight. All her wrinkles were gone, all her
back aches and tired muscles had vanished seconds after using the technique
and given her another chance to achieve her long sought after dream.
Training Ranma would be the first step in that, she needed to see if he had
what it took to learn her special attacks so that she could pass them on.
Things were even looking up as Ranma learned how to consciously use his chi,
he had already become very dangerous with his single minded pursuit of the
Art and all he needed now was just a little push to go to the next level.

If he managed to get out of the upcoming training with his sanity intact
she would know for sure. The True Neko-ken was an incredible technique, she
had read through the book Ranma had on it and knew that if he mastered it he
would be all but unstoppable. It granted increased power, healing abilities,
the ability to form claw like Ki extensions that could cut through metal or
be thrown as a distance attack. It's only draw back was that the student
would be more prone to cat like behavior, nothing really noticeable unless
under a lot of stress or in combat. She hoped Ranma would survive, he had to
much potential just waste like that, he was well on his way to becoming on
of the best she had ever seen, not that she would tell him of course.

If Ranma failed though, she also knew whom to blame, the boy's father had
nearly broken Ranma's mind and body over the years with his insane training
ideas. Ranma hadn't noticed, but she and her daughters were slowly taking
the time to alter his view of women and it was already having some effect on
how he looked at them and the world around him. They were encouraging him in
the art and giving him random books to read that showed him that there were
things in the world besides martial arts. He devoured them like water,
breezing through most books in hours. His photographic memory, recently
discovered a little after he got out of Gina's healing tank, allowed him to
memorize anything he wanted out of the books. She wasn't sure, but she was
beginning to think that Ranma's mind didn't shut down at night while he
slept, but spent hours subconsciously assessing the information and added to
Ranma's memory verbatim.

This was something that Gina could do, but even she had forgotten some
things over time. Ranma could remember everything down to the stains on the
page or the faded color of a picture if he wanted to. Gina said this was
what the brain damage had been holding off. It seemed that Ranma was an
uneducated genius and that his mind had been messed up by his father's
training. She was also saying that these were just the beginning of Ranma's
changes, he was filling out and growing more muscular as his brain corrected
the hormonal balance in his body as well. His time in the tank had allowed
her to fix a lot of physical problems, years of malnutrition had really
messed his body up.

She was thinking that within a month or two he would experience a growth
spurt that would add several inches to his frame as well as making him even
more muscular. Julia had seen something like this before, back when she
lived on Jade, one of her students had come to her as a barely adequate
fighter. Over the three years he had been with her he had grown nearly seven
inches and turned into a real man that had women chasing after him from all
over the place. She had a feeling that Ranma would do the same, but on an
even bigger scale. At only sixteen Ranma had already caught Brianna's eye
with his chiseled athletic body. The girl sighed every time she looked at
him with a longing that Julia recognized.

Julia looked out the window again and noted that Ranma was now using his Ki
to make his punches and kicks faster and more powerful than ever. She could
see them cutting through the wind as he moved and jumped around the yard
like a grasshopper on steroids. She watched carefully as Ranma rebounded off
a tree, to the fence, threw several dozen punches as he flew through the
air, and rebounded off the roof of the house to do it all over again with a
different kata. Even from here she could feel the aura he was unconsciously
putting out as he practiced, there was the other little known secret about
chi that she thought she might have to explain to the girls when she had a
chance to get them all to sit down together and explain it to them, Ranma
was classic case.

He exuded a kind of power that women could pick up on in the most primitive
parts of their brains, she had learned of it under her training with Master
Leep and his perverted ways of teaching. Some called it a manly presence or
a commanding aura of power that could be sensed by those around him.
Whatever it was, it was because of Ranma's chi strength and confidence in
his abilities as it built up within his body and he unconsciously used it to
touch everyone around him. Ranma drew women to him like a moth to light,
they could feel his caring soul, his strength and power, and his presence as
it made them feel good and safe. Even more amazing was that Ranma didn't
know of his power over women and his innocence shone for all to see. The boy
could barely lie to anyone, his face gave everything away for all to see.

This was what was affecting Brianna and to a small degree Gina, they were
watching Ranma like a couple of cats on the prowl. Ranma would be in trouble
if either of them ever decided to take matters into their own hands and
pounce on him, luckily Julia thought that Ranma was more than old enough for
a quick fling and it would get rid of his innocence when it came to girls.
They were all old enough to make their own decisions so she didn't mind in
the least what they did with him. It was about time Ranma experienced a
little life and her up bringing on Jade had given her a unique point of
view.

"That is the most amazing thing I have ever seen." Brianna said as she
watched Ranma.

"He does this everyday, even after a long run and spending all day doing
all the other forms of training I put him through. It is all he ever does
though, I'm beginning to wonder if he even knows how to have fun outside of
the Art."

"We did get him to read those books you know." Brianna said.

"So what, he's read three text books from the local library, the ones he
got from Kahn, and about a dozen fantasy books. Lots of knowledge there, but
where is the useful stuff that tells him how to get a life." Gina snapped.

"Gina, this is all he knows." Julia pointed out. They had discovered quite
quickly that Ranma had a genius level IQ, but he was also as stubborn as a
mule when it came to altering his ways. "I think with Ranma we need to be
very subtle when we introduce him to new ideas like thinking for himself,
his father has him reacting on instinct and he tends to want to fight his
way though everything instead of thinking his way through."

"He's still cute." Gina muttered.

"I still can't believe that someone that cute is only 16, it's not fair."
Brianna whined.

"Get over it already, sis, he's been around for two weeks and all we've
found out is that he has a big mouth, is incredibly skilled, and in sorry
need of a good beating over someone's knee." It would have been a good idea
if Gina wasn't panting and blushing beat red.

"Quite." Julia said.

"Eeeeeeeeee!!" Gina squealed and fell out of her chair, she had completely
forgotten that her mother was sitting right next to her while she was ogling
a guy. She blushed to her roots and slowly righted herself in embarrassment.

Julia smirked, Ranma's effect on her daughters seemed be quite curious.
They were both interested in him, and yet they both kept coming up with
excuses to not pursue him because of his age. For the last few days it was
always either 'he's too young' or something else, a jerk, had a big mouth
and such. She wondered if either of them had considered that Ranma was right
on the edge of full manhood in Julia's opinion. Out in the yard Ranma took a
small break, he had taken his shirt off and was airing it out a little to
dry it. Brianna and Gina were both drooling at the sight of his naked chest,
completely forgetting she was there with them again.

**********

The small black helicopter soared over the mountain range, buzzing the
trees and scaring the animals as Zelda piloted the thing as close as she
could without wrecking it. Beside her in the copilot seat Ionis was keeping
an eye on her an occasionally giving her a bit of advice and pointing out
mistakes. She had been learning for several months now and Lord Talon and
his family was smart enough to build combat helicopters like this that were
much easier to fly than a normal one. Not much of course, but enough to let
her learn how to fly without simulators and other complex equipment. Lord
Talon also wanted all of them to know how to fly in an emergency, he was
determined to beat the other explorer teams if it was the last thing he did.

In the back seat compartment Daishi watched out a window as they flew, he
was still covered in bandages from the fight he had with the Diggers. He
wondered how that young kid had lasted so long in their fight. Daishi, once
known as Galford, had spent years training to be one of the best fighters in
the world. Going so far as to take on a suicide like quality while training
in the most dangerous fighting styles in the world. Lord Talon had helped
him by enhancing his speed, strength, and bio energy or Ki control by
altering his body through DNA manipulation.

Now Lord Talon, as he wanted to be called, had gotten his hands on
something that had him giddy with excitement. That disk they stole had
detailed things and places that the young genius couldn't believe. The one
he was most interested in was a magical valley that was supposed to be some
kind of giant genetic experiment or something. It was called Jusenkyo or the
Valley of Cursed Springs in an obscure area of China. The little genius had
been babbling about if or days now, the equipment they had brought with them
had every one of the adults a little scared, sealed Environmental Suits that
could keep everything from air to water from touching their skin.

Daishi leaned to the side as Zelda screamed in pleasure and flew around a
small mountain peak with a shriek of the engine. They buzzed a wooden tower
set in the woods below them, missing it by about twenty feet or so. He noted
that a half naked girl dove off the thing and into the trees, she had a
pretty good ass and wild green hair. He silently hoped she was okay, but
didn't dwell on it for to long since no one else seemed to have see her, not
even Zelda. As for Lord Talon, the kid was strapped into the seat across
from him tapping away into a portable computer and going over the
information he had gathered on this place, this Jusenkyo.

As registered explorers with The Foundation, they were granted access to
the specialized information that very few had access to outside of the
group. This Jusenkyo was listed in their archives as a very bad place to go,
it was a forbidden location and one of the few places where they were not
supposed to ever go due to the danger and political situation in the region.
Daishi had seen this on Lord Talon's computer while he was working and
wondered why it was being ignored. This was something that worried him, the
place was listed as evil and a very, VERY BAD place to go to. There were
dozens of warnings and first hand accounts mentioned, Lord Moron had ignored
them as the ravings of mad men and continued to giggle to himself a he
worked. It was at times like this that Talon hadn't hooked up with the boy
genius, but he had given his word and would keep it no matter what.

The helicopter weaved through a small canyon and over a series of forested
hills for several minutes before Daishi noted that they were slowing down
and going into a slow turn. He looked out again and saw that they were above
the springs, the wind from their blades making the pools ripple and wave
angrily, even knocked over a couple of the bamboo poles sticking out of the
springs. He could feel something in the air as they landed, his senses told
him that it would be a good idea to leave this place as soon as possible. He
hadn't felt this way in a long time, not since he had first met Lord Talon
now that he thought about it. Daishi shrugged silently, it didn't matter all
that much, he had given his word to obey for the enhancement that he had
been given.

"Are you sure this is a good idea Lord Talon?" Daishi asked.

The kid looked up. "This place is incredible, just by stepping into a pool
of water you can change your form completely, it just depends what was last
drowned in that pool.. You can become a dog, a bird, or a cat, even change
sex or completely alter the way your mind works, all it takes is the correct
pool."

"But the possibility of us getting cursed is very high, I would like to
avoid that."

"That is what the Environment suits are for, so long as you don't actually
fall in one of the springs you will be safe and I plan to visit all the
pools while I'm here and collecting samples of them for study. If I can
figure out how the curse water works I can make you even more powerful and
dangerous to our enemies." Erwin turned and shouted up front. "ZELDA, FIND A
SAFE PLACE TO LAND, I WANT TO GET STARTED."

"YES SIR!!" Came back.

The helicopter wheeled around and was soon landing in an open field near
the springs, Zelda bounced the helicopter a couple of times, but she managed
to set them down without crashing and killing them all so it was a good
thing. As soon as they were down and it was obvious that Zelda wasn't going
to accidentally take off again, Lord Erwin Talon had the door open and had
hopped out to look around the area. Daishi hopped out right behind him and
was soon unloading several boxes of equipment and supplies. He noted that a
fat Chinese man was meeting with Erwin and they were making some kind of
deal. Zelda and Ionis soon came around and started to help him get things
unpacked and set up.

"Did Lord Talon say what we were supposed to do here?" Ionis asked, he was
looking around nervously, his magicaly attuned sences telling him there was
something bad here.

Daishi nodded and pointed at the Enviroment Suits. "When he is ready we
will have to get in those to make sure we don't get wet while we collect
samples of the water here. A little from each spring."

"This place doesn't look all that dangerous." Zelda said.

Ionis and Daishi looked at her like she was an idiot. "You've got to be
kidding, this place is evil, you can feel it in the air."

"I can't believe your afraid of a little water Magic Boy." Zelda snapped
back.

