Golden Opportunity

by CRose

Ranma Gold Digger This is the final chapter of the story, at least for now, I have more planned, but that will for the sequal when I get around to it. I've tied up a few things, hinted at some others, and plan lots more in the future.

4. Chapter 04

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Golden Opportunity
Chapter 04
By C. Rose
ertle2@msn.com
(c) 2002
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There were very few places on Earth that could match up to the beauty of Jade, but a few did exist. Certain parts of the rainforest, parts of China, and rarely visited islands that were almost to small for satellites to pick up. This was mostly because mankind had managed to cause more damage to the planet than in all of history before it, in just four or five short generations. Jade on the other hand was an unspoiled land of giant forests, oceans, and long extinct animals. Mankind was not the only intelligent race on Jade and this made it harder for them to destroy everything in their path. There were the elves that kept the forests safe, Dwarves, Trolls, Rakasha, Dragons, and even Undead creatures that were all struggling to survive.

They didn't have the time or the knowledge to create the horrible weapons of destruction that the Earth Realm used, though that had experienced them upon occasion. Guns did exist here, but keeping them working was nearly impossible and the only race with the knowledge to fix them, the Dwarves, frowned upon the things as evil and usually refused to fix them or charged such high prices for the work that few ever returned. Things like rockets and chemical weapons were actually pretty ineffective here because of the easy access to Magic an special items. With magic one could throw a Fire Ball or Ice Arrow and cause ten times as much damage as any rocket. As for subtle things like chemical weapons, well magic could be used to do this and be so much easier to control as well, so the things were never used.

You ask yourself what about things like cars, tanks, and planes right? Well they are all like the guns, hard to keep working unless you can design and build your own parts. Magic users would be the only ones that would even have the power and knowledge to do this and most of them would prefer to use a simple flight spell or teleport spell anyway. As Gina mentioned to Ranma, think of Jade as very similar to the Slayers Universe with just as many races, problems, and dangers.

Her parents had spent many years adventuring in this realm and compiling quite a horde of gold coins and other trinkets from all the various monsters and bandits that they taken out along the way. One of her favorite places to visit was Seer's Hamlet, a large city that was inside a dimensional pocket in the middle of a grassy plane on the western continent. It was constructed in just such a way as to keep it from disturbing the land it was built on and spiraled high into the trees to give it several levels for people to live on. The city even specialized in dimensional pocket type products like bags of holding and Mage Suits like Dr. Diggers wore. Only wizards and those who lived and worked there could get in without a special pass, outside visitors could get in by using a special door and paying a fee to enter the city. Julia had lived and worked in the city for years and was a welcome visitor whenever she and her family visited, a special privilege granted to all Armsmaster's of Jade.

Seer's Hamlet had a large town square that was always bustling with business, a section of this square was roped off as a special area for Wizards to use as a landing point for teleportation spells. So no one was surprised when this area flared with light and people appeared. Who appeared caused quite a gathering though, Julia Brigand the Armsmaster of Jade, her husband Theodore Diggers the Archmage, a werecheetah, a Rakasha, a winged girl, and a human. Julia smiled at all the people and went out to meet some of them while her husband got them set up for the night at a nearby inn.

"Where are we again?" Ranma asked.

"This is the Jade Realm Ranma, where magic is very real and deadly."

"This is where Julia is going to continue my training?"

"Yes, though this is just a stopping off point. My wife as some business to take care of while were here, then we can move out."

Genn stepped forward. "Thanks for bringing me along, there are some people here that I want to visit. Where and when do you want me to meet you for the return trip home?"

"I think we will be here for a month or two, so meet us here in say...seven weeks?"

"You got it!" Genn said and waved as he ran off.

"Is he going to be alright?" Ranma asked.

Britanny turned to Ranma and raised an eyebrow at him as a question.

"He is so small and puny, can he take care of himself?"

"Genn is Rakasha Ranma, of course he can take care of himself." Britanny said in confusion, then remembered that Ranma did not know just who Genn was. "Um...well..."

"Well if you think so I can live with it." Ranma said and dismissed the subject from his mind. Julia had said that she was going to use this opportunity to increase his training while Gina and Penny were busy with the Amazons. Britanny just blinked and shrugged it off, she didn't feel like explaining Genn anyway. Though she was wondering why he had wanted to come along in the first place, but like Ranma she dismissed it and went on to other things. She would let her father do it instead.

Charlotte had only been here a couple of times and even then she had been doing something for Penny or helping out her friends. She had never been on a vacation quite like this and already missed Penny, she was depressed and looked it. Cheetah noticed and grabbed her by the arm and dragged her off for some serious shopping while they were in town, she would track everyone down later when she needed to. Julia just gave her daughter a weird look and waved as they disappeared into the crowd around them.

"What else was Master Julia thinking of on my training?" Ranma asked Dr. Diggers.

"I'm not sure really, she hasn't said anything specific, but I think she is going to take you to see some of her friends and use the time to test your abilities against them. It's what she did with some of the other students in the past."

"Cool!' Ranma said happily.

A few minutes later Julia returned and gave them a weird look. "You haven't picked out an inn yet?"

"Ranma was asking some questions and I wanted to wait for you. Genn went off to meet some friends while Britanny and Charlotte went off to shop." Dr. Diggers said.

"So were alone for now, huh? Good, Ranma I wanted to talk to you about what happened to you and this is the first chance I've had to do so with no one around. Lets get some rooms in that inn over there and talk things over while we have lunch."

"Sure." Ranma said with a shrug and followed the two adults to the inn where they got three rooms, a happy welcome for one of Jade's Armsmasters, and served a good meal within about twenty minutes. Ranma had eaten some pretty odd things in his life on the road, even a dog or two, but it was the first time he had ever eaten something they called Mutton or lamb.

"So what do you think Ranma?" Julia asked as Ranma picked at the strange food.

"It's fine...though there is enough salt in it to kill the taste of the meat." Ranma said and used the Anything Goes Speed Eating technique to finish it off without tasting it. His arms blurred and the food vanished in a blink of an eye, he slowed down and chewed on the last piece of meat more carefully to decide that he liked it enough to have seconds. "No bad though and certainly filling."

Several of the people in the dinning room actually clapped at the show of speed, though Ranma didn't notice since he was working on his next plate full.

"That's good Ranma, now about that talk. I've noticed that over the last week while you were recovering that you haven't had as much trouble with cats as you have been."

"I'm not sure what happened, I had this dream where I was about to jump off a cliff, then got merged with other bits of myself, and finally going through a major fight with some kind of giant cat like creature. When I woke up after that I could tell that some thing was very different inside me, I wasn't able to recall everything that happened to me, but I noticed almost from the start that a good portion of my fear wasn't there anymore. I'm not sure why though."

"Ah...the biggest thing I've noticed is that you are not as jumpy around Britanny as you were."

"I noticed that too, the fear is still there, but it's a lot easier to control now. I think it has to do with her being a werecat and not a true cat with four legs and stuff. I have noticed a couple of regular cats running around and they were nearly impossible for me to ignore. My fear came back when I saw them and paralyzed me while they were around, so I think I'm over cat like looks, but the real things still send me into the Neko-ken."

