AN: I really just need to schedule my writing time better. Oh, btw I started another new Story, this one on Fiction Press, if anyone's interested. Mecha Angel Avalon (All original stuff. The prologue/pilot is all at this point, but I'm setting out to write a chapter a week.)

Oh, and I don't own Ranma ½. If you couldn't guess that, I can't help you.

My Chinese Ghost

Chapter Nine

"So, um, how do we defeat this demon?" Ranma asked Herb the first. He thought the request was most reasonable.

The dragon, on the other hand, didn't seem to think so. "I honestly couldn't say. I had to use all my powers to defeat him, along with the help of Saffron and the Amazon war-mistress. I somehow doubt you have access to the same resources."

Mei looked thoughtful. "Well, I'll give you this. Saffron is pretty unlikely to help him since Ranma did kind of kill him a few months ago. I suspect it'll take him a while to get over it."

"And I don't know who the War-Maiden might be, if the amazons even have one." Ranma added. "Though Cologne's the Matriarch so she'd know. And Herb would probably back me up in a fight against a demon. I mean, he's a jerk, but he's not that bad of a guy."

Mei nodded. Neither one noticed the stunned expression on the dragons face. "You know all of them?"

"Yeah, sure." Ranma replied absently. "Ryoga would help too. I mean, he likes to yell about killing me and everything but he's not a half bad guy. I'd also bet even a Demon would have trouble hitting him hard enough that he'd even feel it."

Mei also ignored the dragons now repeated attempts at getting their attention. "Oh, and the girls would join us too. And don't you DARE make a comment about women in a fight."

"Heh, I'd prefer them then Mouse. I mean he's tough when he's focused, but he's so rarely even focused."

"EXCUSE ME!" The dragon bellowed, the wind from his voice knocking both teens off their feet. "Are you telling me that not ONLY are you in contact with the Amazons, the Musk, and the Phoenix people, but that you also have allies who are tough enough to make that fact a FOOTNOTE."

"Um, yeah. Why is that strange?"

The dragon resisted the urge to face fault again. "You know what; I'll summon you back when I've had time to process this again. Get out of my dreamscape."

With that he breathed fire over the pair, but instead of burning them, it sent them spinning back to a more conventional reality.

"He's coming too."

Ranma groaned, and blinked open his eyes, the blue orbs focusing on Shampoo and Akane, the later being the one who spoke. He blinked again as he realized he was laying on the floor of someplace he couldn't automatically remember. "Woah, were am I." He asked intelligently.

"The mall food court." Akane replied. "Laun was talking to us, and then you just passed out."

"SHE just passed out, thank you." Ranma muttered, rolling easily to his feet. He dusted himself off, and then froze. He stared straight ahead, and refused to look down. "What am I wearing?

"Lacey top and low cut jeans. Shampoo jelous that airen look better in jeans then Shampoo." Shampoo answered matter of factly.

"WHY THE HECK AM I… am I wearing a bra?"

"Yep, lavender, just like the shirt." Akane assured him. She'd helped Laun pick it out, and was rather enjoying the pigtailed boy's consternation.

"Oh." Ranma nodded. For a moment the girls could tell he was Genma's son, because the attempt to look knowledgeable HAD to be an unconscious mirror of the panda's own stupid expression. Then the pigtailed boy took off screaming and running like the pet store had released the kittens from their cages."

"Thirty seconds." Laun commented, having been timing it. "Mei was right, he wouldn't hold out long at all."

"True. Um, should we stop airen? Ranma heading for pet store."

"AHHHHHHHHH!!!" The red headed blur went past them again.

"Too late.

"So this dragon, who claimed to be Herb, said the Demon whose name Jusenkyo takes is going to rise again?"

"Yeah, but he was really vague on when." Ranma replied, leaning back in the restaurant chair. Cologne nodded, sitting across the table from him. "He did suggest that we were also a sign that the power to finish him off, or something, is available."

"But he wasn't terribly specific I gather."

"Nope. He did seem surprised that I knew the Amazons, Musk and Phoenix people. He also seemed bothered by me knowing Ryoga too." Ranma shrugged.