Erwin came back and set a large map out on the table and holding it down
with some rocks. "Alright, I have permision from the guide to take samples,
but we have to be careful of the locals, they are very protective of these
springs since they all use them for various reasons. Personally I dont'
care, but this place is to dangerous to not take the advice. We have two
days to get one liter samples of each spring. There is a sign by each spring
that says what it is in Chinese, I will be giving you each a translated map
and assigning you each a section to work."

"Sure thing boss." Ionis said.

"As you wish Lord Talon." Daishi said.

"What's up with you guys, this place is like a great vacation spot." Zelda
said.

"You strange one...no?" The guide said as he sat on a nearby rock smoking a
pipe. He was constantly amazed by the types of people the magic of these
springs seemed to attract. Every few months some new and odd customer would
show up out of the blue and end up leaving cursed or with strange plans for
the water. This kid seemed smart enough, but he had ignored the warnings
just like everyone else did. There were springs here that no one in their
right minds would ever go near, even the Musk, and yet this kid wanted a
'sample' to take home and play with. He supposed he could have given a
firmer warning or out right refused, but where was the fun in that? He
wonded what these three would do with the water, the magic of Jusenkyo
wouldn't have even allowed them to land if it wasn't something interesting.

Still they seemed to have taken a enough precausions that it was unlikely
that they would get cursed, but he had a feeling that one of them would
eventually. This place used it's magic to punish those that deserved it and
to sometimes help some people fullfil their destiny in one form or another.
He blew a smoke ring and hoped the rude bald one would mess up and take a
plunge into Spring of Drowned anything, she didn't respect the danger of
this place and would soon find out why. The kid with the big mouth seemed to
avoid the springs completely, making his slaves (?) do all the work. Most
currious.

Within half an hour they had set up a small camp with three tents, a large
table, several generators and some computers. Daishi, Zelda, and Ionis were
suited up and ready to go and get the samples, each of them carrying a pack
full of plastic jars to take samples. Erwin took a few minutes to stress the
importance of not touching the water and to lable each of the samples
carefully. If there was one thing he didn't want to deal with was a mistake
with what kind of water they were using.

"Excuse me, do you know how I can get to Furinkan High school?"

Erwin gasped and spun around to see a guy in green and yellow clothing that
had seen better days. He was holding a very large back pack and looked a
little confused. "W-what the hell are you talking about?!"

"I'm just trying to find my way there, no reason to get mad." He said.

"I don't care about some stupid high school, I'm here on a scientific
expedition and it is dangerous here, go away!"

"Alright, sheesh, I just wanted directions." He said and started to wander
off.

Erwin, still angry for being inturpted reached across the table and grabbed
random bottle and quickly loaded some into a home made super soaker. He was
glad he had thought this out in advance or he would not have come across
such a good guinee pig. Raising the water gun he aimed and fired. The small
sample of water shot out and hit Ryoga right in the back and across his
legs. The shock of cold water made him gasp and spin around, but not before
the world seemed to suddenly shift and grow before his eyes. Erwin smirked
at the pile of loose clothing that had once been a minor irratant. He noted
in his journal that his water guns were working perfectly and that he would
not have to use Zelda as a test subject.

**********

Ranma stood behind Brianna as she drew her weapon, pointed it at the target
on the far wall and pulled the trigger. He was surprised when there was not
the loud bang he had been expecting, but a kind of whooshing sound and a
distortion of air in front of the weapon as it fired. The target was about
fifty yards away and Ranma watched as it exploded into a kind of cloudy
haze. Brianna smirked as she turned to look at Ranma, she loved to
demonstrate her weapons. Of all her sisters, she was the one that designed
all their combat gear, the heavy weapons, powered suits, and other fun to
blow up things.

"That was pretty neat, but a little over done don't ya think?" Ranma said.

Brianna's world shattered. "Huh?" She squeaked.

"Well weapons are a crutch, what happens when you lose it, are you able to
still defend yourself? Or are you at your opponents mercy? I will admit
that guns and weapons are pretty usefull, but my training has allowed my to
be able to fight against weapon users and take them down with my bare hands
and feet. I have only met four people in my life who I could not disarm and
I still beat them in the end."

Ranma held up his hand and consentrated, after several seconds a small
white ball of chi formed in the palm of his hand. "This is the perfect
weapon Brianna, it can not be taken from me, and it can be formed into a
blast of energy or a semi solid weapon of some kind if I need it. All it
requires is my mind and body to use and will be even stronger than your
guns."

"Guns are not useless." Brianna glowered. "I have guns that make this one
look like a simple fire cracker."

"I never said that, I said that you are almost useless when you lose your
weapon. No matter what type you are using, all that is needed is to disable
it or knock it out of your hands. My body is my weapon and the only way to
lose it is for me to die."

"With normal weapons maybe, but not mine."

"Why do you say that?" Brianna asked, her temper beginning to flare.

"Modern weapons have only advanced so much in the last 100 years and I had
to take things a little further to create what I use. All of my weapons are
computer controled in some way and ten times more useful. I have these for
example." Brianna growls and holds up a palm sized yellow thing with ears
and a tail.

"What in the world is thing?" Ranma asked, it looked like little yellow toy
animal with big eyes. It blinked at him and smirked.

"Peebo!!"

Ranma hopped back in shock.

Brianna cackled. "This is Peebo, my ultimate creation! Bwhahahahaha! Peebo,
non-leathal attack, sic'em!" Brianna said and tossed the thing at Ranma who
grabbed it out of the air and took a close look at the thing.

"How is this thing supposed to be dangerous?"

"They are my greatest creation..." Brianna grinned and pointed to the
ceiling.

"Brianna..."

"Yes Ra-n-ma?" She breathed, suddenly feeling playful.

"Um...I'm not sure...how..." Ranma said nervously and edged away from her.

"Times up!" Said the Peebo in Ranma's hand.

PPPHHHUUUUMMMPPPHHH!!

Ranma and Brianna stood there, covered in black dust and smoke wafting off
their hair. Brianna had this exstatic look on her face, full of pride and
love. She was such a genius! Ranma groaned and fell over with a thump, not
used to being at the center of a rather large concuscion attack explosion.
The door to the firing range suddenly opened up and Gina came rushing in to
see Brianna standing over the smoking form of Ranma.

"What the hell was that!"

"Um...nothing?"

"Brianna what have I told you about using those Peebo's in the house?"

Brianna sweat dropped and giggled nervously. "Not to ever use them unless
it is an emergency...but Gina, I improved them!"

"Your always improving them, making them smarter or more dangerous. They
have destroyed two labs and even my room!"

"Ah come on, there are just a few more bugs to work out."

"Brianna!"

"Humph!" Brianna said and crossed her arms.

At her feet Ranma opened his eyes and rolled to his feet and noticed that
his clothing was burnt and chared. He dusted off a bit of the damage, his
clothing seemed to have been completely ruined. "I'm fine, I'll see you
girl's later." He says and walks out of the room before they can say
anything.

Gina turns to Brianna.

Brianna turns to Gina.

"THIS IS YOUR FAULT!" They scream at each other.

'This place is weird' Ranma thinks as he walks the halls of Gina's
underground lab, there are a number of emotions causing him to feel weird
and he could not recongnize half of them. One of the few that he does is a
dangerous one, doubt, he rarely ever felt it because it could bring about
his death if he wasn't 100% confident of his abilities. Yet these girls were
impossible to understand, they all seemed to have talents and skills that
were just plain weird to him. Brianna could be warm and friendly without
even trying, and yet she become really dangerous if he says something she
doesn't like. He had never had to worry about what he said to others before,
his pop never complained about anything he said before, why should anyone
else care?

Then there was Gina, she was an odd one, he could not understand what
motavated her in the least. One minute they could be talking and she would
be as friendly as could be, the next she was mad enough to send one of her
robots after him. He had been wandering around the third level the day
before when he stepped into some room by accident, completely missing the
warning on the door that said it was off limits. Gina had sent what she
called a 'Hurt Bot' after him, the thing had been the best opponent he had
faced in a long time, it could stand up to his attacks without taking damage
and give as good as it got. In the end he had taken it down, but not before
being beaten black and blue over most of his body.

Gina had robots that could do anything a human could, she could build
almost anything from scratch, her hurt bots were a good example of this. He
had just been lucky the one she sent at him was not trying to kill him, but
subdue him. She carried a number of gadgets around with her that confused
him a little. They were kept in her belt pack when she was working, there
were tools and such, but the gun was a surprise, as was the force field
generator she used as a first line of defence. She was the tinkerer and the
one that built all the machines that the family used for things. Brianna
built all the weapons and seemed to have a love for explosives, Ranma had
even heard that she liked to 'improve' on Gina's designs of things. This
always got her in trouble in one way or another. The other sister though, he
was still confused about her and wasn't sure how to deal with her.

He had only met her a couple times and she seemed like nice enough girl, a
little on the weak side conpared to Gina and Brianna, but nothing all that
bad. (Ranma has yet to meet her in hybred form yet, just as a human.) She
was married, but her husband didn't seem to be around either. The other
house guest avoided him to one degree or another, Genn, that was his her
name. That kid was just plain weird, on one hand she was smart, on the other
she looked like boy half the time. (Ranma doesn't know just what a Rakasha
is and Genn tries to stay in his neutral form most of the time.)

He finally made it to his room, they had given him one of his own, and
stripped off his charred clothing. Wrapping a towel around his waist he
stepped into the bathroom and took a long hot shower. He had noticed that
over the last few weeks his body had changed a little, he was a little
bulkier and taller. Scars that he had had for years seemed to be slowly
vanishing for some reason, he had no idea why that would start now. As he
finished up, he turned everything off and stepped out, dried off, and walked
into his room. Master Julia had given him several sets of the heavy clothing
and told him to get used to them since he would be wearing something like it
for his entire stay. He didn't mind all that much, it was better than
lugging that damned backpack around like he used to do and seemed to work
even better.

Now that he was feeling a lot better he sought out his teacher and
eventually found her in her gym, he had never seen an underground gym
before, going through a workout with a sword. Though he didn't like weapons,
he had to admit that she was one of the best he had ever seen. She flowed
through kata after kata with a grace and power that even his old man
counldn't match. He wondered how she had gotten so good at so young an age,
but decided that it was possible since he was younger than she was and as
good as he was.

"Hello Ranma."

"Master Julia."

"Are you here for another workout?" She asked in surprise, the boy just
didn't know when to quit.

"Can I ask you a question instead, I'm a little confused about something."

This was new, she thought to herself. "Sure, go ahead."

"Why do your daughters get so mad at me when I tell them something."

Julia nearly face faulted, but kept her balance through a supream effort as
she shook her head. "That is a little diffacult to explain Ranma, you see
your making them mad because your telling them things they don't want to
hear."

"I don't understand, I've never had a problem like this before."

"I've dealt with a few others like you Ranma, you grew up on the road with
only your father as a role model and that has hurt you in a number of ways."

"Hurt me? Um...but I feel fine." Ranma said, looking his body over and
patting it here and there.

"Not physicly, emotionally."

"Emotionally? I don't understand, emotions are for the weak." Ranma said in
confusion.

Julia swatted him over the head. "Don't be an idiot Ranma, you just did
what I was talking about, emotions are not weak, they can be more powerful
than anything you have ever encountered."

"But pop says..."

"Ranma, your father is an excelent teacher for your body, you are quite
possiblly one of the best fighters of your generation right now,
unfortunatly he has neglected to teach you how to use your mind properly and
that is your greatest weakness. You can not think in the way you need to and
that is something that can be exploited against you."

"I have no weaknesses!" Ranma growled.

"Your wrong Ranma"

"How!?"

