Come one, come all, to the cheesy knock off of the greatest show on Earth!

Disclaimer: I own about as much of the Greatest Show on Earth as I do Ranma ½. I also don't own the rights to any of the video games mentioned.

Akane's POV

"Scarlet, how many times do I have to tell you? It wasn't what it looked like!" It was the morning after I had found him and Ranma on the roof with that…girl. Ryu was trying to convince me that they had nothing to do with her trying to kiss Ranma or him.

"Oh really?" I asked sarcastically and that set Ryu off.

"Yep, I thought my life just couldn't get any more peachy, when I suddenly found myself the object of the affections of Kodachi Kuno. You know how much I absolutely adore psychopathic megalomaniacs. And the warm and fuzzy feelings I have for the Kuno name in general, especially their old man," Ryu snapped and then looked skyward, "Does someone up there hate me? If so, I'm sorry for whatever it was I did!"

"Wait, she's a Kuno? Kuno has a sister?" I asked

"That's what I said, isn't it?" Ryu remarked and then a piece of paper suddenly landed on his desk. He looked at it and then sighed, "Why am I such an idiot?" He then unfolded it and read it. After he was done, he promptly began banging his head against his desk. *Bang* *Bang* *Ban-Snap* that's when Ryu's desk broke. "Oh come on!"

"Tomoe, go get a new desk and then stand in the hall," The teacher ordered and then I grabbed the note. Some idiot had made insinuations about Ryu and Ranma, along with a particularly graphic picture of Ryu with both of Ranma's forms. I knew better than to let Ranma see it and destroyed it. When lunch rolled around, I apologized to both Ryu and Ranma.

As we were walking home, so continue trying to get me ready in time for the match, I noticed Ryu was still on edge.

"You know, Ryu, things can only take so much stress before they break," I remarked and he turned to me.

"Are you taking about the desk…or me?" He asked, but we both knew what I was talking about so I didn't answer.

The next day was looking to be OK, but for some reason I still couldn't get the gymnastics right, even with Ryoga's help. Then I got a nasty surprise in the form of Kodachi attacking me with a shinai just as soon as I got to school.

"That's low, surprise attacking me before the match!" I shouted

"Surprise attack? I just came to visit with my darlings Ranma and Ryu," Kodachi said

"Then why don't you visit them?!" I shouted and threw her over to them.

"Traitor!" Ryu cried and then both he and Ranma weaseled away from Kodachi, but then ran into Kuno. Then Kodachi caught up with them and snuggled up to them. Excuse me while I puke! Then Kuno inspected the three of them and 'granted his permission for them to date his little sister'.

"Going out with you is the last thing I want!" Ranma protested, but then Kodachi started to cry.

"YOU HATE ME THEN, IS THAT IT?!" Kodachi screeched and then the tears began to stream down her face. Ryu knew better than to open his mouth, but Ranma wasn't so experienced. Ranma tried to use our engagement as a shield.

"You are pathetic," I quipped at him and then Kodachi said that whoever won the gymnastics competition would get to date Ranma and Ryu.

"Scarlet, as much as I want you to beat the snot out of her, I'd rather not go on a date with you," Ryu deadpanned and then Kodachi bounced off.

"That woman is totally insane. Saotome and Tomoe, I'm counting on the two of you to look after her," Kuno said

"There is no way this side of Hell I'm gonna have anything to do with her!" Ryu protested

"Bear with her weakness, which I think proceeds from wayward sickness and no grounded malice. I love her well," Kuno replied and then warned us that Kodachi wouldn't take this challenge lying down.

"There's no way I'm gonna lose to her!" I cried and snapped her shinai in two.

Ranma's POV

That afternoon Akane was training with Ryoga again when Ryu snapped the rule book shut.

"Okay, that does it! Ryoga, stop and go sit next to Ranma!" Ryu ordered

"But-"

"Sit. Now." Ryu said

"But what about the rule book?" I asked

"Those things they dare to call rules are ridiculous! The only rule that Scarlet needs to worry about is the no bare handed attacks rule," Ryu told us and then turned to Akane, "Scarlet, you are ridiculously talented with your hands and feet, and I have no doubt that if this was just a straight match, you'd kick her butt. As it is, you can't use them, so deal with it. Now then, forgive me for sounding like the cliché weapons master, but these tools won't bite you. They are your friends, your allies; they are an extension of yourself! Use them properly and there's no way you can lose! Okay, watch me and copy my movements exactly."