"Good, that means those meditation techniques are working to break through some of those barriers in your mind, you are ready to take the next step."

Ranma paled. "The room, huh?"

Dr. Diggers coughed and shook his head to give Julia some signal.

"What is that Theo?"

He started to sweat. "Um...when Ranma had that little episode after the curse...he shattered all the barriers in his mind. The only thing keeping the Neko-ken away right now is Ranma himself."

Ranma paled when he heard that and started to shake, but he managed to calm himself by focusing on something else nearby. He started to watch the serving girls as they made their way around the room delivering food and flirting with the customers. They eventually noticed the handsome man giving them the eye and wiggled a little more to catch his attention and giggled to themselves when Ranma blushed.

"Well that is great, but you really should have told me that before this Theo."

"Sorry Dear."

Julia turned back to Ranma and smiled when she saw him blushing. "With those barriers down you are exactly where you need to be for the final step of your training Ranma. Now all we have to do is follow the final steps in that book."

Ranma shivered and forced a grin. "Y-yeah...okay."

"Great! I was planning to use a special room back home, but since we are here we can have a magically reinforced one set up in a tenth of the time." Julia said. She noticed something behind Ranma and waved.

He turned around to see Britanny and Charlotte coming into the inn carrying several bags of things they had bought on their trip through the area, they headed over to the table and grabbed a couple of seats and tossed their bags on the floor by the chairs. "Hi mom!" Cheetah said as she sat down.

"Hi Britanny, where did you two go?"

"Just to look around and see if anything had changed."

"So what did you find out?"

"The most interesting thing I found was at Nali's Clinic, it seams that the Edge guard is out on a mission. Several of the more powerful Raider groups have recently formed into a larger force and are causing trouble to all the travelers that leave town."

"Really, did she say how things were going?"

"Pretty good actually, the only problems is that for every one of the Raiders that are brought in, several more will take their place and it's keeping the Edge Guard busy. They've been at it for several weeks now and it doesn't look like it is doing much good."

"That sounds weird." Julia said. "These are just normal brigands and bandits?"

"That's how I understood it, there is just a whole bunch of them."

"And the Edge Guard can't handle them because of the numbers?" Dr. Diggers asked.

"That is what Nali said, there are several hundred of them spread out over this entire area. If one group is taken out the rest will move in to cover whatever that group was doing while another tries to free those that were just arrested by sheer numbers or they just recruit more from somewhere."

"Several hundred...did Nali say where they were being held?"

Cheetah thought about it for a second, she hadn't paid much attention to the little details at the time. "I think she said they were using the old Dwarven Mine in the mountains outside of town or something like that."

"I see." Julia said.

A waitress wandered over and noticed the rare werecheetah and a winged girl at a table that had already ordered. "Hello there, have you ordered yet?" She asked just as she noticed the empty bowls of food in front of the others, she smiled at Ranma and winked at him. She smiled at how cute he was when he ducked his head and looked away.

"I'll take a large 'Anything' with Tuna." Cheetah said hungrily.

"I'll have a tuna salad." Charlotte said and smiled.

"Tuna, huh? Sure I'll see if the cook can come up with those. Be back in a few minutes." She said and wandered off.

"Britanny, were any of the Edge Guard at Nali's Clinic?" Julia asked.

"I saw Gar and Sheila while I was there, both were sleeping though, so I didn't get a chance to talk to them."

"Well once you two get finished eating we can head on over there and see if they need our help." Julia said, she hid a grin as Ranma nodded and failed to look innocent with a full face blush going on.

"You go and talk to them Honey, I'm going to talk to the Mage Council and see if they have any insight into this and if I can help you out with the things with Ranma. The Edge Guard may want to take care of this on their own and I leaned my lesson about interfering in those kinds of fights a long time ago." Dr. Diggers said.

Julia smirked and nodded, she remembered their first meeting too. "Meet us there then, I want to introduce Ranma to Gar."

Dr. Diggers nodded and vanished from sight.

"How much more common is Magic here than back home?" Ranma asked suddenly.

"Pretty common." Britanny answered. "When we were here last time we found that things like modern technology actually scared the locals, and yet they could shrug off the sight of an attacking dragon or vaporized house. It was kind off odd."

"They have just never encountered those kinds of things before Britanny and most people fear that which they do not understand. Plus you have to admit that Gina caused quite a bit of damage with those rockets and missiles that were fired off and leveled so much of the forest area. Brianna did the same when she was here a few months ago and had that fire fight in the middle of town and ended up leveling half of the hamlet." Julia said with a smirk.

Cheetah snorted and folded her arms. "I can't help it if my sisters are geeks."

"Britanny Elin Diggers!"

"Alright, alright! I take it back." Cheetah said with a shiver, she had forgotten how fast her mother could get angry at her little comments about her sisters.

"That's better, now you know better than to insult your sisters like that. They have their skills and you have yours, so don't hold it against them."

"Yes mom." Cheetah said and backed down.

Their food arrived a few minutes later and was quickly consumed, for some reason Ranma found himself wishing he had gone for thirds. Eventually finished up and they all set off to visit Nali's clinic and meet up with Dr. Diggers. Ranma followed along feeling as if he was out of his element, looking around didn't help matters for him either, everywhere he looked he saw something that drove home the fact that he wasn't on Earth anymore and it was beginning to a little skittish. The biggest clue were all of the Werecreatures that were wandering around as if it was common place to see such creatures, Julia had explained that non-human creatures were practically everywhere on Jade. Then the there were all the obvious signs of magic that everyone seemed to take for granted, there seemed to be all these different kinds of Magic, some he recognized from legends while others completely baffled him. It seemed to be used for such things as simply lighting up signs to making things float in the air or sparkle to catch the eye. It was all over the place, he even spotted some dwarves and a couple of elves eating lunch at another inn while tossing bits and pieces of magic at each other or demonstrating spells.

This was having a dreadful effect on his Ki senses, they were going crazy trying to take in everything and keep him informed of everything around him. The differences between the different races were so startling that he found it hard to examine them properly as the walked. The Elves glowed with a subtle power while the Dwarves seemed to be made up of nothing more than their emotions and some kind of physical power that over lapped their bodies like scales, it was so hard to concentrate on them that he wasn't able to keep pace with Julia and the others as they moved through the crowd. He was soon left behind when they didn't notice his absence right away. Ranma didn't either, but his wandering soon took him back into the main square before he realized what had happened.

That was when a fox like creature bumped into him and his training kicked in, Ranma reacted before he even had time to even think about what he was doing. One of the things his father had taught him was how to spot thieves and this screamed all the signs he had learned to recognize. Ranma's arm snapped out and grabbed the thing by the neck, lifted him up off the ground, and slammed him against the side of a building before half a second had passed and his mind caught up with his actions. He glared into the thing's eyes and his aura flared for a brief second and scared a good number of the people around him.

"Now thief, return what you took or I will not be pleased." Ranma snapped.

"Um...heheheh..."

The fox like thing trembled in the grip of the human that had caught him and stuttered out an apology as it handed back several items, it had never seen one move as fast as this one did. He was so scared that he couldn't even remember what he had taken from him just seconds before. The human just glared at him for a second and it wondered what was going to happen next. Was it going to die? Get beaten up? Then it looked beyond the human and paled as it saw Sheila of the Edge Guard smirking at him, he would rather have taken this human's punishment than deal with one of them right now. She walked forward and glared at him from over the human's shoulder.

