Chapter 1: Curing curses?

Running Bird sighed contentedly as he sat down to watch the sunset. The day had seemed to drag by, even though he'd been called several times today. Now it was time to relax and put away the stresses that had been recently thrust into his lap with his appointment as the tribe's spirit guide.

The appointment had shocked the tribal leaders less than it had himself. For one he wasn't very traditional, and he wasn't one that considered race to be that important of a characteristic, he had the view that's one's body was the physical clothes that their spirit wore, and never missed the opportunity to show it. He constantly dismayed the elders by referring to himself as "Indian" instead of the politically correct "Native American", heck, he didn't even put "American" in front of it to distinguish it. It wasn't his fault Columbus had gotten himself lost and named, or rather misnamed, the native inhabitants

"Um, excuse me." a young male voice sounded next to Running Bird, startling him. "I'm a bit lost… do you know where Nermia is?" The boy asked in polite, but oddly accented, English. He looked to be about five-eight or nine, dark brown hair, almost but not quite black, that was held out of his eyes by a bandanna with a rather nifty black and yellow pattern.

"Nermia?" Running Bird asked, then shook his head, "I've never heard of it."

"Oh." was all the boy said as he sighed, then started te walk away with a mumbled "Thank you."

"Wait." Running Bird smiled as the boy turned to look at his outstretched hand. "The name's Running Bird, and you are…"

"Hibiki, Ryoga Hibiki." He said as he shook the hand.

"Ah, well, Mr. Hibiki, it's getting kind of late for traveling, so why don't you stay at my place for the night."

"Uh, no. thank you, though." Ryoga said. 'Although it would be nice not to sleep in a sleeping bag tonight.'

"Mr. Hibiki, I insist. You look like you've been walking all day." It was true enough, he still had mud from somewhere in south america on his pants, and there was that incident in Pakistan with a pint of vodka… Ryoga shuddered as he remembered almost being lit on fire by the molotov cocktail.

"Th-thank you sir." Ryoga said, accepting the offer. He could try to find Nermia tomorrow, or the day after.

* * * * * * * * * *

"Feh!" The boy said with an almost contemptuous look. The thee armored men before him would pose no problem, he thought as he brought the jug of water up over his head and allowed the contents to drain onto his body triggering the Jusenkyo curse.

"A-A demon!" one of the men cried in terror and dropped his weapon, something that looked like a cross between a sword and a spear, although that wasn't an apt description for how the branched blade looked.

Quite right, A demon. He was extraordinarily powerful thanks to his 'curse'. He'd never thought of it as a curse, he'd had it since the time he was born. Cold water changed him into a winged ox-like creature with eel heads for tails. He would have thanked the old man for that, except the name he'd been given was more of a curse… it was unbearable. Pantyhose Taro, Pantyhose, how does someone live with the name Pantyhose?

But that could soon change, the item inside could well force that old man to change his name to… well, almost anything else would be acceptable, even Sue, like in that American country and western song.

"It doesn't mater! We're to defend it to the death!" One of the men yelled to the others, evidently he was the bravest among them. Or the stupidest, the two seemed to be companion traits often enough.

The fight was intense, if not particularly long, Pantyhose was surprised that he'd been cut as bad as he had been. Surprisingly enough that wound had come from the soldier that had dropped his weapon, he'd found his nerve again and Pantyhose couldn't help but be impressed with that. He prayed that the man's valor would be rewarded in the afterlife. He hadn't particularly wanted to kill them, but it was the only way he could get the item… Destiny's Staff.

It was smaller than he'd thought it would be, 'apparently destiny was a short fellow.' Pantyhose thought as he scrutinized the magical object. It was about as long as the distance from the tip of his outstretched hand to his elbow, maybe an inch longer, but no more. It had what appeared to be a handle of about a third of it's length, the rest of the rod was about as big around as his pinky and worked with an intricate design of inset gold wire.

Yes, Destiny would be changed as soon as he could change it, Pantyhose smiled at the thought of using the Staff against Happosai, the withered old man that had cursed him by naming him after women's garments.

* * * * * * * * * *

Ranma was steamed at his dad for eating the last pickle, this was the last straw, or rather the last pickle. He immediately jumped up and began attacking Genma Saotome, who was still trying to get to the other three pickles on Ranma's plate.

"Could you take it outside please?" Soun unemotionally asked the combatants before they destroyed the livingroom, yet again.

After slowly making their way out into the back yard, all while throwing punches and blocking kicks, the fighters soon forgot about the food and began trying not to lose as they wrapped themselves up in their fight closing out the world around them while the rest of the world closed them out.

"So, how's school? Akane, Nabiki?" Soun asked, trying to start up a diner conversation.

"Oh, fine, I guess…" Akane said in that unconversational tone that only teenagers seem have.

"I made out like a bandit!" Nabiki exclaimed, drawing stares from everyone until she added a dry "What? I did." as she held up several pictures she still had left over. "You wouldn't belive how popular these last photos were."