Julia ignored him and tried a different tactic to try and get her point
across. "Ranma how do you expect my daughters to forgive you when you insult
them all the time?"

"Forgive me? For what?" Ranma snapped, he was getting confused.

"I've heard you call them names and other mean things over the last few
weeks, why would you do that. Do you not like them?"

"...but that is when I am trying to win or distract them."

"That is no excuse to be mean Ranma." Julia said and narrowed her eyes.
"Don't you like girls?"

"Of course I do!" Ranma nearly screamed, his aura flaring around him as he
got a dangerous glint in his eye.

'Don't make fun of the boy's manhood' Julia noted calmly, unless she wanted
to prove a point of course. It was another thing about the boy that she
could blame on his father, his low self esteme and insucurities. "Ranma you
don't insult someone unless you mean it, if you don't appologise to them
they well think you were serious and hold it against you."

"That's stupid!"

"Why is that Ranma?"

"Why would they take it so seriously? Calling people names can't hurt you,
it is just sound and there is no damage involved."

"But there is damage Ranma, emotional damage that is harder to fix than
physical damage."

"That's impossible!"

"You want me to prove it to Ranma? You have already given me what I need to
prove it to you."

"No I haven't." He growled.

"Look at how you reacted a few minutes ago Ranma when I accused you of not
liking girls. How did you react, how did you feel?"

"But...but..." Ranma stuttered.

"Why did you get mad, aren't you secure in your manhood? If you were you
would not have gotten angry because what I said to you would not have
mattered."

Ranma had been thinking in a certain way for so long that he would always
look at the world from a point of view that he had used all his life. Lately
he had been finding it harder and harder to look at things like he used to,
it seemed so pointless and useless to him now. Master Julia had just thrown
him for a loop, again, and he didn't understand why. Everyone of these girls
was doing this to him too, how? He had never doubted himself before, it was
new experiance to him. They had explained to him about the brain damage and
that there were parts of his brain being used now that hadn't been years and
he found himself acting differently than he was used to. Odd thoughts kept
popping up in his brain, things like girls are cute, how cool light looked
as it reflected off something, things that were alien to him. They were even
worse when he was meditating on the Neko-ken techniques.

He had always been proud of his manhood, his strength and power, the way
his body could do things that few others could. Pop's had always told him to
never hold back and to prove himself in everyway, to treat girls with
respect and protect them with his life if need be. On the other hand, Ranma
realized that he had seen his father do the exact opposite of that on
hundres of occations when they were looking for food. Stealing from the
tables around him when they were in a resteruant or some other kind of
place. Ranma realized that he had been trying to be the exact opposite of
his old man for years now, he held honor before all else and would gladly
die for it. He had taken to heart everything his father said and tried to be
the perfect person while his old man could care less so long as he got away.

His father had taught him to use words to make his opponents angry and make
mistkes. He's been doing it for years he realized, ever since he could
remember, but he realized now that he did it even when he didn't need to.
When had he started to do that? There were no one point in his memory that
he could remember starting to insult people, he had always done it. Even
when he was a little kid and playing with his friend Ukyo...

"I was taught to look at everything as a battle, something to win and
conquer in everything I do. Pop's and me have done it for as long as I can
remember, if I ever messed up or wasn't good enough, he would call me a weak
girl and slam me down as if I was nothing. It's his favorite insult and I
always fall for it, I can't be weak or I will be a failure and a girl is
supposed to be weak."

Julia narrowed her eyes and scowled. "Am I weak Ranma?"

"No, you could kick the old man's ass in seconds. I don't understand how
this can be, I have always been told girls are weak and need to be
protected. You and your daughters can do things on your own with no help
from anyone, you protect yourselves better than I ever could. Two weeks ago
I would never have admitted that, but today I see things a little
differently."

"Ranma, there are only cosmetic differences between men and women, you have
greater strength, I counter that with speed. The list can go on and on, it
is why men and women pair up, to make a better team. Your weaknesses are
complemented and lessoned by haveing a female counter part, there are
several martial arts styles that focus on teaching a couple to fight as a
single being."

"Maybe, but this is to much to think on right now. I'm just getting
confused, I'm not used to thinking through things, just reacting
instinctivly and decisevly."

"That seems to be the core of your fighting style and it makes you very
hard to defend against, but it is also a weakness. A weakness that is offset
by your style's free form moves and attacks, intermixing the best off all
styles into your own unique version. This in turn creates more weaknesses
that you have to fix, altering your style even more. It is a visious circle,
but one that you have survived."

"I know all this, it's why my school is so flexible and deadly. The
impossible becomes possible with a Master of Anything goes."

"True, but you still don't think things through do you?"

"I think."

"Only in battle, the only area your father has ever allowed you to think
for yourself." Everything else has been supressed.

Ranma sighed, he wasn't sure, but he had a hunch he had just lost the
verbal sparing they were doing. He leaned back in his chair and stared at
the ceiling, ever since he came here he had been learning that his father
had been to be something that he didn't want to be. He didn't mind fighting,
it was a lot of fun, instead he seemed to a jerk. Most people insulted him
and got angry with him when they called him names, these women took it one
step further, they explained why they were mad at him. No one had ever done
that before.

"Ranma, I want you to take up a hobby. Something other than martial arts."
Julia decided.

"Like what?"

"You have been reading a good number of books lately, I want you to
continue to do so. Take an hour or two every day and read, find some of the
knowledge out there that can help you the most, about the mind, nature,
science, magic, fantasy. Anything that would help you to be a better person,
you need to expand your horizons a little, develop an imagination."

"But that's so boring!" Ranma whinned. "I barely got throught those other
books!" Ranma knew deep down that this wasn't quite true, but didnt' want to
admit to liking something other than martial arts.

"Look how much you learned from them Ranma, can you honostly say that you
haven't intergrated some of the things you learned from those books?"

"Um...No." He mumbled and looked away. There had been things in those books
that amazed him, things that he thought impossible. He remembered a few
years ago when he had been going to middle school and had access to books
and stuff, he had used the time to once again fool his father by learning.
He hadn't thought about it, but this would be the perfect opprotunity to
expand himself, something he had always had to do very carefully.

"Gina has an extensive library here in the house, I want you to look into
the phycollogy section and read through them. You might be surprised what
you find, they well also help you out with your Neko-ken."

"How?"

"Read them and you will understand."

**********

A few days later Ranma was flipping through the air and dodging as Master
Julia's blade spun around her in wirlwind of speed that Ranma couldn't
defend against. He had taken on tons of fighers that used weapons, even very
fast ones, but this was different. Julia lived up to his deffintion of an
'Arms Master', she could do things with the blade that he had thought
impossible. Every time the they trained in the morning she would pull
something out of her bag of tricks that made him look like an amature. It
was a humbling experiance for him, one he did not like very much.

He complained of course and insulted her as he would anyone, but she didn't
react like she should have. He was trying to keep the insulting to a minimum
outside of training, but he he still did it while fighting. Instead of
anger, she retaliated by making his training, already very hard, even worse.
His ten mile jog in the morning had turned into a forty mile run that had a
time limit, if he failed to finish on time by even a second she made him pay
in pain. Even his father hadn't ever pushed him so hard in his life. Over
the last week he trained until he dropped, then Julia would kick him and
make him continue for a few more hours.

Even his Ki control was increasing, wounds taken in the morning would be
gone by that afternoon. Dr. Diggers had explained to him the basics of how
to use his aura and taught him some meditations to work on it and increase
his control. This was the second day of his Ki practice and Julia was
pushing him beyond limits, even with all his training increasing his
endurance she was still pushing him. Her blade slashed out in a weird
pattern that he dodged and weaved, completely unable to find a way to slow
her down or take the blade away. He cursed and focused even more, but he was
forced to block a kick suddenly and her free hand backhanded him off his
feet. Rolling in mid air he landed just in time to find himself in the
middle of her continued attack, catching him at the worst possible moment.
He growled in frustration and took another kick to the head for his trouble
and a slap across his ass with her sword just to add insult to injury. He
ended up in a heap on the ground gasping for air, god he hated to be beaten
like this, it was so embarassing.

"Focus Ranma! You wanted to know the right way to do this, so FOCUS!! You'
ve already learned how to do this in meditation, now do it in combat! Grab
onto all of your being, your soul, your emotions and find your ture power!"
Julia screamed.

He snarled and rolled to his feet, sweat dripping off him with every
movement. Julia was a bit amazed that the boy could even be conscious, let
alone standing like he was. Ranma had the most amazing instincts for
fighting, anything short of an actual death blow could be used in training
and Ranma seemed to always find a way to counter her attacks eventually.
Still, she had learned his limits over the last few days and he was sitting
on the edge, time for the final lesson for a few hours.

"I will beat you...yet!" Ranma growled, weaving back and forth on his feet.
In his mind he repeated again and again, I will not go down, I will not go
down!

Julia swept her sword around and took up a basic guard position. "Then stop
playing around and do what I showed you Ranma."

Unknown to Ranma a pale white light formed around him as he prepared to
attack, he had to put his all into this if he was to win. With every last
bit of strength he screamed, his aura flared up and for brief moment turned
gold at the edges. Then he flashed forward and threw a punch, and another,
and another...Julia gasped and hopped back in surprise as the boy pulled off
something he hadn't been trained for. A sonic boom rolled over the house and
startled the neighbors. The blow came out of nowhere and sent Julia flying
back, but not before she kicked him in the stomach. She landed in a roll and
came to her feet quickly, instantly at the ready for Ranma's attack, then
blinked in surprse.

The boy was just standing here, a surprised look on his face, she also
noted that his aura was gone as well. "Ranma?"

"..." Ranma opened his mouth to say something, but collapsed into a heap at
her feet.

Julia sighed and shrugged, her senses were telling her that Ranma was out
cold and totally drained of energy. He had finally used the full power of
his Ki to throw those punches, to bad he had to have the ability pounded
into him to even get him to learn it, a legacy of his father's training as
well. She didn't mind all that much though, she had trained several students
and all of them were unique in one way or another. If she had to pound ever
technique into him, so be it, it was good training for her too. She stalked
over and kicked him a few times and Ranma groaned.

"Get up Ranma, it's not time to quite just yet."

"Unngh..." Ranma mumbled and tried to sit up, but his body wouldn't respond
to his urgings, he was just to tired.

**********

Down in her lab Gina was going over her readings on Ranma once again, that
sonic boom had been amazing. The only person she knew that could do that
without magic was her sister Britanny or Cheetah as she liked to be called
at times. At her mom's request she had spent the last few weeks with her
husband Stripe to keep from scaring Ranma with her cat like features.
According to her computer Ranma had thrown almost 175 punches in a split
second when his aura flared up and using almost every bit of energy in his
body. Her calculations said it would take him about fours hours to recover
from the drain and another two days before he was back to normal.

She had watched her mom train Cheetah on a number of occasions and knew
that Ranma would be back at it by the time supper rolled around today, her
mom could be a slave driver at times. She would not wait for him to get
enough rest to be in top form just yet, it wasn't how she worked. Especially
when it came to training a new student, if they could survive her worst she
would turn them into powerful martial artists. Gina shivered as she recalled
what Ranma had gone through lately, the running, the beatings, everything
she tried to avoid if at all possible. She let her technology take care of
her since it was her specialty, Ranma was only her hobby, he reminded he of
Séance in a way. To innocent and shy for his own good, but at least he
couldn't 'see' what her day dreams were like, poor Séance had nearly fainted
when he saw just how dirty her mind was. She smirked, he was so cute when he
blushed and fainted like that...