"Hi Clair." She said happily, smiling like the cute werejaguar she was.

"Um...that's Blair the Fox." Blair croaked out.

"So what did you do to get this human so ticked off?"

"Um..." Blair started to sweat.

"He tried to pick pocket me." Ranma said as he eyed the cat girl out of the corner of his eye to make sure she didn't do anything he wasn't expecting. She was short, almost like a little kid even, but carried herself with the confidence of an adult that he was beginning to recognized in people. That meant she was either an adult or a really experienced kid and this Blair's reaction to her made him think it was the first reason. He also recognized that she was a werecat of some kind, but couldn't place just what kind. She reminded him of a younger version of Britanny for some reason, he also noticed that his fear wasn't as bad as it had been lately and that he could. Exactly like his recent experience with Cheetah, did that mean he was getting over the damned Neko-ken finally? "He took my family Tanto knife, he tried to give me everything he had, but that hasn't shown up just yet."

Sheila smiled and looked back at the sweating Blair. "Well?"

"I forgot what I took..."

"My, my, you've taken so much stuff today that you can't remember what it was you stole Blair? You're getting sloppy." Sheila said with a grin that showed off her fangs.

Blair smiled nervously and opened his cloak a bit to reveal a number of knives and such. Ranma and Sheila noted that they were all tucked away to keep them from being seen and not easy access. "Take whichever one was yours."

Ranma's eyes narrowed and considered slamming the thing 'through' the wall for offending him like this, but instead he spotted his family knife and took it back with his free arm. He kept the thing against the wall and increased the pressure just slightly just to make sure it knew that it wasn't off the hook yet. "Thank you, if you had gotten away with this I would have been honor bound to hunt you down and kill you." Ranma said with a nasty grin that his father had taught him.

Blair the Fox, best thief in the area paled and fainted, but not until he lost control of his bladder and pissed himself.

"Ewwwwwwww!!" Sheila said and backed up a little.

"What a wimp." Ranma said. "So what do I do with him now?"

Sheila looked up and noticed the human again and froze in shock, little hearts began to form in her eyes and she blushed. She had never seen a human filled with so much confidence in her life, it was like looking at the most virile man she had ever met. He even put Tirga to shame in the looks department, she sighed and shook herself out of her daydream. "Um...heheheh ...there is a reward out for Blair here, let's get him taken to jail."

"Cool." Ranma said with a smile and carefully picked the thing up like a suitcase, using the back of its shirt as a handle. "Where to?"

"Just up the street, it's right down the way from Nali's clinic."

"The clinic? That's great, it's where I was headed in the first place." Ranma said, he wasn't about to tell her that he was lost, not when he had a guide to take him there. He smiled at her happily as they started to walk down the crowded street together.

"I'm Sheila, one of the town's Edge Guard members." Sheila said.

"Ranma Saotome heir to the Saotome School of Martial Arts."

Sheila smiled. "It's nice to meet you Ranma."

Ranma nodded nervously and wondered why he was feeling funny all of a sudden, then shrugged it off as a waste of time. Until he had met Britanny, Ranma had never once considered that anything like a werecat might exist or were just legends. Master Julia had proven to him on several occasions now that his upbringing under his father hadn't been all the good. He shook himself out of his thoughts as they walked down a side street that had less people than most of the others he had been using, Sheila pointed out the large building at the end and said it was the Jail. The jail happened to be a small building able to hold about two dozen or so criminals and about fifty or so personnel, they dragged the soiled Blair into the building and Sheila quickly has him tossed into a shower area. They hosed him down, stripped him naked, and took everything he owned before handing him a robe and butt kicking him into a cell head first. A magic user cast couple of spells on him to make sure he wasn't carrying any kind of hidden weapons or gear and nodded when he didn't find what he was looking for.

Ranma smirked as Blair looked to be relieved to be out of his hands and put the thing out of his mind, he was just happy to have gotten his Tanto back. He turned to see Sheila coming toward him and smiling happily, she sat a bag and a piece of paper on a nearby desk and waved him over. "Here you go Ranma, I just need you to sign this and the reward is yours."

"Reward?" Ranma asked, he had forgotten about the reward.

"Yep, twenty pieces of gold." She said as Ranma signed his name to the bottom of the paper.

"What am I going to do with twenty pieces of gold?"

"I know it's not much of a reward, but it should get you by for a month or so."

"Thanks, I can put this stuff to use." He mentally added to himself that if his father ever got a hold of any of it he would dead broke within in the hour. Even he knew that back on Earth gold was worth lots of money and he wanted to use it properly, he would ask Julia about when he had a chance.

"So where are you planning to go from here?" Sheila asked nervously.

"I've got to head on over to Nali's clinic and meet Master Julia."

"I'll walk you there, it's just down the street."

"Sure, I'd like that." Ranma said, happy that his plan had worked and earned a little money too.

They stood up and headed out of the building while Ranma tried to find a way to carry a small bag of gold without it getting in the way, behind them another werecat stepped out of the shadows and watch them leave. Tirga frowned as he watched Sheila run off with the human and wondered what was going on, he had never seen that look her face before and he didn't like it. He wondered what it meant and if it was going to cause him any problems for his plans with the girl. With that thought he grabbed up his weapon and took off after them to find out just what was going on. "Sheila wait up!"

Ranma and Sheila stopped and turned around as Tirga ran up to them. "Who's your friend Sheila?"

"Tirga, this is Ranma Saotome."

"Hello Ranma." He reached out to shake hands and Ranma looked at him oddly before grabbing his hand. "What do you think of my girlfriend?"

"Huh?" Ranma said.

"What?!!" Sheila yelled. "Why you arrogant piece of sh*t!!"

"Me and her have been an item for several months now." Tirga said with an evil grin.

Ranma nodded and let his hand go, if they were a couple it didn't matter to him all that much. Sheila was cute, but a little to much of a cat for his tastes anyway. "Sure whatever."

"Excellent...AGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!" Tirga said just as Sheila kicked him in the balls as hard as she could and grinned as this voice grew in pitch.

"You womanizing simpleton! Jerk! Bastard! and several cuss words that wouldn't be appropriate to list here. I'll KAPOWIE you into your next existence you perverted a**hole!" Sheila yelled as she proceeded to stomp, twist, and maim the moaning weretirger to within an inch of his life.

Ranma stepped back and let her work, it seemed she needed to take some of her anger out on the guy. Whatever he had done must have been quite bad to receive a beating like this, she shuddered as Tirga's pathetic screams went unnoticed by everyone around them, though he did see a couple of other girls in the off to the side calling out pointers on what to do with the guy. Ranma started to sweat a little as they listed some rather mean things to do and stepped back into a shadow so that they didn't focus on him when they got done with this Tirga person. Eventually the screams ceased and Sheila stood up with a huff and wiped the dust off her hands.

"That will teach you to lie about me to other people you jerk."

"YEAH!!" Yelled several of the girls that were cheering her on.

