Disclaimer: This is my disclaimer. You see it? Good. Now get on with the story.

Warnings: I'm not quite sure yet what rating I should give this, but I'll play it safe and make it M. The rating may change, but for the foreseeable future I'll keep it there…

Cheetah ½
------------------
Prologue

Every story needs a beginning, and this story begins with a large valley in Qinghai, China, nestled somewhere near the Bayankala mountain range…

It was, by no means, an impressive looking place. Just another typical valley with hundreds of small springs spread across its bottom, with each spring possessing a large number of tall bamboo shoots sticking out of them…or so one could be easily fooled to believe, if one was not aware of its dark and grim past.

Jusenkyo was its name, a valley of sorrow as the locals liked to call it, and connected to it were hundreds, if not thousands of sad tales of those who had dared to venture there, each with a tragic end of their own. There was even a book about them, a book that went to great lengths explaining what dangers lay in wait in the valley of Jusenkyo for those who were foolish enough to venture into its cursed embrace.

And right now a copy of that particular book lay in the hands of one Saotome Genma.

Genma, by any means, was no rocket scientist. In fact, one might go as far as saying that he was a complete and utter idiot and yet fall short at just exactly how stupid he was. To call him that would probably be an insult towards all idiots across the whole world. No, Saotome Genma was truly in a category of his own, which explains why he and his son were now standing before the valley depicted in the booklet he held in his hands, the very same that was filled with very explicit warnings of why no one should ever come there.

The main reason behind this however wasn't because he didn't believe the warnings, or that he thought them to be just some old wives' tales, but because he couldn't understand almost a word of Chinese, a language in which the book had been written in. All that he understood were the phrases "Legendary training grounds", "Jusenkyo", and "Dangerous", which in his mind had been translated into a perfect place to further his sole child's training until they would head back to their home country, Japan. As once they would be back at home, he would be finally able to implement the last part of his ingenious plan that would allow him to retire at the ripe age of thirty nine!

Little did he know that the place he had brought himself and his son, would bring some rather drastic changes to that plan, ones that could very well bring it all into ruins…

"Well, here we are. The legendary training grounds of Jusenkyo." Genma finally spoke as he put aside the booklet and looked to his side where his son was standing. "Are you prepared, Ranma?"

Saotome Ranma, at the age of fifteen (soon to be sixteen), was what most people (women at least) could have described as the epitome of manliness. As while he may have not been very tall, he did possess a rather impressive physique that had been built during his ten years long training trip his father had dragged him into, and a face that held a high level of roguish handsomeness that only the most chaste of women could completely ignore…which made it rather unfortunate that the same could not be said of his personality.

Yes, while Ranma did not share his father's blatant stupidity (at least not completely), he did hold the same brashness and pride, which had been the cause of a great number of fights he had found himself caught up with in the past. For example, to him it was simply unacceptable to loose to anyone. No matter what the competition was about, only a complete and utter victory was the possibility he was willing to accept for himself. And even if he lost, he would simply train harder and try again, and keep repeating it until he would finally win.

"I dunno, pops," the boy yawned as he scanned through the surrounding area. "It doesn't look very impressive to me. You sure we're in the right place?"

"Of course I am! What do you take me for, an idiot?" the older Saotome bristled while the younger felt it would be wiser not to respond to that question. "Now come on, we didn't come here for sightseeing!"

"Yeah, sure, whatever…" Ranma drawled as he threw down his backpack and started doing some stretched. "I still think it was a bad idea not to go and hire that guide we saw a while back in that village we passed. I'm willing to bet we would've been here twice as fast, than what we did by going on our own."

"Bah! A waste of money, I say," scoffed the boy's father. "And stop complaining already, or else you might start sounding like a weak little girl again."

"Shut up, oyaji!" the boy snapped back. For as long as the two had been together, Genma had always been able to get his son riled up by saying he was acting like a girl, which in return had built a psychological switch inside the boy's head that made him go into immediate defensive mode to protect his manliness, no matter what the situation was. "Let's just get started 'n I'll show you just how "weak" I've become!"