Five hours later and Akane was actually improving a lot. If she continued at that rate, she'd have Kodachi beat, no problem. Ryoga was beside me, muttering darkly the whole time.

Two days later and it was the night of the match. Akane was now able to use the ribbon with finesse, throw the clubs like they were darts, and actually use the hoop without breaking it. Ryu and Akane had trained tirelessly and it had actually paid off. Before they called it a night, Ryu wanted me and Akane to have a final sparring match. Unfortunately, it didn't get too far; in fact, it didn't get started at all. Akane stepped on one of the balls lying around and fell.

"Scarlet!" Ryu shouted

"Are you OK?" I asked

"I'm fine," Akane grunted, but when she tried to stand up, it was plain that she wasn't. Ryu swore and we called Kasumi. She told us to take Akane to her room and then she wrapped up Akane's ankle.

"You'll have to drop out of tomorrow's match," Kasumi said

"No way! Ryu and I have worked so hard!" Akane protested

"You've sprained or twisted your ankle, you are not competing," Ryu told her

"You'll have to find a substitute," Kasumi told her

"Hey, Ryu did the teaching. Why doesn't he step in?" Nabiki asked

"But it's a girls only competition!" Akane protested

"So? We just dress Ryu up and no one will know the difference. What do you say?" Nabiki remarked while looking at Ryu. I could tell he didn't like the idea and that he knew that if he said no then I'd likely be the one in the ring with Kodachi. Of course, I couldn't just let him do that.

"I'll do it! Ryu can train me and I can enter in my girl form!" I exclaimed

"Oh really, what made you volunteer?" Nabiki asked

"Oh well…uh…what if Ryu gets found out? At least when I'm in girl form it ain't a disguise," I muttered

"But most of the school knows about your curse," Nabiki countered

"No thanks to you Nabiki!" Akane snapped

"So? Do you really thing that even if someone said anything, the other school would believe it?" I said and Nabiki couldn't think of anything to say to that. So I splashed myself with cold water, put on a leotard, and went into the dojo with Ryu. Akane insisted on watching, so Ryu carried her down to the dojo.

"If we're going to do this right, it'll probably take all night," Ryu said, "But first we should get a feel for how good you are now." Ryu fell into a ready stance and I tried to kick him, but he dodged. "Remember, tools only!" With that, we began our all night session; after we put Akane to bed.

"So teach, what's your secret?" I asked at about three o' clock

"I don't have one," Ryu responded

"What?"

"This whole time I was winging it. You'll find I've extremely good at throwing bull around," Ryu snickered

"So you..?"

"I had never picked up any of these tools before in my life. I pretty much just bulled my way through," Ryu explained

"Even my old man isn't that good! You just picked up the tools and you're acting like a pro! What style of martial arts do you practice?" I asked

"I actually don't practice any given style, I just swing around different dojos in the area to make sure my forms are decent. Actually, I'm working on creating my own school," Ryu told me

"What's it like?" I asked

"Well…they say you should do what you love and love what you do, and since I'm the definition of an otaku, I've been trying to create a style based on video game moves," I couldn't believe Ryu said that with a straight face.

"A video game style? How exactly do you plan to pull it off?" I questioned

"Let me give you an example, right now I'm working on two moves from the Sly Cooper games, the Fast and the Slow abilities. In game, they speed up and slow down time respectively. I obviously can't do that so I improvised. For the Slow, I found that by getting my mind into a state of hyper focus, everything around me seems to slow in comparison, thus granting the same effect. For Fast, it's my body that is affected. By boosting my natural speed with proper amounts of Ki, or life force energy, I can speed up my body to almost ridiculous levels. Of course, if I want to use it to fight, then I have to be extremely accurate with my attacks," Ryu explained

"Yeah, a thousand punches won't do you any good if you don't land them," I agreed

"Of course, they're both very tiring, so I have to build up my stamina if I want to get the best use out of them," After that we kinda got lost in martial arts talk for awhile.

