The Switch

' '= Thinking

" "= Talking

- -= Change in time an/or location

Chapter 2: The Meeting

(uh...now that I look at it the beginning is terrible... um, I might update this chapter later, don't let the into fool you, it gets better towards the middle.-Misao2008)

-The next morning (6:30), Mousse's house-

"Wake up Mousse!" Karen shouted while gently shaking him.

"hmm…" Mousse sat up and put his glasses on. "It's only six…" he mumbled tiredly. "come back when it's light out." He said before lying back down.

"Come on! We have work to do, get up!" she shouted, but to no avail. So she left…and came back with a bucket of water. "All right, this is your last chance to get up peacefully." She said holding the bucket over him.

"…"(He fell back asleep)

"You asked for it." Karen said as she dumped the water on him.

"Hey! What did you do that for!?" Mousse shouted.

"That's what you get for sleeping in." she stated.

"Sleeping in!?" h-She shouted, "It's only six!"

"We have to get an early start if we want to find the salesman." Karen explained, "Do you want Ranma to find him first?" She added innocently.

"No way! I'll be the one to find him, and when I do I'll make him pay!" Mousse shouted as he…'she' quickly got to her feet.

'As long as he dislikes Ranma, I can get him to do anything.' Karen thought victoriously. "Okay then! You get ready while I get a map." She said.

"A map? What for?" Mousse asked curiously.

"To find Ryoga of course, by the time he gets here the salesman will have been long gone." She replied before leaving the room.

Mousse was ready in record time, there was no way he was going to let Ranma beat him at anything. Mousse went to get Karen when he(yes Mousse is a boy again) was ready, and found her sitting in the middle of the floor reading a map. "What are you doing? How is that going to help us find Ryoga?" Mousse asked curiously.

"hmm…If Ryoga was indeed in Nagoya, and he tried to come here from there then…he'd end up going in the opposite direction…So he'd go to Kyoto, then Osaka, then back to Kyoto, and by tomorrow end up back in Nagoya…How long does it take to walk to Nagoya?" She asked.

"Too long…but if we wait another day we might be able to find him in Nagano." Mousse replied.

"…Nagano? Isn't that where he started from?" She asked.

"No, Nagoya and Nagano are two different places." He explained.

"Oh, okay…I don't get it." She answered cluelessly.

"…Never mind, he won't be there for at least another two days, weren't we supposed to go to the Cat Café?" Mousse asked.

"Right. We need to find out more about this mysterious salesman." Karen said. "Okay, let's go!" She got up and headed to the door.

-A few minutes later, at the Cat Café(it's 7:00now)-

"Hey Cologne, are you here?" Karen shouted while knocking on the door.

They heard the reply 'I'm sorry, we're not open yet.' from behind the door.

"I didn't come here to eat! We were supposed to come here, didn't Shampoo tell you?" Karen yelled, knocking harder.

"Hm?" Cologne opened the door. "Oh, so it's you two. I didn't expect you to arrive this early." Cologne said.

"Neither did I, she's the one who insisted we come early" Mousse said pointing to Karen.

"Well I don't want that man to get away, we've got to find him!" Karen said. "So, does this mean we're the only ones here?" She asked.

"Well, Shampoo is here working, I don't expect Ranma to come for another hour at least, unless…Akane is cooking breakfast…and Ryoga won't find his way here for another week." Cologne answered.

"Oh…But that doesn't matter, Ranma isn't that smart anyway, and Ryoga…is hopeless. Besides that, you, Shampoo, and Mousse are all from China right? So you three would have the best chance at figuring out who that man was." Karen said cheerfully.

"Is she always this…energetic?" Cologne asked Mousse.

"She has been for as long as I've known her…" He replied. "But she does have a point, we are the only ones who actually know anything about China." He added.

"All right," Karen shouted, "Let the meeting commence!…Where is Shampoo?" She asked while looking around.

"Shampoo is upstairs, please try to get along, I don't want any damage to the café." Cologne said.

"…uh…Okay, as long as she doesn't say anything bad about Mousse." Karen replied slowly, before running upstairs.

"Mousse," Cologne said once Karen was gone, "Please stop them if they start fighting."

"I'll try." He replied.

"Then again, I can always make you pay for the damages." She added.

"Are you kidding!? I could never afford that!" Mousse shouted. "No, no problem, if they start fighting I'll just take Karen and leave." He said before quickly walking upstairs.

When Mousse got to Shampoo's room he found the two girls glaring at each other.

"…Well, what you come for?" Shampoo asked rudely.

"I thought we agreed to meet here. Or do you like being a pig?" Karen replied unhappily

'Not good, they've only been in the same room for a few minutes and they're already arguing, I better do something before this turns into a fight and…uhh.' The thought of the damage bill was enough to motivate him. "Now, now, you two shouldn't be fighting…we…are suppose to be working together, why don't you call a temporary ceasefire?" He reasoned.

"Fine!" They both shouted as they sat down on the floor.

"Good, now we need to figure out why we were targeted." Mousse said as he sat down.

"And how we do that?" Shampoo asked.

"Hmm, well, other than being cursed, what else do we have in common?" Mousse asked.

"Maybe we do something to him, and he come for revenge." Shampoo suggested.

"I can understand Ranma getting into trouble, but that doesn't explain why he's targeting the others." Karen said.

"Others? What about Shampoo?" Shampoo asked, her temper rising.

"Calm down, there's no need to get angry. Remember the temporary ceasefire." Mousse said, interrupting their argument.

"Okay." Karen said. "hmm…"

They all thought about this for a while before Karen thought of something.