The elder Saotome simply smirked, secretly pleased just how easy his son was to manipulate, and quickly changed his expression into one of contempt as he faced away from the boy. "Hmph…all I hear is talking, son. What I want to see is more action!"

"Fine! Then let's go already!"

And with that said, they both leapt into the air while making it seem unrealistically easy feat as they landed on top of the fifteen feet high bamboo shoots as if it was the most practical thing in the world. This held true especially for Genma, who by no means, was not among the most lightweight people in the world. As while he may have been training his son rigorously during the past ten years, this did not mean he himself had been practicing as hard, which had lately begun to result with a rather significant increase in his waistline…

"Ranma, I just want you to know that I won't be going easy on you today," Genma spoke as he took his one legged crane stance in preparation. "I believe it is a high time that I show you just how big the difference between the two of us still is!"

Truth to be told, the only reason he managed to occasionally beat his son these days, was because he still had a rather hefty number of dirty and often underhanded tricks he had yet to reveal to his son. The boy soaked up techniques and fighting styles like a human sponge, so in the lately it had become increasingly difficult for the older martial artist to stay ahead of his son. Not that he would ever openly admit it, of course, not even to himself. So, in a way, one could say that he had planned to have this training ground as a proving place for himself and his son, to see which of them was the strongest.

"Like you've ever gone easy on me, oyaji," Ranma scoffed as he took his own stance, which mimicked his father's almost completely. "Just bring it on already, I'm feeling like I'm aging here by just listening to your empty boasts!"

It didn't take more than that to get the elder Saotome up in the air and coming right at the younger, with his right foot already extended with the clear intention of toppling his target into the spring below. Unfortunately for him, that was exactly what his son had been expecting from him. As by leaping forward and placing his hands so that he could plant them on his father's extended leg, Ranma had enabled himself to make a rather impressively looking handstand flip over his father's charge, while leaving himself into a perfect spot to deliver a smashing blow to his father's unprotected back, which, in the end, was exactly what he did.

This resulted in a booming splash that caused the water from the spring below to explode upward like from a geyser, making it a small miracle that Ranma himself had not been doused with it.

"Ha! Take that oyaji!" Ranma cheered from one of the bamboo shoots while pumping his right arm as a sign of victory. "Haven't you yet learned that you can't take me down with that opening move anymore? I mean, this is like the fiftieth time you've tried that same method in the past four months!"

Of course there came no response with his father being underwater at the moment and all, but it still made him feel good to jeer at the old man every time he got the upper hand of the old coot. But now that it was over, he began to take notice that his father had been underwater rather long, and that while he had hit him pretty hard, it shouldn't have knocked him out yet.

"Pops? What's up? We done already?" he called out with a slight twinge of worry. But as no answer came, only more bubbles from below the spring's surface, he began to consider that his father might have hit the bottom head first and quite possibly on some rock or something...

However, before he could jump down and start investigating, he saw a large shadowy shape closing up with the surface of the spring and then suddenly breaking through it with a tremendous force. What he had expected to see his was his father, full of impotent fury for being dropped so easily and so early in their sparring, but instead of that he saw a panda. A huge six foot tall panda that was wearing a white gi-top, that looked more like a vest with the way it was stretched around it's wide girth, and a pair of wire frame glasses, just like the ones his father wore, hanging from its left ear.

"Wha…!" Was all that Ranma managed to utter as he watched the panda land on a bamboo shoot right across the one he was standing on. And as if this had not been eerie enough, the fact that the panda had taken up a technically correct crane stance really freaked him up.

"O-Oyaji…is that you?" he inquired shakily, his eyes firmly locked with the large black and white panda bear in front of him.

The panda seemed to be confused by his question, judging by the way the corners of its eyes seemed to furrow, but then it just apparently shrugged it off and launched itself into the air once more, charging right at him.