"Humph!!" Sheila growled and turned back to Ranma. "Sorry about that, Tirga thinks were a couple and I can't make him stop telling others about it."

"Um...that's okay." Ranma said nervously, he really didn't want to get on this girl's bad side.

"So where were we going again?"

"Nali's Clinic..."

"Could you pick him up, we might as well as drop Tirga off while were there and I want to meet some of your friends." Sheila said as she pointed at the weretiger.

"Sure." Ranma said, glad to get her anger focused somewhere else. He grabbed up Tirga, now pretzel shaped, and carried the groaning werecat to Nali's Clinic. They went inside and saw Charlotte and Cheetah sitting in a small waiting room, they stopped talking and waved to Ranma and Sheila as they came in. He saw that Julia wasn't with them, but held off asking where she was as some of Nali's assistants came out and took the graining werecat.

"Hi you two, where is everybody else?" Ranma asked.

"Cheetah?!" Sheila screeched.

"Oh hi Sheila, I was wondering what happened to you." Cheetah said with a grin.

"If your here, is there anyone else here?!"

"Charlotte here, my parents, Ranma here, and Genn, but he ran off when we showed up."

Sheila spun around and glared at Ranma. "Why didn't you tell me you were here with them?"

"Huh? I did, I told you I was here to meet Master Julia."

"Who the hell is Master Julia?!"

"That would be me." Julia said as she stepped out of the back with Nali.

Sheila gasped, finally able to put Ranma's names to a face and realizing that he was talking about Julia Brigand Diggers the Armsmaster of Jade. "Julia Brigand! Of course..."

"Hello Sheila, what are you doing back here so soon?" Nali asked with a friendly smile.

"I brought Tirga in."

"Tirga? What happened this time?" He was a regular customer at the clinic, ending up at the clinic several times a month, usually pretzel shaped and in need of a muscle relaxant.

"Sheila here beat the crap out of him." Ranma said with a grin and patted the girl on the shoulder.

She gasped and punched Ranma before she thought about it, sending him flying through a wall and out into the street before he could recover. "Jerk!" *

He slid down to the ground and lay there for several seconds as the world spun around his head. Ranma groaned and lifted his head, he found himself at the foot of a wall across the street and staggered to his feet, fighting off a wave of nausea. He saw everybody gathered at the hole in the side of the clinic to see if he was alright and a blushing Sheila. Ranma was confused for a second as he tried to figure out what had happened, then growled and yelled at Sheila.

"What the hell was that for, you Tomboy?!"

"What?!" Sheila yelled back, she didn't take well to being called weird names. "You insulted me!"

"I did not!"

"Did to!"

"I did not!"

"Did to!"

"I did not!"

"Did to!"

"I did not!"

By this time Ranma and Sheila were in each other's face and yelling at the top of their lungs. Julia stepped between them before the fight turned to blows and pulled the two apart. "Stop it you two, you're making a scene."

Ranma glowered and sighed as he stepped back. "Yeah whatever."

Sheila growled and stomped off in a huff, she was feeling funny and didn't want to cause anymore trouble anyway, would have a word with Ranma later. She knew she was in the wrong, but wasn't about to admit it to anyone now, she had her pride after all. She would make apologies later when she had calmed down a little. Behind her Ranma glared at her before making his way into the clinic and find a place to meditate on his problems and regain his control. He passed a weeping Nali, completely ignoring her as she complained about having to spend even more money to get the place repaired again. Less than a month since it was nearly leveled in the last fight that had taken place here.

**********

"Hanzo!!"

"That's Hanza you rusting pile of filth!!" Hanza yelled as she walked into the room and glared at the man in armor that was yelling for her. She stood a little taller than most girls and was wearing an odd assortment of clothing, the first thing most noticed was the skin tight torso wrap that showed off some impressive curves and a pair of breasts that were in the DD territory and a total lack of a bra. Then there was the flared tights she was wearing and the thick pair of comfortable shoes to keep her from being heard when she walked. On her arms were a pair of plain leather bracers. On her back was a rather large sword that most men wouldn't touch on a good day, let alone a woman, but Hanza didn't seem to feel its great weight as she scowled at the man in front of her. She had been using it for years and had more than enough strength to use it with flare and skill.

Her face was one of the thing about her that most men remembered, it would have been very pretty and alluring if the hate filled perma-scowl hadn't been there. The hated in her eyes did more to make men back off than anything of her actions, there was an aura about her that made people back off and keep her at a distance. Then there was her hair as it rose straight up in a Vegeta like quality and defied gravity. She stomped forward and waited for her orders, it was a paying job so she didn't care who she worked for so long as it kept her out of prison for a while.

"What do you want you Tin Can?!"

"Careful Hanza, remember your not what you used to be."

"F**ck you a**hole!!" Hanza screamed.

"As fun as it is to rile you Hanza, I have a mission for you."

"What is it?"

"Julia Brigand was spotted in Seer's Hamlet a few hours ago, I want you to go and check it out. See why she is here and so forth."

"Who else was with her?"

"There were several people, Julia, her adopted daughter Britanny, her husband, and a couple of strangers that no one has ever seen before. A human male and a winged girl that was hanging around with the werecheetah."

"Fine!" Hanza snapped and spun around to stalk out of the room.

"Don't forget to 'man' handle them Hanza dear."

She glared at the Tin Can and slammed the door to the room as she left, a bit of dust fell from the ceiling from the force of the blow. He chuckled as she listened to her stomp her way down the corridor and out of hearing range. It was a given that she would head straight for Seer's Hamlet where Julia had been spotted, the Edge guard were there and the possibility for revenge. Her anger made her so easy to manipulate and her pathetic attempts at revenge were always good for a good laugh at times. She was the perfect one to send out and look things over, she was an idiot, but just smart enough to be dangerous to whoever got in her way. Her scouting mission would be a lot of fun to watch.

Hanza stomped into her room to grab her cloak up and a few other items she would need on the trip to Seer's Hamlet. She would have to be careful while she was there since she was on the most wanted lists around the area, escaping the prison had probably put the Edge Guard's list as well. The Edge Guard were going to be a problem, but since Sheila was a member of the team she had known for some time that she would be going up against them anyway. She had been training for that last few months, even going back to Master Karia and having her finish she training she had started so long ago before the Turnament of Arms had taken place.

She doubted that she could go up against Julia Brigand, but didn't think that the others wouldn't be a problem now that she had chance to get her revenge. Pulling the hood up, she raised her hand and looked at the ring on her finger and grinned. It served two purposes really and she loved both of them, the most common use was that it was a spell ring and could cast three different spells once per day, or one spell three time per day, depending on what she wanted. She could have any three spells that she might need and usually kept Teleport, haste, and invisibility in the ring at any one time. The second use was that it made her look married and kept those horn dog men off her back, being hit on gave her the willies and she had been dragged off of more than one persistent suitor while in the process of killing him. The ring had been expensive, but worth every gold it cost her, since then she had been able to get back on her feet financially.