She shook herself out of her fantasy and noticed a light blinking on one of
her monitoring devices. Reaching over she flipped a switch and let it run, a
few seconds later a large holographic image filled the area in front of her.
It was a satellite image of some area in China, Pee Wee and his goons were
wearing environment suits and...stealing water from springs? She focused the
device a little more on Zelda and watched as she very carefully treated the
stuff like it was the most dangerous stuff in the universe.

Tapping another button she used the image to find any information on the
location while wondering what the little idiot was up to. Soon information
started scrolling down the front of her screen and she gaped at what came
up. It was one of the forbidden locations, those areas that every
intelligent explorer like her and Penny avoided if at all possible. No
amount of money was worth going to that place, it was just to dangerous to
think about. This was bad, even The Foundation knew better than to go into
that area, it was one of the most dangerous and hostile of all China. There
were three different kingdoms in that mountain range and all of them were at
war with each other.

There were the Amazons who held the most land in the area and were still
living the same way they had been for the last few thousand years. They were
very dangerous and lived by some of the oddest rules just for the sake of
survival. As Amazons the women ruled and controlled while they treated men
with barely concealed contempt and emasculated them as much as possible. The
Musk, another of the kingdoms had once been a tribe of men who lived with
the Amazons, but rebelled or something to form their own nation, the exact
opposite of the Amazons. As fighters they were both deadly and powerful,
they were rumored to have access to old time magical items and knowledge
from long ago. Because of the dangerous and unpredictable ways of the people
though this was nearly impossible to determine. The third kingdom was that
of the Phoenix Mountain, a rare surviving sub species of bird people that
ruled the skies in the area. There was supposed to be an actual immortal
phoenix that lived in their mountain, but that was impossible to prove as
well.

To go into that part of the world was to step back into time more than 2000
years, it was just to dangerous to enter as it was. More than one explorer
had entered that area and either died, disappeared, or been forcibly
absorbed into the culture against their will. According to her records no
one had entered that area in more than fifty years, he had vanished into
thin air after only a few weeks. Those springs Zelda was being so careful of
were full of chaos magic according to her father, he had been there at one
time when on a study mission for the Society earlier in his life while he
was an explorer himself. One of the few to ever return and that had been a
very long time ago.

Gina considered going to talk to her daddy, but ruled it out when she
remembered that he didn't like to talk about those years of his life when he
used his magic to wander the world. He blamed himself for a number of
mistakes that cost some people their lives. Gina didn't agree with him in
the least, but he was stubborn and prideful and wouldn't listen to anyone
but himself at times. He wouldn't even let himself be forgiven for failing
to prevent the deaths of Britanny's were-cheetah clan, the last of them on
the planet. Britanny was the last surviving member of the clan now, adopted
into their family to atone for daddy's mistake.

That failure had forced him to spend countless hours learning to become one
of the most powerful mages in generations. Gina also realized now why he had
spent so much time with his daughters, natural and adopted, he did not want
to abandon or fail anyone again. Over the years he had tried to even teach
her magic, but she failed completely and given her a science book instead.
Boy had that opened up her mind to certain things, she doubted that even her
father knew what he did that day. He had no grasp of science, just the
basics and with his power he could bend certain 'rules' anyway.

Getting information out of him, if he didn't want to give it, was like
pulling teeth with a small wire. Hard and painful. Gina leaned back in her
chair and wondered if she could talk to her mom about this. She had spent a
number of years traveling back and forth from this world to the world of
Jade where she grew up and earned her Arms Master of Jade title.
Unfortunately she didn't talk about her past all that much either and was
even more closed mouth than her dad was.

Gina reached out and tapped a button near her phone and activated a speed
dialer for her video phone. A few seconds a pretty back girl appeared on one
of her screens and smiled at Gina. "Hi Gina, what's up?"

"We might have a problem with Pee Wee, Penny."

"This is about that disk he stole?"

"Yeah, he went to Jusenkyo, China."

Penny gasped. "T-that's insane, he knows how dangerous that place can
be..."

"I don't think he cares, he, Daishi, Zelda, and Ionis are there right now
in Environment Suits filling up bottles of water."

"That place is far to dangerous for anyone to ever visit, even that won't
work Gina, he is as good as dead."

"I don't think so."

"Why?"

"The magic of Jusenkyo is very chaotic and so old that it may have
developed an intelligence of some kind according to the research that has
been done on the place. What better way to achieve chaos than to allow
'samples' to be taken and eventually affect hundreds of people? Pee Wee
might even be working right into it's hands with whatever his little project
is, you know how he is with genetic research, he's obsessed with it."

"Do you have any idea why any of the three kingdoms haven't stopped him
from doing what he wants?"

"No, they are usually pretty hostile to outsiders that enter the area. I do
know that he used one of his helicopters to get there, it showed up on the
satellite image."

Penny blinked, even with all her money she hadn't been able to put a
satellite in orbit. "Girl, how in the world did you get a satellite?"

Gina SMIRKED at Penny. "I built it myself and got permission to put one
where I wanted, paid some favors to take care of the paper work, and had dad
teleport it up there. Didn't have to use one rocket or anything."

Penny glowered in jealousy. "You...you..."

"Heh, anyway, do you have any idea what we should do about Pee Wee and his
goons?"

Penny gave her a look that said she wasn't going to forget this satellite
business, and then moved on with business. "Yeah, we need to get permission
to go and stop him, Jusenkyo is one of the few forbidden places on Earth
that we can't study. It's off limits to everyone, no matter what is
happening."

"I know." Gina sighed.

"Send an e-mail to The Foundation, they need to hear about this."

"That was my thought as well, I just wanted it seconded in case I was
making a mistake." Gina tapped up a quick message and uploaded a picture of
Pee Wee and his goons. The Foundation would have the backing to get the
Chinese government to do something about this if need be.

"Well?" Penny said.

"I just sent it."

"Excellent, I'm going to have Charlotte start getting supplies together for
a trip in case they let us go and stop him. It's best to be prepared."

"I'll do the same." Gina said and cut the call and stared at the blank
screen for a few seconds. She tapped another button. "Cheetah?"

"What's up sis?"

"Can you get everything set up for an expedition, we are going to have to
go and stop Pee Wee before he does something stupid."

"Do we have to, he is nothing but a trouble maker."

"Yes Cheetah we do, I don't care about him, but what he's doing could
destroy far to many people."

"Yeah I understand, what do I do about the new kid up stairs?"

"Just stay in your human form unless you're in the loading bay where you'll
need your extra strength."

"Okay, I'll get Brianna to help me."

"That's fine, get it all done as soon as you can. The Foundation could be
calling us within the hour."

"Right." Cheetah said and cut the link.

**********

Ranma came to with a start and instantly wondered why his whole body was in
pain, then remembered his fight with Master Julia and groaned. He had been
defeated again, this was becoming a habit with him. He was beginning to
wonder if he was ever going to get these techniques down, because normally
he could get even the hardest technique in a matter of days. He had been
training for over two weeks now and he had barely made any progress, it
didn't help that he was being exposed to things he had never seen before. He
sighed and sat up, finding himself on his bed. Someone had cleaned and bound
the wounds he had taken during his sparring match, he double checked the
bandages around his arms and chest. There wasn't any blood on them so he
knew he hadn't taken any kind of major damage.

Glancing at a nearby clock he saw that it was almost noon, he had been out
for about half a day. It had been awhile since he took this kind of abuse in
training, he had thought he was finally beginning to get in good enough
shape to handle whatever was sent at him. He had once been forced to run for
over twenty four hours at full speed to build his endurance, Julia was
pushing him to the limit of his endurance. He groaned in pain as he swung
his legs out of bed and stood up, there were bandages on his legs as well.
It seems that Julia had done quite a number on him during their battle.

His muscles protested as he got dressed and did some stretches to loosen
his body up a little, but he had been in this position before so didn't
think much of it. After about five minutes he was feeling almost normal
again and grinned as his stomach growled loudly. He hit the kitchen and made
up a couple of sandwiches, they vanished almost before he sat down, but the
infamous Saotome stomach was appeased for the moment. He finished up by
downing a sport drink and headed into the back yard, this wasn't a vacation,
it was a training trip.

"Afternoon Ranma."

He spotted Gina and Brianna loading up one of her cars and walked over to
see what they were doing. "What's up?"

"Remember those guys that attacked us a couple weeks ago?" Gina said.

"The ninja and bald chick?"

"Right, Daishi and Zelda. They are over in China doing something really bad
and we have to go and stop them before something happens."

"Where in China?"

"A little explored mountain range deep in the most dangerous areas of the
country. The area is nearly impossible to reach without permission of the
locals, were not quite sure how Pee Wee and his gang were allowed to go
there and live."

"...and live?"

"Yeah, the locals hate to be disturbed and tend to kill or enslave any
outsiders that wander into the area. It had been on the off limits list to
explorers for years, nearly everyone that had been there has disappeared,
died, or been cursed."

"Cursed? Like with magic and such?" Ranma recalled, much to his surprise,
when Dr. Diggers had used his magic to teleport them from the mountains to
here in the United States. He would have shrugged it off, but still hadn't
quite figured out how he learned English so well. Gina's explanation hadn't
made much sense to him at the time, so he figured that Dr. Diggers had done
something.

"Exactly! Pee Wee is messing with things he shouldn't and could place
everyone he comes in contact with in danger."

"Who is Pee Wee?"

"Hmmm? Oh, Pee Wee is the nickname of Erwin Talon, a twelve year old super
genius in genetics and DNA research. He and his family are pretty had to
track, we know next to nothing about his parents, he has been around for
some time now with his bodyguards Daishi, Zelda, and Ionis. Daishi is the
ninja you took on, Zelda is the girl, and Ionis is his magic user. Ionis
tends to cause the most trouble because of his magic, but once one gets
beyond that he is pretty easy to take down." Gina said.

"Well if they are causing problems, take me with you, I owe that ninja guy
a rematch for what he did to me the other day."

"Ranma it could be dangerous and you have never done anything like this
before, we could be walking into a trap for all we know. Locating him was a
little to easy."

"I don't care about the danger."

"You just want to fight that guy again don't you?" Brianna asked as she
stepped around them and tossed some packages in the back seat of the car."

Ranma nodded. "Well yeah, I don't run into many fighters that can beat me
anymore so I have to test my skills against them."

"This isn't a game Ranma!" Gina yelled and bopped him over the head.

"I know that, but..."

"No, I will not take you. Anywhere else and I would have no problem with
it, but this place is just to dangerous for someone that had no experience
with these kinds of situations."

"Hey, I can take care of my self!"

"I know you can Ranma, but this is just to dangerous."

Ranma was about to argue a little more when Master Julia stepped out of the
house and waved at them. "Gina take him with you, just make sure he knows
the danger he's placing himself in."

"But mom, we're going to Jusenkyo, China, home of a trio of kingdoms that
even China's new government is afraid to mess with. Were going to the Cursed
Springs themselves, Pee Wee is stealing the water from the springs even as
we speak. We don't have time to get Ranma ready for this mission."

"Then the more people you have the better chance you will have to defeat
him."

Gina cringed and looked at Brianna before turning back. "What about
Cheetah?"

"Cheetah? A c-cat?" Ranma said fearfully and looked around.

"No Ranma, she means Britanny, Cheetah is her nickname." Julia said. She
shrugged mentally, it was about time he knew anyway. Cheetah was beginning
to complain about keeping a low profile around him and there was only so
much they could do to keep her away from Ranma. She was hoping to get Ranma
over his fear of cats, at least when it came to her daughter Britanny.

"Your sister?" Ranma said to Gina.

"Um...yes."

"Is she going with you too?"

"Yes, she is my protection against Pee Wee and the others that may show
up."

"What? How can that girl protect you? She isn't even a trained fighter like
I am and she is going with you."