It was then that Happosai walked by saying "No, I don't wanna!" to the youth who was following him.

"Please! Something, anything else!" Pantyhose Taro pleaded to no effect.

"NO! I like it!" Happosai said as he leapt out the back door and into the yard outside.

Nabiki watched as Pantyhose Taro removed a wood and gold-wired rod from his sleeve, pointed it at the small martial artist, and yelled "I wish your worst fear would become reality until you change my name!!" The rod shot out a purple beam of light that nearly hit Happosai. Instead of hitting Happosai it hit Ranma who was currently pulling herself out of the water.

"What was that!?" Genma, surprisingly, was the first to ask the question that was on everyone's minds.

"This is a magical artifact I found before I came here…" Pantyhose said, rather irritated, "It's supposed to grant the user one wish."

When everybody heard that there was a mad rush to try to snatch the rod. Nabiki saw countless bags of riches as she pushed Kasumi out of her way. Kasumi was envisioning a perpetually clean house when she was pushed into her father. Her father was seeing Ranma and Akane at a wedding, while he snatched it out of Akane's hands. Akane, who'd been about to wish for her father to stay out of her life was suddenly pushed out of the way by Ranma, who was singing in his head his little 'never gonna be a girl again' song, while his father was imagining another bowl of pickles. The two grabbed at the rod at the same time.

"Give it here pops!" Ranma yelled tugging on the rod.

"Never boy, you'll just waste it foolishly!" Genma replied, thinking of an always full bottle of sake.

"Ranma, you IDIOT!" Akane shouted, reading her mallet for paying him back about a thousandfold for pushing her.

Akane's mistake was alerting Ranma of her attention. Ranma jumped up and out of the way, but without letting go of the rod he sailed in graceful arc and was about to come plunging a good kick to his father's face. When Akane's hit missed she over extended and was pulled into Ranma and Genma just as Ranma was about to come crashing down, sending all three into the koi pond.

When they emerged a panda triumphantly held the snapped and mangled remains of the once magical item. "Growl!" Everyone looked at the mangled remains in the panda's paw for a moment before Soun sighed and said "It was worth a shot anyway."

* * * * * * * * * *

Pantyhose had let them have the rod, it wasn't like he could use it again. 'Damn! I was so close, too!' the boy thought as he looked up into the stars from his seat on the dojo roof. 'I wonder what happened to Ranma when the magic hit him though…'

His thoughts were interrupted by a feminine scream. 'I guess we know.' He sighed and tried to think of another way to force the old guy to change his name.

* * * * * * * * * *

Ranma stared down his body in the bath water in horror and screamed. 'Calm down, it's not like this hasn't happened before…' Ranma said to herself trying not to hyperventilate. 'Dr Tofu! He'll know!'

Ranma exited the bath toweling off and putting her clothes on quickly as she could. Bursting out of the bathroom she ran down the hall to the phone only to stop in her tracks ready to burst into tears. 'That's right, Dr. Tofu's away on a trip to some convention.'

'But he's coming back tomorrow!' Ranma almost jumped happily.

"Gya! What's happened to me? Why am I so emotional? This is really weird.' Ranma wondered as she made her way to her room. Literally jumping into bed as she thought, 'the sooner I'm asleep, the sooner it's tomorrow.'

* * * * * * * * * *

"What's this shrine or whatever is that over here?" Ryoga asked Running Bird, pointing to an old map on the wall. Ryoga didn't know the written language, but he knew enough cultures and other languages that he was fairly sure that this indicated some sort of religious structure and something about a curse, or perhaps that was a curse's cure..

Running bird looked where Ryoga was pointing, that wasn't a good spot at all it legends were to be believed. According to legends there was a great magic that their tribe had been entrusted with, the power to remove curses, but when some of the tribesman stole it and undid curses that the rest of the tribe had felt should have been kept. It had almost driven the tribe to war against itself, and for that reason they decided to enshrine the object deep in a cave. A lot of work for a pot that was supposed to wash curses away. Guardians were placed just in the shrine and just outside the shrine and then the whole cave was sealed and warnings painted on the wall.

"That's what the old legends say." Running Bird replied. "I don't know how true they are though." I hope they aren't, those guardians made me wake up in a cold sweat for a week, but I was only six then. "There's cauldron or pot that was said to wash away curses."

"What about this magical pot thing for removing curses?" Ryoga excitedly asked.

Running Bird laughed aloud at the boy's enthusiastic questions. "The way you're asking I'd tink you were under a curse."

Ryoga sat there silently for a moment, not saying anything.

"Oh, no. Don't tell me you've been cursed…" Running Bird said, noticing the lack of expression on Ryoga's face. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have laughed." Running Bird apologized then began telling him everything he'd heard of the old stories he'd never put too much into because of how they'd scared the pants off him when he was little.

(Continued)


Author's Note: Um… not too much to say, I hope you like it. I thought having an American Indian relic being the cure to a Chinese curse would be interesting, I mean they're on 'opposite' continents.