With a mental command and a clenched fist the ring flared with light and she vanished from the room. She appeared in the town square of Seer's Hamlet a few seconds later and moved out instantly and found herself in front of a guard and handed him three copper for the entrance fee before moving off. There were a number of things she needed to do before she took her revenge. Some special equipment would be needed for this mission, the Diggers family was dangerous, even she could admit that since they had been instrumental in ruining her life on at least two occasions. She smirked from inside her hood as she approached one of the specialty shops that littered Seer's Hamlet, these places were probably one of the few places on Jade where some of the stuff she wanted could be found without resorting to the underground trade market.

So much stuff and so little time to use it all, she didn't know where to begin first and browsed happily. It was in the weapon displays in back that she found what she was looking for, it called to her in it's simple elegance and strength. It was a spear of some kind, but shaped differently than most. As if it had been designed for more than one form of combat, it had a dwarven metal shaft of six foot in length with a specially shaped handle near the end for easy grip and use. The blade portion on the other end was the most unique and what had caught her eye. It was a thick blade that flared at the ends into a serrated reversed arrow like tip that flared in four different directions and looked like it could cause some really nasty damage.

She grinned at the thing as she lifted it off the wall and held it carefully, testing it's perfect balance and the feel of the weapon. The thing was perfect in every way imaginable and would allow her to get her revenge in ways that hadn't been available before. Whoever had designed the thing had to have been one of the most talented weapons makers in all of Jade. What in the hell was a thing like this doing up for sale in a place like Seer's Hamlet that specialized in specially designed dimensional equipment? She couldn't ever remember a time that any of the town's shops carried anything beyond basic equipment.

"What do you think Miss?" Asked a little man as he wandered up.

"This weapon is beautiful, where did it come from?" Hanza asked.

"That is a piece of work done by the Dwarf Te'level of the Berylknight clan, he passed through town a few months ago and sold some of his weapons to the local dealers to let his work be given to a wider class of people. He was sick of smithing axes, hammers, and blades and wanted to challenge his skills with things like that. I have three other items in stock made by the same dwarf that might interest you miss. Te'Level wanted the whole thing sold as a set anyway, it is quite good work and well worth the price."

Hanza just smirked, she had never heard of the dwarf but it looked like they were still creating some of the best weapons in the world. Humans tended to build for quantity, while elves went for beauty, but dwarves went for usable masterpieces. "Show me what else this talented dwarf did."

"Of course, follow me into the back room. I haven't had a chance to put these items on display just yet."

They made their way into the back and Hanza saw three men working on getting some items ready for them, setting them out on a table even as they approached. "I see we were anticipated."

"Indeed." Hanza said, knowing full well that running a business like this was a risky gamble unless you had tight security. She looked the table over and saw that a couple of strange items had been set out, things she hadn't expected from a dwarf. The first was a black body stocking that glistened in the torch light of the room. The second was a suit of armor that looked like it was completely useless, except for anything but making the wearer look good. It was made of a dark silver and complemented the stocking almost perfectly. Set beside these were a pair of gauntlets with wider than normal wrist guards that looked like they had come straight from the Earth Realm. The final piece of the armor was a pair of boots that matched the armor perfectly and had slots in the insides to hold throwing daggers, in all she loved it immediately.

"This is a full set of armor, the stocking is actually a very strong back metal weave that is a thin a silk and works almost as well as chain mail. Te'level said that he designed the outfit for style and usability and can be adjusted in a number of ways. The armor is a torso armor that is magically reinforced to withstand most common forms of magic, things like Fire Balls, Flame Arrows, and other types of impact magic. As you can see the armor is designed for a woman, it is like the stocking because it will mold its self to your body while you wear it. The hip guards have small metal pouches able to hold small items for use. Te'level suggested that if anyone bought the armor to take it to a wizard and have the pouches enchanted into bags of holding. We can perform that service for you if you want to pay extra for it."

"What about the forearm and shoulder guards?"

"Those are adaptable as well, coming with a number of uses and items. The basic set up that you see is an attachable knife and spiked shoulder guards. The spikes are small so that you don't end up injuring yourself if an accident happens. The blade is removable and can be replaced with a shield or anything else you want special made."

Hanza was drooling over the armor and just knew that it was going to be expensive if she bought it out right. "How much for the whole set up including the spear?"

"1200 gold pieces."

Hanza winced. "Ah...isn't that a bit much?"

"Te'level specialized in magical weapons and everything here has a bit of magic in it, that is why it is so expensive."

She could afford it, but wouldn't leave her with much personal money for other things. Luckily her criminal carrier had been paying off lately and she had a good amount stashed away for a rainy day. "Tell you what, I'll give you 800 gold right now and we can call it even. Otherwise I'll have to leave and I don't know if I'll be heading back in this direction anytime soon."

"Hmmm...make it 950 and you've got a deal."

"Agreed, but only if you add in that bag of holding and a fitting for the armor."

"975 for all that."

"Fine, I agree."

"Excellent, the fitting should take about two hours and we can have the pouches done by the time were done."

Hanza just smiled and nodded as she reached into her cloak and pulled out the gold she needed. She wasn't all that worried since she had several thousand golds buried out in the forest for when she would need it, but hoped this armor would be a good investment. Dwarven Armor and weapons were nearly indestructible so she figured the high price would be worth it, but if it didn't do as she had been told this shop was going to pay. She smirked as she saw the little man's eyes light up at the sight off all that gold, a feeling she knew all to well.

"Let's hurry this up, I have some friends I want to meet and I want to show them my new armor."

"Of course my lady."

An hour and a half later she was checking herself out in the new armor and almost embarrassed about how good it felt on her body. It didn't pinch anywhere and hugged her curves in an obscene way that made her shiver. She may not have always been like this, but she did like the way she looked and it made her feel powerful. Her cloak could even be warn over the armor to conceal it for when she didn't want to stand out. She thanked the little man and walked out twirling her new staff.

With her hood up and her cloak closed no one paid her any attention as she wandered out into the town. There were two people here that she wanted to make pay for some of her suffering, Nali at the town's clinic, and most of the local Edge Guard had caused her some kind of problem at one time or another. She had been waiting for some time now to get her revenge and with her orders from the Tin Can she had every intention of doing so. Hanza's thoughts were interrupted as she stepped around a corner and saw Sheila storm out of the clinic looking more than a little pissed.

"Hah! Talk about convenient." Hanza gloated to herself. "Time for a little payback."

**********

Sheila sighed as she stalked into a bar and plopped herself down in a chair, this day was one of the odder ones of late and it was getting on her nerves. For some odd reasons that she couldn't understand just why she had blown up at Ranma the way she had, he hadn't really done anything except tell everyone what she had done to Tirga, something she did all the time anyway. The werecat had been chasing her for some time now because she happened to be one of the few females that didn't warship at this feet and lick his boots for a night in the sack. The worst part about Tirga was that she liked him enough that she knew that love wouldn't be far behind if they ever got together, but the womanizing pervert was always chasing other women even when he was supposed to have a regular girlfriend. He seemed to have a new one every few weeks and took pride in showing them off to his friends. She had seen it dozens of times as he went from one girl to another and broke hearts at the drop of a hat with no consideration for others feelings, just an excuse to get into their pants before moving on.