"Actually Ranma, she is quite good at it, between her and Gina's technology
they are able to protect themselves better than most. Brittany has a number
of special skills that allow her to be Gina's protector."

"Special skills? Like what?"

"Um..." Gina said nervously.

"What is it?" Ranma asked again.

"Britanny is special Ranma, she's a werecheetah." Julia said.

"A werecheetah?"

"She is the last of her kind Ranma and she has been a member of my family
since she was a baby."

"But..."

"She's just exotic Ranma, don't hold her race against her." Brianna said.
"Me and her have a lot in common."

"Your a were creature too?" Ranma said and eyed her nervously.

"No, but I do have a bit of werecheetah in me, I have more strength, can
run a incredible speeds and practice in their use once or twice a week."

"Can I ask one more question?"

"Go ahead."

"What is a werecheetah?"

"HUH?!" Gina and Brianna gasped out in shock.

Julia just blinked and started to laugh. "You don't have a clue do you
Ranma?"

"Hey, I know what a were...um...thing is, I don't have to tell you." Ranma
said in grump.

"Britanny! Come out here for a minute please." Julia called.

"Sure mom." Britanny called and stepped out side carrying a box of
supplies, she was in her human form. Her clothing was a little baggy and
revealing, but Ranma barely noticed, instead he eyed her body looking for
some sign that she was different than a normal person. She put the box in
the back of the car and eyed Ranma with a smirk. "I'm married you know."

"Huh...no, no it's nothing like that!"

"Uh huh." She said with a raised eyebrow and folded her arms.

"I was just trying to see if you looked different."

Britanny thrust her chest out. "As you can see all the parts are here."

"That's not what I meant!"

Britanny turned around and thrust her ass out and caressed it sexily and
smiled at Ranma. "Then you were looking at this?"

Ranma fainted.

"Well that was fun." Britanny said as she giggled.

"Britanny, you know how innocent he is, that was just plain mean." Gina
said. She was secretly jealous she hadn't thought of it before this. Ranma
was a lot of fun to tease.

Britanny twisted and shifted into her hybrid form, half girl, half cheetah.
It was over seven foot tall and strained the fit of the clothing on her
human form. This was the form she preferred for pretty much everything
because it came with all the advantages. Her hair darkened and the cheetah
spots became more pronounced, her teeth changed and she developed a set of
fangs, developed a thin coat of cheetah hair all over her body and sprouted
a long cat like tail that pushed it's way out of hole specially designed for
just that purpose. There was one final enhancement that she loved above all
the others, a great rack. Her small breasts nearly doubled in sized when she
transformed and were some of her best assets.

In this body she could push herself to running speeds of over three hundred
miles per hour and bench press nearly two tons without straining. The short
son her human body had been comfortable, now they were hugging her curves
like paint and outlined ever muscle and ripple around her waist, the shirt
did the same, leaving nothing to the imagination as she flexed and posed out
of habit. Her sisters were quite used to it, but if Ranma had been awake he
would have fainted again. Britanny was a very sexy girl and took advantage
of that fact whenever she could.

"I'll feel much better! So is this stud going to come with us?" She asked
and pointed at Ranma.

"If we can wake him up, our flight with Ace leaves in a couple of hours."
Gina said.

"How come they waited so long before sending us?"

"They had to get permission from all the board members of The Foundation,
were going to be breaking a number of rules. They spent most of the morning
arguing with each other."

"How stupid can they get?" Britanny said in disgust and threw her hands up
in the air.

"I know sis, if I'd had my way from the beginning we would have been there
already."

"Yeah, yeah I know. Let's get going, you can brief me and stud muffin here
on the way." Britanny said and picked Ranma up off the ground and sat him in
the back seat of the car as if he was a child or a doll, she even put on his
safety belt for him.

They all piled into the car, Britanny staying in her hybrid form, and
peeled out of the driveway. As an inventor, Gina designed her own cars and
equipment, their car was no exception. She was always tinkering with it for
one reason or another to fix or improve some minor flaw. Brianna used to
help, but she tended to add in weapons of all kinds every time she had a
chance too. Britanny was a little wary whenever she had to ride in the
things, she recalled a time when she found out that all of Gina's car seats
were rocket powered ejection seats complete with parachutes and rocket packs
that would allow them to fly for several minutes before they had to land.

Twenty minutes later Gina flew down a small road behind the Airport and
pulled into a gate. The guard waved and let her through without much
trouble, it seemed she was expected and that Ace was waiting for them to
show. Ace was a tall, muscular black man who was one of the best pilots in
the world. He had a talent for flying and had spent years flying everything
from aero lites to 747's. Currently he was standing next to a specially
built Osprey, complete with its rotor tilt wings and engines roaring. Ace
was in a flight suit and pulled a lever on the side of the plane and the
back end opened up and turned into a ramp for Gina to drive into.

Inside was just enough room to hold their car and all the equipment that
had been delivered before they arrived. They all piled out, except Ranma who
was still out cold, and started loading all the specialized stuff onto the
car and into a special harness in the trunk that allowed for easy access to
all equipment. Ace followed them in and closed the ramp as he came in. He
pointed to a small pile of boxes set to the side.

"The Foundation sent those for you to use Gina, Penny dropped them off when
she arrived a few minutes ago." Ace said and adjusted his hat.

Gina stepped forward and adjusted her glasses, the boxes were a series of
small crates and a couple of brief cases. "What are they?"

"Those are some things that Penny was asked to bring you, two sets of
Environment Suits and other odds and ends."

"I don't understand, I already brought along my own Suits. Why would I need
these?"

"Penny said they were more maneuverable than normal ones, that way
Charlotte and Cheetah could use them without being restricted."

"How is that possible?"

The door to the front cabin opened and Penny stepped out to meet them,
behind her was her companion Charlotte. Charlotte was as odd as Cheetah in
her own way, she was a six foot tall winged girl. She had once been a
mindless bioweapon that one of their enemies had send after them, but Penny
had managed to over ride her mental orders and tame her. Now she was a
bodyguard and friend to all of them, though a little innocent when it came
to real life. She grinned and ran over to hug Cheetah and Brianna while Gina
and Penny talked. Cheetah had been teaching Charlotte how to fight and
protect Penny for the last year or so.

Penny knelt down and opened one of the cases and pulled out a scroll and a
small box covered in Chinese characters. "This is a present given to us by
one of the nearby villages. We have some contacts there that help us out
from time to time."

"Penny this place is forbidden for us to visit, how can we have contacts
there?" Gina asked.

"Easy, we can't go in, but they send people out ever couple of years to
explore the world and get an education to bring back to the village. There
is a counsel of Elders there that likes to keep track of the changes in the
world. They even have a small amount of modern technology that is kept
strictly regulated."

"So what is this stuff?" Gina asked as she looked at the box and noted that
is had a strange name, Jusenkyo Water Proof Soap.

"It's soap, we all need to use it all over out bodies and we should have
and immunity to the springs for a week, but we need to get ever inch of skin
or else."

"What a strange idea."

"According to this scroll there is a minor enchantment on the stuff, a kind
of herbal magic that a lot of these old villages still use. There should be
enough there get Cheetah and Charlotte protected, but with as much fur and
feathers those two have it will wear the stuff down fast."

"What is in the other case?"

"The Elders do not like to do anything for free, that is a contract for us
to read and sign before we even land."

"Contract for what?"

Penny smirked. "The Elders want us to build them an electrical water plant
near their village so they can begin to bring a better life to their people,
but they want to do it on their terms."

"Fair enough, I can build something I guess. Shouldn't take more than a
week or so once I have an idea what is needed. With your help we can air
lift whatever we need and get it here in a day or so."

"My thoughts exactly, we can get them up and running in about a week, the
only problem will be to teach them how to run and repair the thing."

"We'll deal with that when the time comes, for now lets get ready for this,
we have to stop Pee Wee before he causes to much trouble."

"Well you deal with this, I need to get us up in the air." Ace said, hugged
Penny, and headed up front.

"So when are you two going to get things together?" Gina asked Penny.

"Not for awhile, he avoids the subject like the plague."

"Well keep trying."

"Yeah, yeah, now back to this trip."

**********

Across the hold Ranma finally opened his eyes and groaned, he tried to
recall what had happened to him. He cursed to himself when he realized he
had 'fainted' of all things, of all the reactions that one angered him the
most. He was a man, not a coward that could not deal with some girl trying
to embarrass him. He closed his eyes again and sat back in the seat and
spent a few minutes running through his daily meditations. In the last few
weeks he had become quite good at doing the mediations and had soon calmed
his mind into a certain state that allowed him to control his emotions.

When he opened his eyes and looked around he didn't react as he noticed the
car was inside some kind of metal box or the sound of huge engines rumbling
around him. Then he saw something that nearly gave him a heart attack, even
in a deep meditation trance, he saw a cat girl. She was tall, furry, had a
tail and ears and probably one of the most beautiful creatures he had ever
seen. She was talking to a bird girl, who was a little shorter than the cat
girl and had a pair of wings on her back and larger than normal feet. Ranma
had to force his fear down and followed the set of suggestions that the book
had told him to do.

He controlled his breathing, his Ki, and his actions with a will power that
would have amazed his father. It took him several minutes to force himself
to calm down and remind himself that a cat girl was not a cat, but something
he did not need to be afraid of. That thought did more to calm Ranma than
anything else, his fears seemed to be of the small house cats that his
father had used than anything else. The big cats scared him too, but they
not as common as some of the little ones. Keeping him in a state of calm,
Ranma opened the door and stepped out of the car and stretched. From the
aches in his body he had been sitting there for some time now.

"Hi Ranma!" Gina and Brianna yelled and waved.

He carefully nodded to the two of them and inched his way over to Britanny
and looked her over. "Is t-this what they meant by calling you a
were-thing?"

"I'm a Were-Cheetah not a thing." Cheetah said indignantly.

"Um...yeah, who are you..."

Cheetah sighed and transformed back into her punny human form and looked up
at Ranma to see his reaction. "I'm Britanny."

Her transformation didn't surprise Ranma as much as he had expected, Gina
had been telling him the truth. Her sister wasn't human, but a thing out of
legend that his father had told him to destroy if he ever encountered any.
Ranma rarely followed his fathers advice anymore, the old man was almost
always wrong. "T-transform back p-please." Ranma stuttered out.

Britanny was more than happy too and grinned in happiness to be back in the
form that she preferred. "Are you alright with this form Ranma?"

Ranma savagely controlled his fear and tried to push the fear out of him
and not bury it as he had always done. "I...I need to g-get used to you in
t-that form."

"I understand Ranma, this is why I stayed away from you while you were at
the house."

"I-I know, just give me some time and I'll get over it."

"Okay. Hey this is Charlotte, she is Penny's friend."

Charlotte was a little confused and curious about what was going on. "Hi
Ranma."

Ranma relaxed as he turned to the bird girl. "Hello."

"You don't need to worry about Cheetah, she would never hurt you."

"It's not who she is, it's what she looks like. A c-cat."

"A cat?"

"When I was younger I was tossed in a pit full of starving cats to learn a
martial arts technique, this was done over and over again until I started to
fear the cats. Then some more until I lost mind due to the fear and
regressed into a mindless state to get away from my fear. That mindless
state is the Neko-ken."

"What happens then Ranma?" Cheetah asked, she hadn't been told much about
this while Ranma was around.

"I don't know."

"What?"

"I have no idea what happens, when the Neko-ken activates I regress into a
mindless state, while there I have no idea what I'm doing. I do know that I
act like a cat, walking around on all fours and usually try to kill my
father whenever I see him. I've put him in the hospital more than once
because of it, usually when we were passing though a small town or village
and ran across an alley cat or something."