"I've got it!!" Karen yelled, startling the others.

"Huh, what did you come up with?" Mousse asked.

"It's all Ranma's fault!" She yelled.

"…You can't blame everything on Ranma," Mousse said.

"How dare you blame Ranma!" Shampoo shouted.

"Wait. Let me explain, I mean that it's Ranma's fault that you two, and Ryoga were cursed. For Ryoga it was because Ranma knocked him into Jusenkyo, for you Shampoo, it was because he lied and said he was a girl, and for you, Mousse, it was because he defeated you so you went to Jusenkyo to train. and Ranma's got it worse than anyone, he turns into a cat, his worst fear."

"hmm…Maybe but that no explain why he targets others." Shampoo said.

"Hmm…" They sat thinking for a few more minutes before…

"Aiyaa!! I got it!" Shampoo yelled.

"What? What did come up with!?" Mousse and Karen asked.

"Something like this happen before, remember, we kidnapped by Secret Jusenkyo Punishment force, Maybe they come back to try again." Shampoo said. (reference to ep.48 'The Killer from Jusenkyo')

"That's right, but that means…he could already be back in China by now." Mousse said.

"Maybe we could get Akane and Ukyo to help." Karen suggested.

"Yeah, if we got their help we'd be able to search much faster." Mousse said.

"No way! Shampoo no let them help! Ranma mine!" Shampoo yelled.

"Then we can split into groups, Ranma can go alone, you can go with Ukyo, Akane can go with Ryoga, if he ever shows up, and I can go with Mousse." Karen said the last part happily.

"Ranma go alone?" Shampoo said.

"Why not? If Ryoga and Akane are paired up, then you won't have to worry about Ranma…" Karen said, she was slightly concerned as to how Mousse would react to this.

"Aiyaa!Shampoo see now. Yes, pair Ryoga with Akane good." Shampoo sad happily. "What if Ryoga no come?" She asked.

"Him finding his way here is very unlikely, so I've decided that Mousse and I will go look for him tomorrow." Karen replied.

"Yes, is good. You take Mousse, go look." Shampoo said happily.

"…Hey! You just want Mousse to go away! That's not nice, apologize!" Karen yelled when she noticed Mousse becoming depressed.

"Why Shampoo apologize!? What you care, you want be with Mousse, no?" Shampoo said angrily.

"…I-…even if I did, er I mean do…uh…it doesn't matter what I want, I'm more concerned bout his happiness, so apologize already!" Karen shouted.

"No it's fine, really. Please don't start fighting." Mousse pleaded, but to no avail.

"NO! Shampoo no apologize." She said angrily.

"Apologize!" Kare shouted back.

"NO!!"

It looked as though a fight could break out any minute… "STOP!" Mousse shouted, "K-Karen don't we have to go look for Ryoga? I-if we start today we might find him sooner." He said as he grabbed her arm gently and started pulling her to the door.

"But she hasn't apologized yet!" Karen yelled as she was being pulled down the stairs.

"Really, I don't mind. I'm used to being treated that way." Mousse said. "but…thank you for standing up for me…" He said when they reached the bottom of the stairs.

"You don't have to thank me." Karen said cheerfully, "I'll happily defend you anytime."

"…really?" Mousse smiled, "Well we should go now," He said while walking to the door, "I don't want to end up paying for the damages…" He said to himself.

"Huh? Did you say something?" Karen asked.

"No, nothing." He quickly replied, and then they both walked off.

"Are we really going to look for Ryoga?" Karen asked after they'd been walking for a while. "Didn't you say we'd wait until tomorrow?)

"Well, if you want to. I just said that to stop you from fighting." Mousse replied.

"oh…I'm sorry…" She said sadly.

"What? No, what are you apologizing for? You didn't do anything wrong, some people just don't get along." He said trying to cheer her up.

"Okay, but I didn't tell Shampoo when to start searching." Karen said.

"That's okay, we can start looking for the salesman tomorrow. That way we can look for Ryoga too." Mousse said. "For now I suppose we could look around a bit."

"So what exactly did happen before? Shampoo said something about a secret punishment force, what did they do?" She asked.

"Hmm…It's a pretty long story, we won't accomplish much searching on our own so why don't we go home so I can tell you about it instead." Mousse said.

"Okay!" Karen said happily.

After they got back home, Mousse told Karen about the Jusenkyo Punishment Force, and why they had come to Japan…

End of Chapter

Author's Notes:Okay, time to clear up a few things: First of all ,yes, I know cluelessly isn't a word, but I couldn't find anything else to put in that fit the way I wanted it; Secondly, about the reference to ep.48 I try not to give away any more details about the series than necessary, that is why I didn't include Mousse's explanation of what happened, if you want to know, watch the episode; and lastly, I know this chapter was short, and I am sorry, but It wouldn't work if I added more here. Other than that I am happy to say I've done a little research, and now have a few Chinese names to use, though I will still take suggestions. I should also take this opportunity to tell you that my school finals are coming up next week, they will be Monday and Tuesday. I may not be able to update then, if anything comes up I will add it to my profile. And please review, I can't improve if I don't know what you think. ...the more I read it the worse it sounds, I know some of the lines aren't put together well, I will try and fix them later, if you have any suggestions please tell me. I forgot to mention this, I have started another poll, this one will determine the future of my story, so please vote

I just wanted to tell everyone that I will be using a drawing I made of Karen as my avatar, I only plan on keeping it for a week, so if you want to know what she looks like you should check now, I do not know if I will do this again.-Misao, 4/21/09