It was one of the main reasons that she still refused him after all this time and it confused the hell out of him no matter how close he had gotten at times. She smirked to herself as she recalled the time she used a Rakasha to have a one night stand with a Tirga look alike, it had been incredible and something she needed a lot. A Rakasha's magic allowed them to imitate anyone and anything perfectly in ever shape and form, their shape changing abilities were legendary all over Jade. That had been the reason that she was once nearly been caught by Tirga and only a little help from her brother had saved her from being placed in a bad situation, the Rakasha had copied Tirga right down to the way he smelled. It was something that Tirga had picked up on almost immediately, she had always felt a little guilty for enjoying it so much. It was also a thousand times better than being dumped by the real thing a couple of weeks after it happened.

The last few months had been even worse as he tried time and again to get her to agree to a little fun in the sack, but at the same time he continued to bed and dump girls on an almost weekly basis. As a werecat he was sought out like rare wine because of his enhanced physical abilities that a lot of human girls just drooled over. Even Brianna, one of Julia's sisters had nearly fallen for the guy the one time she was here, Tirga had flashed her while in the bath to let her know that he was willing. He knew just how to go about winning a girl with his charms and a little public nudity wasn't all he would stoop to if he thought it would get him what he wanted. Sheila had never had eyes for another man and her resistance to Tirga had been crumbling lately.

Then she had watched Ranma Saotome take on that thief with ease, one of the few humans she had ever met that made her heart skip a beat the instant she laid eyes on him. He was well built and a very good fighter, it showed in all his movements and actions. To be a student of Julia Brigand he would also have to be an exceptionally special, she didn't take on may students and all of them were famous in one fashion or another. Her brother Garfield was a student of Julia's and was one of the strongest fighters in the area, few would cross him unless they absolutely had to. He had even fought G'nolga the dwarven weapon's master to a stand still once and that was very hard to do. She was Julia's main rival in the arts and constantly took steps to make sure that they would have to fight each other.

One of the waitress' walked up and smiled at Sheila. "Hi Sheila, you look like you had another encounter with Tirga today."

"Hi Sammi, yeah, he got jealous of this guy I met and tried to butt in where he wasn't wanted."

"You just give up on Tirga, he won't ever change and you know it."

"Yeah I know, but I keep thinking if I'm patient he will change his ways."

"Hah!! Not until he looses the ability to get it up!" Sammi giggled and Sheila blushed. "Who was this other guy you were with?"

"His name is Ranma Saotome, one of Juila Brigand's new students."

Sammi gasped. "A new student?!"

"Yep."

"Eeeeeeee!! Is he cute?"

"Very cute."

"Is he like you?"

"Naw, he's human and very well formed if you know what I mean." Sheila said with a smirk.

"Ohhhhhh! Where is he, I want to meet him."

"I left him and the others at Nali's Clinic, I don't know where he is right now." Sheila says as she looks up at her friend and pales as she sees a cloaked figure walk up behind her holding this nasty looking spear weapon. Sammi turns around when her friend pales, screams, and runs out of the room even as Sheila is standing up to confront the stranger.

"Hello Sheila of the Edge Guard."

"Who are you and what do you want?" Sheila snaps as she calls her magical blade Ice Fang. She could tell that the spear like weapon was magical in some way, magical waves were almost wafting off the thing.

"I'm here to get my revenge of course, you were one of the ones there when I was afflicted with this curse."

"I don't' know what your talking about!" Sheila snarled.

"I don't really care what you think." The cloaked figure spun the staff and stopped it point first at Sheila. "All of you Edge guard are going to pay for doing this to me."

"Back off lady before you force me to Kapowie you into next week!"

"Never!!" The strange blade of the spear glowed and fired out a fireball that Sheila easily dodged, but not before it flew by her and took out the side wall of the bar in a large explosion, showering bricks and mortar all over the alley on the other side.

With a quick kick Sheila's table was using flipped into the figure's face and she attacked as it was being knocked away with a snarl. She attempted to hit the figure over the head, but she swung the spear and forced Sheila to duck. The spear was spun and the back end came up and connected with Sheila's jaw and sent her flying across the room to slam back first into the bar. "HAHAHAHAH!!! Is that the best you can do?!"

"I'll get you for that cheep shot." Sheila growled out as she stood up and watched out of the corner of her eye as the bar's main floor was suddenly devoid of all innocent bystanders. Years of bar fights had taught the regulars when to stay and when to run for their lives, magic weapons meant high scale destruction and that told them to run. Sheila studied her opponent a little more, but ignored the fire that had been started by the fireball that blew the side wall out. Her attacker didn't seem to notice or didn't care about the kind of damage she was doing and that made things easier for Sheila in the long run, it meant the girl was careless.

"HAHAHAH!! Not in this life time!"

Sheila snarled as he spun her scimitar and raised it above her head, it began glowing with white light. "Back down or I will make you pay."

"Never!!"

Sheila jumped forward and spun her blade around so that it's tip impacted into the floor. "ICE KAPOWIE!!" and sent out a wave ice cold energy that headed right for the figure, but she just laughed and tossed her cloak into the ice beam where it was suddenly encased in a wall of Ice. Now she was able to get a good look at her opponent and Sheila had to blink in surprise at what she saw. She was dressed in a black body suit and curve hugging silver armor that gleamed in the fire raging around them.

"HAHAHAH!! You've got to do better than that Sheila." The girl hissed.

"Who in the hell are you?!"

"You man call me Hanza."

"Hanza, that guy that stole and drank Nali's potion in the middle of a fight with out reading the warning on the thing?"

"That potion turned my perfect male body into this female mockery and all of you will pay for my pain!"

"It was your fault idiot!"

Hanza screamed and launched forward performing a quick set of attacks that Sheila was barely able to block. The sound of their attacks and counter attacks filled the air of the bar for several minutes as Hanza's attack pushed Sheila to the limit. Then Hanza clenched her fist and her speed tripled and dozens of blows rained down on Sheila, cracking bones and sending her head through the wooden floor of the bar. She moved to stand triumphantly over the downed werecat and laughed as she brought her spear around for the kill, the taste of revenge sweet and delicious after all this pain and suffering she had endured. She raised up her weapon to plunge it down into the werecat's spine and pin her to the floor so that she could take her out permanently.

Then a board hit Hanza in the back of the head and sent her stumbling away from Sheila prone body by several steps. She turned to glare at whoever had hit her and saw a human wearing a red shirt and black pants as he lowered a broken board and tossed it to the side. She noted the glow as it formed around him and the defensive stance he took as he glared at her and silently promised her lots of pain. With a snarl Hanza straightened up and glared back at the punny fighter in front of her and smirked to herself, this was going to be too easy.

"I can't allow you to do that to Sheila, I haven't even had a chance to apologies to her yet." Ranma said.

"Bring it on wimp, there isn't a human in existence that can stand up to my power." Hanza growled.

"R-Ranma..." Sheila gasped as she stirred and tried to sit up.

"Stay down and rest Sheila, I'll take care of this little girl, a bit of fancy looking armor isn't enough to turn someone into a decent fighter."

"But..."