"That is horrible." Charlotte said and hugged Ranma, he stiffened in
surprise since isn't used to human contact like some people.

"Yeah...well..."

"Its alright Charlotte, Ranma has been working for the last couple of weeks
to learn some special mediation techniques to control his fear and master
the technique." Gina said as she walked up.

"He has?" Charlotte asked, she had tears in her eyes.

"Yep, he's doing a lot better with this than I thought as well."

"So long as she doesn't turn into to a real cat I can deal with it." Ranma
said.

"Um...okay, we can live with that. Now Ranma, head up front and take a
seat, were in the air right now and will be landing in a couple of hours,
then we have to drive the rest of the way in. I need to tell you what were
heading into since you insisted on coming along, Penny is preparing some
information for you to read."

"Alright." Ranma said and went through the door Gina pointed out to him.
This lead to the small main cabin of the plane, there were about 10 seats
ready to hold people. Ranma stepped over to a window and looked out and
gasped. They were up so high he could see the tops of the clouds below them,
it was the most spectacular thing he had ever seen. He turned as he heard
the door open behind him and Gina and Penny stepped over to him.

"Alright Ranma, I need to tell you about Jusenkyo." Said Gina.

"The Pools of Sorrow or Jusenkyo, two names for the same thing. Jusenkyo is
a small valley with a number of natural springs that somehow became cursed
with magic." Penny clarified.

"That name sounds familiar for some reason." Ranma said.

"You've heard of it before?"

"...yeah, now I remember, pop was planning to go there for the last leg of
our training trip before heading back to Japan. It's supposed to be an
ancient training ground of some kind."

Penny flipped through her notes for a second and nodded. "Yeah it is, there
is a lot of fog that fills the valley at certain times of the year, each of
the cursed springs have a bamboo pole sticking out of them. The object is to
hop from one to the other whole fighting or running from one spring to the
other."

"What exactly are these curses?"

"According to the files we have, they are transformation curses. The
springs attract all kinds of animals, some of these drown and imprint that
form into the water to form the curse. The next time something falls in they
will take that form, whether it be a dog, a cat, or a human form of some
kind." Gina said.

"Is it permanent?"

"In some rare cases. One of the Kingdoms in the area, the Musk, use the
springs to make themselves wives and lock the victims in their cursed form."

"Make wives?" Ranma paled.

"They like to take animals like tigers, wolves, and even unwanted intruders
and dunk them in a spring of drowned girl and lock them. Then force them to
bare their children over and over until they die. They are not known for
being very merciful to outsiders either."

"Right now Pee Wee and his gang are planning to so something similar with
the water, that is why we have to stop him."

"Why haven't these kingdoms you mentioned done something."

"Were not exactly sure, I don't care for some reason or another. Dad told
me that magic like the springs tend to be able to protect themselves in some
way and that we need to be extremely careful of them when we arrive." Gina
said.

"No kidding, I don't want to become cursed."

"None of us do Ranma, that is why we need to prepare you and the others how
to work in environment suits." Penny said.

"What are those?"

"A kind of full body plastic suit that will keep you from being splashed
with water and other things in your environment."

"Their a pain in the as too." Ranma heard and looked up to see Cheetah and
Charlotte sitting nearby. "It's constricting and very fragile, I can't run
or jump in the things without almost ruining them, but their better than the
risk of a curse. I've already had to put up with one of those and don't want
to put up with another."

"Hey!" Brianna said and hit Cheetah across the head.

"Sorry Brianna." Cheetah said and scratched the back of her head.

"Anyway Ranma we want you to understand the danger here, it was one of the
reason I did not want to bring you along."

"I can take care of myself you know."

"I never said you couldn't, but all of us have the training to do something
like this. You never have and don't have a clue what you're getting into."

"I'll be fine Gina, I've been training for over ten years now."

"Training isn't good enough, only experience will help you in this and I
you don't have any. Still we need to prepare you as best we can so the next
few hours will be pretty busy for you Ranma." Gina said with a smirk and
adjusted her glasses.

Ranma did not like the feeling of this one bit.

**********

Ranma had never heard of a HAED or High Altitude Equipment Drop, he now
wished he had never heard of it as Gina's car floated down to earth on a
pair of very large parachutes. They had all piled into the car, including
Penny, and buckled themselves in. Ranma had figured they would just land and
back out, Gina had other ideas though as the back end of the plane opened
and she just backed out while several hundred feet above the ground. Ranma
was suddenly of the opinion that these girls were totally insane for doing
something like this.

The sight of Charlotte using her wings to glide down with them and giggling
happily told him that it was regular thing. Gina tapped a couple of buttons
on her dash board and she suddenly took control of their fall when a large
fan flipped out of the trunk and pushed them in the direction she wanted to
go. Ranma relaxed a little as they started to cover lots of ground, by the
time they landed he had calmed himself down. The landing had been
surprisingly soft as the parachutes were pulled in and stashed in the trunk
again before they headed out. With Cheetah it had taken only a couple of
minutes to get everything back in place.

"I take it you guy have done this before?" Ranma asked of all of them.

"Yep, It's just like riding a roller coaster." Cheetah enthused and bounced
around a little.

Gina and Penny took turns driving for the next few hours as the car made
it's way across country. The car seemed to be like the Mach 5 to Ranma, it
could float across rivers, had jump jets, and seemed to be able to deal with
all sorts of terrain. At the same time he was given a crash course in using
certain types of equipment like the environment suits, scanners, and even
how to drive the car at one point when they had time. He picked everything
up pretty quick and had the basics down by the time they topped a hill and
they reached their destination. The valley was pretty good sized according
to what had been described to him. It was mostly jungle like with an open
glade here and there. The three kingdoms were set at three different areas
around the valley, the Amazons controlled a good portion of the west valley
and the mountains. The Musk had the denser areas in the southwest where they
enforced an iron handed rule over all who lived there. The Phoenix had
everything else and most of the mountain areas, all three kingdoms used
Jusenkyo as a kind of neutral ground.

Gina pulled the car to a stop when a dozen scantily glad girls stepped out
of the trees and blocked their path. They all had weapons visible and were
ready to use them, Ranma tensed and waited for them to make the first move.
Gina opened the door and stepped out holding up a piece of paper.

"Elder Cologne gave me permission to come here."

"Are you the ones that are here to stop those idiots in Jusenkyo?" Said one
in English. She was dressed in a kind of panther skin bikini and had lots of
equipment on her. The others were all dressed in ways that had Ranma
staring.

"Yes." Gina said.

Brianna noticed and thumped him in the head. "Cut that out before they get
the wrong idea." She hissed.

"Sorry."

"Be careful, we explained about their rules and we don't need to get in
trouble."

"Leave the car here and follow us, all of you, the Elders want to talk to
you before you head to Jusenkyo." Said the Amazon. "I'm Pu Fume."

"Gina Diggers."

"I don't care, follow us." Pu Fume snapped and motioned for them to follow
them.

She sent several of the others ahead of her to let the Elders know they
were on the way. Everyone got out of the car and tried to keep up with Pu
Fume's fast paced walking. Only Ranma and Cheetah had no problem keeping up
and barely noticed that the others seemed to be struggling to keep up. The
hike to the village took about twenty minutes and they were a little
surprised to find that the village was in fact a rather large settlement
that held nearly a thousand families all across one side of a small hill and
well into that section of the valley. The whole village was surrounded by a
rather formidable looking wall that was designed to protect everyone from
invasion. The girls noted that there were about forty women walking along
the wall and keeping watch over the entire area.

Gina saw that there was a small group of really old women waiting for them
as they approached one of the entrances to the village. There were two of
them, both looked like a couple of skin colored Yoda's hanging from a couple
of staves and balanced precariously. She didn't really know what to think of
the two old ladies, only that that they put her on edge and knew that there
was more to them that met the eye. Each of them had long gray/white hair
that seemed to be longer than they were and bug like eyes.

"Whoa! It's a couple of ugly looking monkey things!" Ranma said, staring at
the two old women in astonishment.

They dropped to the ground, looked at each other and nodded, and bopped
Ranma on the head. He flew back out of the group, landed hard and skidded
across the ground for several feet and came to a dead stop at the feet of
Brianna and Penny who had been following the group. Ranma of course, was out
cold and completely out of it, the old women just chuckled and turned to
Gina. Everyone else just stared at Ranma and what the two old women had just
done to him. He was a pretty good martial artist after all, they must have
been pretty good to get the drop on him like that.

"My name is Cologne and this is a fellow Elder Lotion."

"Hello young lady, which one of you is Penny Pincer?" Lotion asked in
flawless English.

"That would be me." Penny said and stepped forward. "We agreed to help you
out and signed the contract as you requested."

"Excellent, when can we begin to see some work done on the Hydro Electric
Plant?" Cologne asked.

"If everything goes as we plan, within the month."

"That soon?"

"Yes, we already have most of the equipment. We just need to see the area
you want it set up and to get it ready to air lift it in."

"Good, good we can talk about the details once you finish your mission at
Jusenkyo." Cologne said and eyed Britanny and Cheetah. "Are those two going
with you?"

"Yes they are." Penny said.

"The were-cheetah I can understand, but how did you get someone from the
Phoenix people to help you out?"

"Charlotte isn't from Phoenix Mountain Elder, she is here own person, I've
never known her to have any contact with any of them."

Cologne hopped over to Charlotte and looked her over carefully, seemed to
come to some decision and moved back over to Lotion. "Jusenkyo is just down
that path over there Miss. Pincer, if the magic of the area allows you to
enter, you will find it there."

"Allows us? I had thought we would not have any trouble entering Jusenkyo."
Gina said. This could set their plans back until Pee Wee decided to leave on
his own, she was already revising her plans in case that possibility
arrived.

"The Magic of Jusenkyo will only allow those it wants to enter the Valley,
all others are forever barred from entering it." Cologne said.

"With Pee Wee there are our chances better or worse for making it in?"

"I don't know, Jusenkyo will make it's own decisions."

"Thanks for the info Elder."

"Good luck to you young ones, I will speak to you on your return." Cologne
said and hopped back into the village.

Ranma groaned and sat up just as the Elders hopped off into the village and
for once decided to keep his mouth shut. Anyway his head hurt to much to
think of anything other than the little birdies flying around it. He was
aware enough to realize he hadn't taken a hit quite like that one in a very
long time, those old women had taken him completely by surprise. That more
than anything meant they had his respect, but there would be a rematch if he
had any thing to say about it. Ranma looked u at Brianna.

"How long was I out?"

"Just a few minutes stud, they hit you pretty hard to send you flying back
like that."

"They got me once, it won't happen again." Ranma said and staggered to his
feet.

"Yeah right Ranma, your mouth gets you into more trouble than anything
else."

"Humph, I'll get that old woman for that too." Ranma said cockily.

Gina and Penny yell for everyone to gather around. "Alright everybody, we
need to get back to the car and get ready to take on Pee Wee and his goons.
So lets move out and get it done."

**********

Gina's car was marvel, just when Ranma thought he had seen everything that
it was capable of he would find something new. In this case it was that the
glove box folded down into a high powered computer up link with the main lab
in America. She accessed them in a matter of minutes and everyone was able
to see a picture form on the screen of this Pee Wee and his goons still
working at Jusenkyo. There were now several tables set up around the
helicopter that held all of the kid's equipment. Close examination showed
several crates filled with tightly sealed containers of water. The satellite
picture wasn't good enough to read the labels though, but Brianna said that
was easy enough to fix if she had a few hours to throw something together.