Ryu's POV

"Hey Ryu, I kinda noticed all the attacks you're talkin' about seem to be more 'hit-n-run' things," Ranma remarked

"Give the boy a prize, you're right. They are all hit and run. That's because I really can't punch worth beans; I can kick like a mule, but lack the finesse or aerial abilities to kick properly; and I'm fast. That about sums up my physical state," I told him

"Come on, you can't be that bad," Ranma said and then put his hand out for me to punch at. I did so. "You're right, you can't punch."

"Which is why my style is the way it is. It takes the fullest advantages of my best traits: speed, quick thinking, and an affinity for most weapons. The name of the game is 'most damage with the least force'." I remarked, "For example, if I punched you in the abs, you'd feel almost nothing. But if I hit you like…this…"

"ARG!" Ranma cried in pain, "That freaking hurt! How'd you do that?"

"You can partially blame my brother and partially my innate knowledge of weak points. I told you my brother was studying to be a doctor, well I wanted to learn more and found out quite a few interesting things about the human body. For example, muscle is designed to take a punch, spread out the impact of the blunt fist, and transfer it over a wide area. However, a quick jab with the finger extended counteracts this and the damage is all centered on a relatively weak portion of the body," I explained and I knew Ranma understood the finer points of my explanation. We were about to continue on when

"Ranma, Ryu, breakfast!" Kasumi called and we then noticed the sunlight filtering in.

"Holy crap, we wasted a lot of time talking!" Ranma exclaimed

"Here's hoping what training we did get in is enough. I don't want to date Kodachi any more than you do," I said, we both shivered, and then Ranma let out a yawn.

"Now how am I gonna stay awake?" Ranma wondered

"Just a sec," I told him and grabbed my backpack and pulled out an air horn. I then rushed back into the dojo.

"What's tha-" *HONK* "AHHHHH!"

"Air horn. That should keep you awake long enough for your Circadian Clock to reset for the new day," I told him, but he was too busy trying to control the mad beating of his heart to listen. Eventually we headed to St. Hebereke for the gymnastics competition. The first thing we did was present Ranma to Kodachi to tell her that he was the substitute.

"I hurt myself practicing last night, so she's my substitute," Scarlet explained and then Kodachi made to shake hands with Ranma, but Scarlet caught Kodachi trying to stab Ranma with tacks in between her fingers.

"You dirty sneak!" I exclaimed

"Good Heavens, however did those tacks get between my fingers?" Kodachi wondered in fake innocence and then scampered off.

"I can't believe that girl! You can't take your eyes off her for a minute!" Scarlet complained as we headed to the changing room. There we found a surprise in the form of Ranma's old man in his panda form.

"Hey Pop," Ranma greeted and then we noticed black roses on the table. Akane was suspicious of them and put one into a nearby fish tank. All of the fish went belly up.

"I don't think it would be wise to sniff those flowers," I quipped

"Gee, ya think?!" Ranma barked at me, still slightly sore about the air horn I presumed. We decided to leave the dressing room incase Kodachi had left us other…surprises. So Akane and Ranma headed to the empty girls locker room for Ranma to change into a leotard. After that was taken care of, the three of us went to the ring and Ranma entered it. Then Kodachi came down on a trapeze in a bridal dress with fireworks bursting all around. Talk about over the top. Then one of the fireworks turned out to not be a firework, but a small missile and it came right for us! Thankfully, we all managed to dodge the explosive. The ref continued on as if nothing had happened and announced the combatants.

"In the red corner, Kodachi Kuno! In the blue corner, uh…excuse me, but what did you say your name was?" The ref asked

"Ranma Saotome," Ranma answered and this got a great reaction from Kodachi and her older brother. It also got a bit of stir from our school mates. Now everybody in the whole school knows that Ranma is indeed cursed. Of course, the Kunos were still without a clue. The ref then told them to shake hands, but instead Kodachi got a chain attacked to Ranma and on the other end was P-chan. How he had fallen into Kodachi's clutches was a mystery, but now he would be used to hinder Ranma. I'm starting to think someone up there really does hate me.

And so the match of Ryu's and Ranma's fate begins! Also, from now on I'll start reading the manga while at the same time watching the anime episode. So things will get a little mixed up as I chose which version I like better and use it.