Ranma stepped forward and looked Hanza over to judge her skill, it would have been quite a surprise for either of them to know just how many things they had in common. They had both had their lives turned upside down by a shape change into the opposite gender, though Hanza would have cut off her own foot to have Ranma's curse instead of the permanent transformation she had gone through. The effects of that potion had granted her a number of increased abilities alone with the change in sex. Increased strength, speed, and endurance were just the beginning of what she had gained and she had found that she was nearly unstoppable when she used her full strength. Ranma's reaction to Hanza's change would have been a bit different, he would be on the floor rolling in laughter at Hanza's stupidity, luckily neither of them knew any of this or it would have been a whole different fight.

Fortunately for Sheila, Ranma had entered the bar just in time to see Sheila about to get killed by this over endowed girl in funny looking armor, so hitting her over the head with that board hadn't bothered him all that much. If the need was there he would not hesitate to protect anyone against a girl and this Hanza was already on his bad side for pushing a fight to the point that she thought killing would make things better. He smirked as he looked Hanza over and she suddenly realized that this boy must have been one of the unknowns that she had been told about. Killing him wasn't going to be a problem, he wasn't even taking a proper defensive stance against her.

"Put the weapon down girly, the Edge Guard is only a few minutes behind me." Ranma lied with a completely straight face.

"They are just next on my list and if you don't get out of my way I'm going to kill you just like I will them." Hanza growled and brought her weapon around and attacked Ranma without much more warning.

He just snorted and hopped back out of the way of the swing and studied her attack, noting that she had some skill with the weapon. She didn't over extend as most did and had a good reaction time, but ten years of training under his father had given Ranma a good idea what a well trained fighter was and this girl did not meet that description in the least. She was using toys to accomplish her goals and once they were gone she would be done for. He stepped into her guard and landed a couple of hard punches to her forearms to make her drop the weird weapon and sent her flying onto a table with a knee to her chin. Hopefully it would knock her out before he had to pull something more devastating out and hurt this girl with something more than a few rattled teeth and a headache.

Hanza groaned as she rolled off the table and rubbed her chin and reassessed the man in front of her, he had avoided and attacked her in a way that she hadn't seen before. She had expected a fighter, but nothing like this had crossed her mind in the slightest. A quick glance showed that her spear was out of reach and that he now had the upper hand in this fight, that would not work, not in the slightest. There were to many people trying to stop her from getting her revenge, she had sacrificed too much to get to this point to give up now. She clenched her fist and brought up her hand with the ring on it as it began to glow.

"That pathetic hit won't stop me."

"Give it up girl, you don't stand a chance of beating me." Ranma said arrogantly and grinned at her.

"Cue Speed."

The ring flared and as the Haste spell was activated and Hanza's form blurred, she shot forward in a silver and black after image. Ranma didn't even have time to blink as she slammed into him throwing punches and kicking faster than he could react. He was sent to the floor face first by a devastating combo, never had he thought anything like that was possible. A small part of Ranma reminded him that he didn't have all that much experience dealing with magic like this, but he knew he would have to find a way to combat this attack in some way. He just felt lucky that she hadn't pulled a knife and stabbed him to death in that instant.

His mind scrambled as Hanza stopped for a few seconds to laugh at him, but he ignored her for the most part as he stood up. He had taken worse poundings from Julia in thier sparing matches lately, the speed of the attack was what had caught him off guard and he would have to find a way to counter her new speed. He flashed upon an idea, but he wasn't sure if he could do it with his Ki, Master Julia had never mentioned anything like it before and experimenting was highly dangerous. He turned to face Hanza again and brought his battle aura up into the visible spectrum, it had the effect of making those watching from a distance gasp in surprise, it was almost ten times brighter than what he had used before.

"Super speed, huh? I didn't expect that out of a fight like this." Ranma said.

"It's a spell called Haste and used by a great deal of fighters." Hanza crowed, confident of her victory since there wasn't a thing this arrogant man could do about it.

Ranma studied her attack and smirked as an idea came to him, there was a way to do it, but he didn't know what kind of speed it would allow him. "Bring it on Tomboy, I want to see this attack of yours again."

"You asked for it." Hanza yelled and flashed forward again and intended this to be the final time since there was a time limit on how long the Haste spell would last.

In the blink of an eye Hanza saw his battle flare up around him and he seemed to phase into the very air around her. She continued on with the attack to see what he was up to and found to her surprise that Ranma was blocking her blows. Hanza pulled back for a second and smiled. "Impressive, but futile."

"Heh, I don't think so." Ranma said. "I beat your speed technique."

"Did you?" Hanza asked and blurred again.

This time Ranma was shocked to find that she hadn't been going all out as a hundreds of blows rained down on him and pounded him into the floor. That was the last thing he saw before he lost consciousness, he wondered if he had failed to save Sheila. Hanza giggled a little as the spell finally ran out and she stopped by her spear to pick it up before turning to finish off the werecat. The tip of a sword was being pressed into her nose the instant she turned around and looked up into the face of Sheila's brother Garfield, he did not look pleased at all as his battle aura flared around him and his eyes turned flinty and dangerous. Behind him stood the rest of the Edge Guard, all of them with their magical weapons ready to finish her off, she didn't like the odds at all.

"Hello Hanza, I thought you were in prison?" Garfield asked with barely suppressed fury. He would protect his sister at all costs and he had the power to back it up if he needed to.

Behind the Edge guard were the ones Hanza was looking for, Julia Brigand Diggers, Cheetah, and she even noticed Nali as she moved across the room to check on Sheila. None of them looked all that happy and were giving her looks that promised lots of pain, it was beginning to get on her nerves. She turned back to Garfield and grinned evilly as she answered his question. "I got out."

"You were given a fifty years sentence for your crimes and it's only been a few months since you were sent away, that means you escaped some how, now put the weapon down before you force us to put you down permanently."

"Well Gar, I don't want to spend fifty years sitting in a small room so I refuse to do that. I've got to pay all of you back for ruining my life after all." Hanza said with an insane giggle.

"You ruined your own life Hanza, through your own mistakes and the way you lead your life doing stupid things like this." Garfield said as his body started to spark with power that Hanza could feel growing stronger and stronger, then she remembered that Garfield was a special form of werecat, a Lunar Rave. Allowing him to increase his speed, strength, and sized considerably.

Hanza smiled and decided that there wasn't anything she could do against the whold team and clenched her fist. The ring flared and she vanished with a burst of light that startled all of them, Garfield growled and shattered a nearby table in anger. He turned on the rest of his team and glared at them. "I thought we had her spells blocked off?!!"

"Calm down Gar." Onoli said calmly. "I had the whole building shielded from magic use, the only thing that should have worked was your weapons."

"SHE GOT AWAY!!"

"Then we'll get her next time and take better precautions. We need to see about helping this human that did our job for us and keep your sister alive while we made our way here." Onoli said. He was the leader of the team and one of calming influences that kept them working smoothly and with all those bandits running around lately his calm presence was really needed. Onoli was a trained in the one of the bushido schools of Jade and let very little affect him unless it was an emergency. "Now calm down and go check on your sister, Gar."

Garfield spins around and sheaths his sword as he stomps over to where Nali is working on his sister, he sighs in relief when he notices that she is only unconscious and not seriously injured. He was glad she had been in her werecat form, it would mean that she would eventually regenerate, but Hanza had done a fair amount of damage to her with that magic weapon and damage from on of those was harder to heal than a normal weapon. He looked over at the human that had defended her and saw Master Julia checking on him. She looked concerned and a little up set as she looked him over. "Will he be alright Master Julia?"