According to Gina and Penny, this Pee Wee was studying the water for
something with all that equipment. This had them worried more than the girls
were willing to admit, but they kept it to themselves while making
explanations. Ranma noted, but spent his time going over the lay out of the
springs and planning the best strategy for his attack. The fog that seemed
to cling to the area was weird too, it wasn't moving with the winds that
seemed to be a common feature with this valley. He also watched Daishi as he
worked, how he walked and held himself as he moved. The guy showed some
skill, but Ranma realized that he should have been able to take the guy
down. How had he lost that first fight?

"What is wrong Ranma?" Penny asked from the other seat when she saw him
narrow his eyes and frown.

"That Daishi guy was able to defeat me the other day, but now that I watch
him I can't see how. His muscles don't move right and he isn't as graceful
as he should be, I have more training than he does and it shows in our
styles."

"Has Gina explained about what Pee Wee is doing and has done?"

"Not really, why?"

"Pee Wee is a Jerk, but he is very dangerous to normal people. Daishi,
Zelda, and Ionis are all people that have sworn loyalty to him for some
special favors."

"What kind of favors?"

"The kid knows how to manipulate DNA and improve the human body to
perfection. In Zelda, the woman there, she used to be a typical one from the
records I've seen. She was a wimp and loser who was slightly overweight and
the one kid that got picked on in school the most. Now because of Pee Wee
she is several inches taller, has an incredible body and better figure. Pee
Wee screwed up when he enhanced her with higher strength, speed, and power
and caused her to lose all the hair on her body. Daishi was a below average
fighter that was growing desperate when he went to Pee Wee, he was given a
great body and access to the training he needed to become the fighter he is
today."

"You mean they didn't earn what they have, but it was given to them?"

"Um...yes, that is pretty accurate." Penny said. "Still, do not
underestimate them. Pee Wee uses a mixture of Magic and Science to do what
he does. Were pretty sure Ionis is where his magic comes from, but
completely sure, it may have something to with his parents. We have next to
no information on them, but there are rumors that the brat's parents are a
thousand times worse than he is."

Ranma was surprised when he understood what he was being told and got out
of the car to walk around to think. He went over everything he had been told
and realized that this was going to be more than a regular fight. He hadn't
even considered that before this, it hadn't really registered, but he still
wasn't going to back down. This was a serous situation and these girls were
willing to risk themselves to accomplish it, he could do no less. He
wandered over to a nearby tree to meditate some more and think of the best
way to take on Daishi. Ranma recalled the battle with Daishi and went over
once again inside his mind, second by second, analyzing his every movement
and reaction.

He had done this a couple of times already and even used his special
mediation exercises to go over the fight. At one point Julia had helped him
to look at it from a different point of view and learn even more from the
fight. It took him close to an hour to do it, but he eventually found a way
to defeat Daishi and what his weakness was. Just like his father had been
teaching him to do for years. At the same time he kept a silent watch over
the girls as they prepared for the attack. Ranma was looking forward to the
upcoming battle and his rematch with the wanabe ninja. He had learned a lot
of new things in the last couple of weeks and even had some strategies to
use against him.

Watching from the car Gina had noted that Ranma, though nervous, wasn't as
scared of Cheetah as she moved around in her hybrid from, at least not as
much as he should have been. It was the first clue she had that he was
beginning to get over the Neko-ken and would someday be free of the fear,
though she admitted that he probably wasn't looking at her as if she was a
cat, but a girl. It was just a first step though and she was almost positive
that he would be ready to go through the special training her mother had
been preparing for him lately. Getting out, she stretched and went to check
on her equipment again.

"Is everyone ready?" Penny called.

They all came to stand by the car as the girl passed out a set of
specialized environmental suits that the Diggers used when needed. Like
everything else Gina and Brianna used, these had been 'improved' upon. They
were set up in two different layers, The first layer was a pair of pants and
a jacket that could be pulled over one's clothes, both of these had the
gloves and boots built right into them. Once this was on there was a button
on the collar that adjusted the outer layer to the wearers inner body suit
and isolated everything from the neck down into an environmentally safe set
up. The final layer was the helmet, something that Gina had designed to be
used in an emergency, it had a kind of heads up display that detailed
information to the wearer on the suits integrity. It had bits and pieces
that hung down the front and back that sealed like the suit did and made an
air tight seal.

The spent several minutes getting dressed and making sure everything was a
good fit and comfortable. Gina explained that the suits were designed to
take a little bit of abuse, but that they still needed to be careful no to
damage them in any way. "Okay everybody, don't put the helmets on until we
are close to Jusenkyo. They only have about two hours of air in them. The
open face plate is set up to give you better sight and reaction time. These
suits are water proof and used mainly to keep you from being touched by
certain materials, they are also radiation proof to a small degree, but
don't push your luck if something like that happens."

"Cheetah, Charlotte, did you two get a chance to use that soap that the
elder sent along?" Gina asked.

"Yeah, we did it while you and Penny were talking to Ranma on the plane. I
don't plan using that stuff again anytime soon either, that stuff was
nasty."

"Ace has a shower on his plane? Where in the world does he keep it?"

"It's pretty small, just enough room to step in, get wet, and so what you
need to do and nothing else. Though there might be more room for Ace in
there, me and Charlotte are pretty large..." Cheetah said with a giggle.

"Right, so you followed the instructions to the letter?"

"Yeah, every square inch."

Gina nodded and hoped it would be enough, then pulled out a map and looked
around the area while she got her bearings before pointing in certain
direction. "We need to head that way until we get closer to the foot hills
of the valley. We should find a little used path that heads right for
Jusenkyo."

Ranma occupied himself on the walk by getting a feel for the suit he was
wearing, how it restricted his movements and the way it moved with him. The
material was tight enough to be quiet, but he hoped that the thing would not
be problem in the fight. No matter what the danger was he wanted to be able
to fight to the best of his ability if he had to and the suit would go if it
got in his way. Even if he had to rip it to shreds to remove it, the girls
had not told him how to get out of it if he needed to.

It took them another twenty minutes to finish up before they headed out on
foot, into an area that Ranma had a bad feeling about. He had listened to
the explanations and watched the girls as they prepared and come to the
conclusion that this was going to be a fight to the finish. The girls were
scared and trying not to show it, that more than anything drove home to
Ranma just how much danger they were in. These girls had been through some
things that baffled his mind at times. Explored ancient ruins, discovered
magical items and hidden cities, and nearly been eaten by a pissed off
dragon. They had even found several of the old races, those that were said
to be extinct or gone.

Now they were heading into a dangerous place to pick a fight and take down
someone before he could learn too much. Gina watched on a map where they
were going and eventually found a trail that lead higher up the mountain. It
was the one they were looking for, a small sign at the side of the trail
said that going that direction was a very bad idea. All around them were
trees and bushes that hid their goal from sight, but eventually they
carefully rounded a small hill and saw the beginnings of Jusenkyo Valley and
its infamous springs. Gina motioned for them to stop and hold back.

There was a thick fog hovering above the springs even though there was a br
eezed quietly moving through the valley. It was an eerie sight that caused
the all to shiver. Ranma noticed that his senses were dulled for some reason
as he looked the springs over, as if something was trying to hide from him.
He was careful where he stepped and made sure he didn't let his guard down.
He peeked through the bushes and looked out over the foggy area to watch
what was happening on the other side of the valley. The rest of the group
joins him a few seconds later. Ranma watches the bird girl and the cat girl
out of the corner of his eye and suppresses a shiver. He would be thankful
when he got over this fear of cats, that Cheetah was giving him the creeps.
Luckily after ten years he had learned to keep a tiny amount of control
around c-cats.

He focused on his meditation techniques and took a few seconds to regain
his inner balance. He would not be ruled by his stupid fear of a house cat!
Looking back out at the springs he watched as Daishi and Zelda go about
their business, collecting more samples of water. There was a series of
tables set up in front of the helicopter filled with computer equipment and
a young kid in a lab coat typing a way and examining some thing. Ranma also
spotted some movement inside the helicopter and took a closer look. He saw a
series of empty cages, one of them was holding something that was moving.

"There's cages in the 'copter holding some animal." Ranma said.

Gina looked through her binoculars. "He's right, but I can't tell what kind
of animal it is."

"Something about this place is messing up my senses, I can't smell what it
is either." Cheetah said. "How about you Charlotte?"

"Charlotte no!" Penny hissed. "Where in the hell did those come from?!"

"Peanuts!"

GOBBLE, SNARF, CHOMP, MUNCH

"Charlotte, be quiet..."

Charlotte was a bit occupied, she was sitting in the middle of the trail
scarfing down a large bag of peanuts that seemed to have appeared out of
nowhere. Penny grabbed the bag and tried to pry it out of Charlotte's hands,
but it didn't even budge and the winged girl didn't even seem to notice as
she continued to snarf the things. Peanuts were one of the foods that
Charlotte never tired of and could spend hours and hours eating the things.
She just wouldn't stop until they were all gone, even if she was full she
didn't stop. That was why Penny was desperately trying to pull the bag away,
if she didn't there were enough there to make the girl sick after a while.
She had once eaten so much that she was mistaken for pregnant woman and
nearly taken to the hospital, Penny did not want to go through that again.
Charlotte was to innocent to understand what was going on.

"Where did those come from?" Cheetah asked.

Gina shrugged and looked a little nervous, she had no idea where they had
come from. "I have no idea, but I don't like the way this is looking."

"This is weird."

"They've spotted us." Ranma said out of the blue. "Bird girl their is
making to much noise, the ninja heard her."

Gina looked back out over the springs, but couldn't find anything wrong.
"How do you know, he looks the same."

"It's how he's moving. He was calm and relaxed as he worked a few seconds
ago, then after Bird Girl yelled he tensed up for a second before pretending
to continue to work. He's trying to do one thing while acting like he is
doing something else, pops taught me what to look for the signs I needed to
know so I could detect it."

"Why would you need to know that?" Gina asked.

"Pops is a thief and a con artist, he's spent years trying to make me into
one. He hasn't succeeded yet though, I never wanted to be like that. It's to
dishonorable in the long run and I don't want to be like that. The old
jerk."

"Good for you, now lets get this settled. If were lucky we can get this
over with quickly..." Gina said, but something dropped to the ground at
their feet and exploded.

Ranma reacted instinctively by grabbing Gina at speeds that could have
matched Cheetah, jumping back with a long distance flip, and setting her
down before she even had time to know what was going on. She fell down in
shock, not used to being saved quite like that and looked up at Ranma as he
glared into the after math of the explosion. All around them the girls had
dodged out of the way and taken up defensive positions. Cheetah was
instantly at Gina's side and grateful for Ranma's quick thinking. While
Penny was blown off her feet and thrown back several feet. Charlotte was
knocked over as well, but she just groaned and stayed there.

"They were waiting for us!" Gina called and tapped a button on her belt.

"You better believe it." Said Zelda as she stepped out walked out of the
blast crater carrying a super soaker. Gina had seen the thing before and
could tell that Pee Wee had modified it in some way.

"Zelda you and the pip squeak have gone to far this time." Penny said as
she stood up and examined Charlotte. She was sleeping peacefully.

"She was an easy one to take out, those drugged peanuts were the perfect
bait." Zelda said with a smirk and smirked as she brought her super soaker
around and pointed it in the general direction of Gina, Ranma, and Cheetah.

Ranma narrowed his eyes and began to build his Ki up for a super fast run,
the bald girl's weapon was weird, but had knew how guns worked. All he had
to do was stay out of the way of the tip of it and he would be safe. He
suddenly blurred from sight, running right at Zelda, who pulled the trigger
and sent out a powerful stream of water. Ranma barely noticed as he weaved
around it easily and attacked with a blow that would take the girl out
without much pain. Daishi appeared in front of him and blocked the blow
easily and sent Ranma flying back in an over the shoulder throw.