"Whoa! Time out! Time out!" Ranma dodged and weaved past the surprisingly fast swipes and punches that came raining down on him, while trying desperately to stay on top of the bamboo shoots. As while he wasn't exactly quite certain what was going on, he had come to believe that this panda, which was attacking him right now, was in actuality his father, who had been somehow transformed by the spring he had been kicked into, and thus come to the conclusion that dropping into any of them would most certainly spell trouble with a capital 'T' for him. Yes, he was aware how insane that sounded, but right now that was what he believed was the truth and couldn't care less what someone else might have thought about it right now.

Unfortunately, with his mind being occupied with his fight against the panda, and trying to figure out just what the Hell was going on, Ranma had not taken notice of the half-rotten shaft of the bamboo shoot he had just landed on, and thus found himself surprised when the thing gave away underneath him and caused him to plummet straight down. And as expected, there was a spring waiting directly below him.

"NO-!"

There was nothing he could do but watch as the surface of the spring came closer and closer, with his mind running through thousands of different possibilities of what he might find himself as once he came back to the surface. Would he become a dog? A bird? A bug? Maybe even a girl? He didn't know, but whatever it was going to be, he just knew it was not going to be pleasant.

And it was on that moment, the moment he touched the surface of the water and plunged through it, that his destiny was changed forever.

Ranma knew right after submerging that there was something going on with his body. There was tingling all over his body, like electricity running across his skin. It was not painful, surprisingly enough, not even when he felt his skin beginning to stretch, which gave him the last confirmation that whatever had happened to his father, was now happening to him. He just hoped he wasn't going to turn into a panda too, although he did mentally admit that there were probably things far worse than that…

Putting his worries aside for a second, he spun himself around in the water and planted his feet on the bottom of the spring, and pushed forward with all his might, his main concern being on getting out rather than on what he had become. He could worry about the later after he was out from this damned spring!

It didn't take any more than a fraction of a second for him to break through the surface and grab a hold from the edge of the spring, and even less to haul himself back onto the dry ground, upon where he began to hurriedly inspect the changes he had gone through…

At first he felt a small rush of relief when he saw that he still had hands, human hands, with five fingers and everything, but that sense of relief was soon dashed to the ground when he realized that he had apparently been granted a fur, a yellow one with numerous oval-shaped black spots riddled all over it. And while that would have normally alarmed him quite a bit, it still paled in comparison to what he felt when he happened to look down and see that his gi-top had been forced open by a rather ample set of breasts that had apparently sprouted from his chest, which also appeared to be covered in fur, only here it seemed to be white instead of the tanned yellow it seemed to be everywhere else…

"What the…?" was as far as Ranma got before his brains managed put one and one together and decided to dip his hands into his pants to confirm that yes, 'Mr. Happy' was no longer living there. As the result of this discovery a scream was released, one that was combination of pure horror and shock, and one that only a man, who has just found he had been castrated during his sleep, could produce.

And it was, of course, a completely wrong moment for his father to approach him.

"Growf…?" Genma inquired, trying to speak out his son's name, only to have it mangled by his transformed vocal cords that evolution had not meant for human speech. Yes, it had not yet occurred to him that he was not human anymore, well…that is, not until now. Unfortunately for him, he would not have the leisure to wonder at his transformation as his senses took notice of the sudden ominous presence right before him.

It was his son, or at least what used to be his son and now a eight feet tall wet wall of furry fury in the form of what appeared to be a cat-girl of some sort, and if the expression being displayed on his transformed child's face was anything to judge from, the reason she was standing so close to him wasn't because she was there to give him a friendly hug. No, in fact she looked straight-out murderous as far as his instincts were concerned.