Cologne chuckled. "Ranma, I don't think you realize this, but you and Ryoga are both probably going to be in the top ten percent of human fighters in the worlds history by the time your in you twenties."

"Really?"

"Yes, and don't let that fuel your ego to much. There are still better people out there then you two. The simple fact is, Ryoga and yourself has achieved things that I would have said impossible for teenagers, male or female, two years ago. I finally broke down and started teaching Shampoo advanced ki-manipulation in spite of tradition saying that shouldn't happen till she was at least twenty five."

"How she doing?"

"Compared to an average student, extremely well. This makes the fact that of the three most recent students I've taken she's the slowest to develop rather disconcerting."

"Who else… oh right. Me and P-chan."

"Exactly. You're learning curve is just astounding, and Ryoga wouldn't quit working on a project until he finished it short of someone clubbing him unconscious."

Ranma smirked. "Which your little blasting point training made damn near impossible to do." He ducked the staff swing, but took the bowl she'd tapped at him right in the face.

"Pointing out potentially negative decisions on your elders parts is considered rude, Son-in-law." Cologne muttered. "What's Mei's perspective of all this."

"She's doing the 'meditating on events' thing she does." The pigtailed boy replied. "She thinks there's something else that's going to happen before things really get going, and she's convinced it involves me."

"Why does she say that?"

"Something about momentum."

Cologne chuckled and nodded. "I can see her point."

"Can you explain it to me?"

"No. Now, what about our other allies?"

"Well, I sent a letter to Herb with that pigeon you lent me. I've also managed to get all the girls and Nabiki to agree to give Ryoga a letter if they see him before I do, and I sent one to Akari's farm and his house. Other then that, the girls are ready for whatever, Not that I think they are."

"Frankly sonny-boy I doubt anyone's ever ready to fight a demon."

"True." Ranma looked at the clock hung just above the window between the dinning room and kitchen and winced. "Either way, I have to head home. Tell Mouse to stop attacking me for the next few weeks if you wouldn't mind. I really could live without getting jumped every minute by duck boy if I'm gonna get jumped by monsters, you know?"

"I think I can imagine."

He stood and waved goodbye to the old woman before dashing out of the restaurant and towards the Tendo Dojo. He hit a roof just in time, and heard the ringing of Shampoo's bell. "Great Grandma, that ramen order was to big lot. Shampoo thinks it was another prank."

"That's fine granddaughter, I'm sure son-in-law would love to try it instead."

Ranma cursed. He'd figured the old woman would figure out he was the one making the calls, but had hoped it'd take a bit longer. It's hard enough holding a conversation with her without getting glomped or attacked as it was!

In a serious hurry he started roof hoping towards the Tendo Dojo so the target of his little pranks wouldn't figure it out. Cologne might torment and tease him a bit, but Shampoo could get rather ferocious when angry.

He spotted her bicycle a couple of houses away just as he dropped down to the level of the street, and then bounced over the Tendo compound wall. He didn't notice, until he was passing over her, the Chinese girl hiding behind the garbage.

He instinctively blocked the object she threw at her, but that just served to guarantee the impact of the simple child's water balloon, splashing water all over him, now her, and then with a searing pain… them.

Mei and Ranma-chan both hit the ground near Kasumi's startled feet, writhing in pain for a few seconds, and then they collapsed. A flash of light burst from their bodies and flowed outward away from them.

Jumping over the wall herself Shampoo was hit by the light, and unlike Kasumi who ignored it she fell to the ground in an unconscious, feline heap.

Several blocks away Mouse collapsed while cleaning out a grease trap.

Several miles away Ryoga hit the ground half way through a Kata as the light spread over him.

Across the ocean first Taro, then Herb, then the bulk of the race of the Phoenix people collapsed into their unconscious cursed forms as well as more then a few amazons.

Planet wide everyone who'd had the misfortune to visit the springs of sorrow was found in their cursed forms laying unconscious. As the last one, a woman who'd fallen into the spring of drowned owl was hit in Albany New York the light seemed to flow in reverse and focus on the springs of Jusenkyo.

The Chinese authorities reported it as an 8.7 on the Richtor Scale.

AN: Okay, it's still rolling, all be it I'm still struggling a bit. Aren't you all glad I'm stubborn, if slow.