"Cheetah, take out Zelda and help Ranma, I'm going for Pee Wee." Gina
called as the broke away from the fight and ran for the helicopter.

"Gotcha." Cheetah said and ran right at Zelda.

Ranma and Daishi were bouncing around the area at speeds that few could
follow, attacking and counter attacking. Unlike the last fight, Ranma was at
his peak and had spent the last two weeks training at levels that would have
nearly killed anyone else. His speed and skill had grown almost
exponentially and this was giving Daishi quite a surprise, Ranma hadn't been
this good the last time they fought. He was going to have to go all out to
take him down this time, but he was ninja, so that meant that he would do
anything that was needed to do so.

As the fight moved around the small area, neither of them noticed as they
started to make their way over towards the Jusenkyo springs and the poles
sticking out of the water. Cheetah's fist slammed into Zelda's jaw and sent
the woman flying back into a tree, where she slumped to the ground
and...vanished. Cheetah growled and looked around consciously, Zelda didn't
do magic and was barely a decent fighter, so she figured Ionis was lurking
around somewhere. A twig snapped and Cheetah spun to see a sign on the
ground that said *Sucker!* and screamed in shock as a spray of water washed
over her back.

"HA!! TAKE THAT YOU PEST, SPRING OF DROWNED SNAIL!" Zelda yelled.

Cheetah started to hyperventilate, her heart racing, but calmed down when
nothing happened. She slowly stood up and shook herself, sending the water
flying in all directions, but Zelda dove out of the way and avoided getting
cursed. "You're going to have to do better than that Baldy."

"How!!" Zelda screamed and fired off another blast of water that Cheetah
dodged.

"Would you believe beauty soap?" Cheetah said with a laugh and put the bald
girl down for the count and crushed the super soaker under her foot. A small
button, attached to Zelda's boot flared with light and vaporized its self,
the limited magic spent. Cheetah spent a couple of minutes tying the girl up
and looked around, she noticed that Penny was gone. Charlotte was still
snoring peacefully.

Flipping through the air, Ranma and Daishi exchanged a number of blows
before landing on a pole and adjusting his balance. Then noticed where he
was and gulped in shock, of all the places to fight, right over the stupid
springs was probably one of the worst places to do it. Daishi landed on a
nearby pole and smirked at this foe, he was exactly where he wanted him now,
at his mercy. His environmental suit was strong enough to protect him if he
took a plunge, but this Ranma had no such protection. His head wasn't
covered and there were numerous holes in the suit he was wearing.

"You don't stand a chance against me boy."

"Oh I don't know, I seem to be holding my own." Ranma said calmly.

"One little dip and you will be out of the way, defeated and useless the
instant you fall."

Ranma shrugged. "Then I won't fall."

"Your arrogance will be your down fall."

"Hah, hasn't stopped me yet."

They leaped and engaged, punches and kicks lashed out and were used to keep
each other in the air for a precious few seconds, then with a rebound they
landed again. Time and again the clashed and landed, moving all across the
valley, then Daishi did something that Ranma hadn't considered just yet. The
ninja jumped higher into the air and brought his hands forward, his body
taking on a bright glow.

"HADDOKEN!!" He screamed and sent a wave of energy right at Ranma.

He was caught in the air and slammed by the blast, it was like taking a
sledge hammer in the chest, and sent crashing into a spring with a mighty
splash. Laughing loudly, Daishi landed on a pole for second and flipped over
to dry land to see what the boy would come out of the spring as. The sign
that told him what the spring was impossible to read and buried in the
bushes along side the spring. After several seconds Daishi wondered why
nothing had emerged from the spring took a step closer and look into its
depths. He could see nothing at first, the water was too cloudy, then an arm
shot out of the water and pulled him bodily.

"AGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!"

Caught by surprise, Daishi was helpless for few seconds, but that was all
Ranma needed to as he used the Saotome Special Water Attack: Breathless Blow
. It was a series of torso blows that were designed to impede the air flow
of the victims breathing. Daishi was slammed against the bottom of the
spring, grabbed by Ranma while he was struggling for air, and they launched
them out of the spring. He body slammed the large ninja into the ground
using the weight of his body to embed his knee into his stomach. That and a
blow to Daishi's head knocked the ninja out and Ranma flipped off.

Landing on the ground a few feet away, Ranma could tell that something was
dreadfully wrong. His balance was off, as was his timing and sense of self
seemed different. While fighting he had been able to ignore what had
happened, but now that the fight was over he looked at the spring that he
had fallen in then down at himself. His hands were smaller, he felt weaker
and...there was something wrong with his body. He could not deny that
anymore, something was different than normal.

"Oh to bad Mr. Customer, you fall in spring, very tragic story." The guide
said as he walked up.

"What did I get knocked into?" Ranma asked, though from his voice he had a
pretty good clue.

"Spring of Drowned Girl, Tragic story of girl who was drowned her 1500
years ago by Musk to make a better bride stock."

Pale, Ranma looked down at his chest and noticed that there was something
there that shouldn't have been. He opened the environmental suit, noticing
all the holes in the material, and tossed it to the side. His silk shirt was
soaked and cut up as well, inside were a pair of breasts, his...her nipples
were hard from the cold water of the spring...

"AAGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Ranma screamed and
screamed and screamed until he forced himself to gain control.

"You see sir, you turn into a girl." The guide said.

"P-please tell me there is a cure for this?" Ranma asked, his voice calm
and quiet.

"Sorry Mr. Customer, there no cure except for hot water."

"Huh?"

"Cold water turn you to girl, hot water will change you back to a man until
cold water finds you again."

"So this isn't a permanent change?"

"Customer can change back and forth now."

"Well that is good..." Ranma said with a deathly calm, then turned to the
inflictor of curses laid out on the ground behind him. Daishi was uncured
and still male, a state of affairs that was not going to last. A red rage
welled up inside Ranma and he felt his power well up inside him with an ease
that he had not managed to do in all the time he had been training.

Raising his hand up, a rather large aura formed around Ranma. The guide
moved off to safety, glad Mr. Costumer wasn't taking his curse out on him
like a lot of others did at this time. The Ki blast fired out and blew up
the instant it hit Daishi, sending him flying into the air in a high arc
until he came down in a spring some distance away. It was a pretty good
belly flop too. Ranma had to resist sending out several more Ki blasts to
annihilate the bastard that had done this to him. Slumping to the ground,
Ranma had to fight back tears of self hatred and disgust at himself. Of all
the curses here he could have lived with any of them but this one, it was an
affront to everything he had ever been.

**********

Gina, Brianna, and Penny crept through the grass as they tried to sneak up
on Pee Wee and his little lab.

"Gina?" Brianna asked.

"Yeah sis?"

"Why are we doing this?"

"What?"

"Sneaking though the grass."

"To get over to Pee Wee and stop him of course."

"So, we both have weapons that can take him out from here, lets just take
him down and get it over with."

Gina blinked and blushed, she hadn't been thinking like that. She was an
explorer, not a hero or anything like that so an easy take down was the
furthest thing from her mind. She nodded and Brianna reached into her pack
and pulled out a couple of Peebo's. They looked super cute as they sat
there, Gina noted that there were little number on their backs and that
their tails stuck in the air. Brianna hit a couple of buttons. "Go and blow
up the front end of the helicopter 67."

"Gotcha Boss." Said a very deep male voice and it rolled off.

"What is wrong with it's voice Brianna, their usually very cute and cuddly
in an explosive kind of way." Penny asked.

"These are the 60's series, I have been experimenting with them. The voice
is a side effect of increasing their vocabulary and response time. I'm not
sure where the problem is though, all the programming checks out as being
correct."

"What about the other one?" Gina asked.

"This is a part of the 90's series, see he has a little 92on his back. I
designed this one for when we next go to Jade."

"Why?"

Brianna smirked. "92?"

"92 active Boss." It said in a normal voice.

"There is a magic user around her somewhere, find him and take him out."

"Gotcha Boss." The Peebo rolled forward a few feet, stopped and spun around
in a circle.

"What's it doing?" Penny asked.

"Just watch."

After several seconds it stopped and zoomed off in towards the other side
of the clearing. Then at almost the same time it, and 67, suddenly exploded
at exactly the same time. The front of the helicopter rose up and came back
down in a pile of scrap even as Gina rose up and fired her 'bubble' gun at
Pee Wee and encased him in an escape proof bubble. Only Ionis would have
been able to get him out of it without Gina's help, and he landed at there
feet, his clothing charred and smoke wafting off his blasted body. He
groaned and passed out, Penny spent a few seconds tying him up.

"Brianna, how do you keep your little toys from killing people?" Penny
asked and nudged the smoking bad guy with a toe as she stood up, she looked
a little sick.

"The 90 series are designed to use concussive force to surprise a magic
user and overwhelm his defenses. I used the anti-magic tech we developed to
upgrade them a few weeks ago, this is the first time I've had to test them."
Brianna said happily, bouncing from foot to foot doing a little happy dance.

"Um...yeah." Penny said and stepped away a little and shook her head.

Gina walked over to where Pee Wee was pounding against bubble and shouting
at them. It was sound proof so Gina ignored him. She tapped her collar and
sealed her environment suit, brought up her gun and laid into Pee Wee's
equipment. Brianna followed suit and they continued until the whole set up
was a slagged and smoking ruin. Pee Wee was on his knees crying at the loss
of his precious equipment. They dragged Ionis over and tossed him in the
bubble with Pee Wee, both of them were then gassed to make sure they stayed
where they wanted them to.

The rest was pretty easy as they made sure that all the sample were taken
care of, they failed to notice the little pig locked in a cage inside the
helicopter, having forgotten all about it in the ensuing battle. As they
walked off it tried to get their attention, but couldn't hear it over the
sound of the flames that were finishing off the little brat's computers. It
had thought the explosions were pretty neat, but it didn't want to stay in
this cage any longer than it had already. It's mind had burned the little
punk's name and face into its memory and placed it along side his pigtailed
enemy. They would both die if he ever got his hands them now.

"BWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!" The transformed Ryoga
yelled.(Translates as HEY WHAT ABOUT ME!!!!!!!!)


To Be continued...

**********

Notes: Here ends chapter 02 of Golden Opportunity. It took me about 2 months
to write this and I'm still not satisfied with it. This story, unlike my
R/SM stories is really hard to write and takes a lot longer to get ready
that usual. Comments would be much appreciated and wanted since I have no
idea where to go with this story right now. I'm trying not to copy any of
Broken Hearts Combined or Ranma Neko or any of two or three other Ranma/Gold
Digger crosses out there.

I tried to do this story like I was Princes Moon, from the beginning of both
series and found that whatever I came up with just didn't work all that
well because of the age difference in the characters. So I decided I needed
access to all of the known history of Gold Digger so it is set near the
current comics.

This story will be continued as mentioned above, but not for awhile or
unless I get a lot of people asking for it. I need to get some chapters done
on my other stories and this one is above 200kb at the moment. The
Replacement and Uncles is up next for updates so until next time, I leave
you these...

**********

Quotes from the Gold Digger comic:

"GINA! GINA! LOOK! TARGETS!" - Brianna Diggers

"I smell a free-for-all *grin*" - same gun crazy Brianna

"I love the smell of nitro in the morning!" Brianna again.

"The disguises worked before, they sed... they'll never ever notice us, they
sed... When this is over, there's gonna be some serious KAPOWIES DISHED
OUT!" - Sheila, were-Jaguar of the Edge Guard

"Jinkies!" Gina Diggers favorite quote.

"Pay no attention to my husband, girls... he always get defensive after I've
defeated a magic user with plain ole common sense!"
"I do not!" - Julia and Theodore Diggers

"Whoa!! Baby got back!" Peverted Skeleton. ^^

**********