Yes, it was indeed a fine moment to use one of his self developed special techniques, one that had not seen daylight in many years. It was a technique he and his old training partner, Soun Tendo, had developed against their fearsome master, the one technique that had allowed them to survive their master's fury, one that had become almost as infamous as the Crouch of the Wild Tiger during their younger years. It was not a difficult technique to perform, nor was it highly dangerous to one's opponent, but in some cases had the potential to save the performer's very life…in cases just like the one Saotome Genma was currently finding himself facing.

The technique required the user to jump towards the opponent, stop right in front of them, turn around, leaving the user's backside completely open to their foe, and then sprint forward with utmost haste.

It took almost five seconds for Ranma to realize exactly just what had happened.

"Hey! Get back here you fat fur ball! I'm not done with ya'!" she screeched before launching herself after the fleeing panda like a bullet shot from a gun, literally, which made it no wonder that she missed him by several yards when she passed straight over him. Also, because she had not been accustomed to such speeds, she also didn't know how to effectively brake without tripping over, especially now that her center of balance was much higher due to the increase of height she had yet to take consciously notice of, and the pair of massive jugs sticking out of her chest that she was quickly starting to hate more and more with each passing moment.

The result? A very, very angry blonde haired human-cat hybrid with her face buried deep into the dirt. And even though it had not been directly her father's fault that she had ended up like this, she was still going to add it to his tab.

In the meantime Genma, never one to miss an opportunity when he saw one, had taken full advantage of his child's fumbling and was already at the edge of the forest surrounding the valley by the time Ranma managed to get back to her feet and inside of it before she could catch up with him again.

"Just wait 'till I get my hands on you, oyaji! For when I do, I'm definitely going to tear you a new one!" the neo-cat girl snarled as she dove into the foliage headfirst, her mind practically seething with righteous fury as she tore through the vegetation like a gigantic buzz saw.

The only reason Genma managed to keep ahead was due to his far more extensive experience at running away from angry mobs, and because instead of stopping to tear through everything that came in his path, he preferred to leap over it, if possible, or just take another direction to run to. But how long would he be able to keep it up was entirely another question, and one only time would be able to tell.

Meanwhile, back at the center of the valley, a slightly plump looking figure had appeared, dressed in what seemed to be a dark green communist uniform, complete with a cap that had a small red star on the center of it, directly from the Mao-era. He had a tired expression on his face as he looked around, clearly aware that the springs had once again claimed two new victims.

He had yet to see what forms the visitors had taken, but from the looks of the markings, he had a fairly good idea that at least one of the two had fallen into the Spring of Drowned Panda, and the other into the Spring of Drowned Beast Girl. It was the later one that made the guide quirk his near nonexistent eyebrows, for no one in the entire recorded history of the valley had ever dropped into that particular pool after its creation one thousand, five hundred and sixty five years ago.

"Ah well, better go ready the water in case they decide to come back…" the man muttered to himself in Chinese as he shrugged, turned around, and began to trot back towards the hut at the edge of the valley, from where he had come from when he had begun to hear the commotion created by the two visitors.

And judging from the sounds and angry yells he kept hearing from the forest, it probably wouldn't hurt to prepare the first aid kit too…

----------------------
End of Prologue
----------------------

Author's notes:

So…what do you think? Does anyone feel I should continue this, or should I just go behind the shack and save everyone from the trouble of shooting me in the head by doing it by myself?

I know this type of stories have been done before, so don't bother to come 'n scream me about it. I've had this story planned out for almost two years, but only as of late felt confident I have enough source material of everything I need to actually write this thing, so if this happens to appear similar to any other story you might have read, it's purely coincidental, I assure you. And anyone who finds and feels like it, can report any mistakes I may have done with my grammar and such. I don't have a pre-reader, so any help I can get at this point is welcome.

Oh, and I do feel obliged to warn you that I'm not very fast with making updates, for I have very little free time to spend on writing, not with all the work related and the tidal wave of personal problems I seem to have collected in these past months…it's a shitty position to realize that you're only twenty-three years old and already you're too busy to have any real fun…

- Elijah Snow