"He should be, but he won't be very happy when he wakes up."

"I'm surprised he lasted as long as he did, normal humans don't normally stand up to a Haste spell very well."

"That's the problem, he is an exceptional fighter and can do things with ease that even give me trouble. The problem is that he has never encountered a fighter that uses magic before, he didn't know how to defend himself properly, I haven't had a chance to show him how to defend against magic. That was one of the reasons we are here, to get him that training and find a cure for something else."

"I remember that hell you put me through back in training, will he be going through the same thing?"

"That and more, he picks up new attacks and strategies as easily as breathing. Did you feel that surge of Ki as we were making our way here?"

"Yeah, was that him?" Garfield asked in surprise.

"Yes and I only just started instructing him in the uses of Ki a few weeks ago and already he is improvising like a pro."

"A few weeks ago? That's incredible, it took me months to pick up on the delicate balance of of the body before I could even tap the stuff."

"Exactly, he does it on instinct and with barely any control. Everyday he improves and grows more and more powerful, unfortunately he also seems to find all the fighters that want to kill him for oddest reasons."

"Oh? Have you had him checked for curses?"

"Theo scanned him and came up with nothing, though he did pick up a transformation curse a little over a week ago."

Nali came over and knelt down to examine Ranma and her brows rose in surprise at what she found. "Amazing, I've never seen a human that could to that."

"What did you find?" Julia asked.

"This boy is that new student you were telling me about right?" Nali asked.

"Yes." Julia nodded.

"Look at his Ki field, it's healing him at an incredible rate of speed and I don't sense any kind of magic at work. It's on par with the weak regenerative abilities of most werecats, it just works at a much slower rate of speed. This beating would have killed a normal human or crippled them for life, Ranma here is sewing his broken body back together so that the damage will be gone in a matter of hours. He won't even have any scars left over to remind him of this battle, for a human I've never seen anything like it."

"When did he learn how to do that?"

"It's instinctive just like you said, but I think there is something different about this student of yours Master Julia, he has a weird aura." Garfield said. "What about my sister Healer Nali?"

"Sheila has taken a beating worse than this one, but I think she will be conscious in an hours or so and back to normal by tomorrow morning at the latest, though with her healing ability I expect later on this after noon to be the earliest."

Nali frowns and thinks about what Garfield had said, she turned back to Ranma and gasped in shock. "Julia, you never said Ranma was afflicted with such a horrible curse!"

"Huh, what are you talking about?"

"His aura is different than a normal humans, I didn't think to look until Gar said something. Look at the aura and tell me what you see, have you ever seen anything like it?"

Julia frowned and turned back to her student and concentrated to see his aura and frowned a little more, she had been reading his aura for weeks, but his was new. There was something off about it, but she couldn't remember what an aura like that meant, only that it meant she would have to keep a closer eye on him over the next few weeks. "I can see something different, but can't tell what the problem is."

"Your close, it isn't what is out of place, but what isn't there..." Nali hints.

"Oh my..." Julia gasps as the sees what the healer is talking about.

"I see you noticed it." Dr. Diggers says as he walks into the room and walks over to his wife.

"You knew about this Theo?" Julia asks.

"When I had to fuse his personality back together after he picked up that curse I noticed it and hoped I was wrong, but knew deep down that it wasn't."

"How is this possible for a human as young as him? I've met mystic masters that have lived for two and three hundred years that can't come close to this."

"This isn't about training and meditation, this is about that curse and the way it wound its way into this soul. That is part of the reason I went to talk to the council, I wasn't absolutely sure until I had a look through some of the old texts in the library."

"What about the training we brought him here for in the first place, can we still do do that with this happening to him?"

"Oh sure, this shouldn't affect the training all that much, just the way the sees things from now on. We can use one of the rooms at Brod's tower, he had the place constructed so that it could not be dismantled very easily and it even reconstructs itself when damage is done so a berserk Ranma will be locked in tight. There is no way he could escape if things went bad during the training, if they do me and some of the others will be ready to lend a magical hand."

Julia nods, she had thought about going to Brod, but didn't want to impose in the old Troll Wizard for something like this. "Did you talk to him?"

"Yes, he said he had a couple of rooms that would be perfect for the training that Ranma wants to go through and can be sealed closed with ease. How long do you think it will be before Ranma wakes up?"

Julia sighed. "Does it really matter with the way his Aura is?"

"I guess not, he has achieved a rare thing almost by chance and wonder what his future is going to be like when it kicks in fully. I hope he can survive yet another upheaval in his life."

Julia nods. "Can you teleport us back to the Inn where were staying?"

"Take us to my clinic instead Dr. Diggers, I need to observe Ranma and Sheila until they wake up." Nali said as she stood up, there wasn't anything else she could do here when all her things were at the clinic.

Dr. Diggers nodded. "I'll meet you there in a few minutes."

"Alright."

His aura flared up and he cast his usual teleportation spell and reached out to touch the emergency spot that Nali kept in her clinic so that the mages could use it teleport directly without the proper visualization required by most teleport spells. He watched as Julia, Nali, Ranma, Sheila, and the rest of the edge guard vanished from sight before turning to the devastated bar and sighed. A simple function of the conclave of mages that he belonged to was to help out those people that he could, when he could. This was part of their normal activities, though there was usually an assigned group the went around and cleaned things up. Since he was here and it had involved someone under his care he decided to help out, he flared his aura again and weaved a spell he had cast thousands of times and watched as the bar slowly reassembled itself.

Burn and charred boards slowly returned to normal as all the pieces reassembled themselves. The broken tables soon followed and within about thirty seconds the whole place was fixed up as good as new. The only thing he didn't bother to replace was the straw that most bars had on the floor since it was such a replaceable item. He waved to the owner of the bar as he looked up from over the counter and vanished before the startled man's eyes. To reappear in Nali's clinic right beside his wife, she looked worried.

"What's wrong?"

"How am I going to explain this to Ranma's father?"

"Life is change, at least Ranma will have time to make the changes he wants now."

"Can you fix it or remove it?"

"No, the curse is the main cause and to cure him of that chaotic magic I would have to kill him and I don't think any of us want to do that."

"THEO!!"

"Sorry dear." Dr. Diggers said and hung his head.

"You had better be!"

Nali walked up. "Excuse me Dr. Diggers, but would you know what kind of curse Ranma has? I forgot to ask when I was told of it."

"It's an Earth Realm curse from a place called 'Jusenkyo', it's a transformation curse that forces him to turn into a girl with a splash of cold water."

"Well I suggest you take him to the side within a few months and begin teaching him how to cast some magic because that curse is playing havoc with his aura and will soon be to much for him to control consciously."

Dr. Diggers blinked, he hadn't noticed anything of the kind when he examined the boy a week or so earlier. "What do you mean?"

"His curse has, along with whatever was done to his aura has forced them to combine. This is usually a good thing, but in a rare few cases that I know of it has caused certain side effects and that poor boy is suffering from two of the worst versions out there."

"May I see or hear these cases your talking about? I was the one that merged his split personality back together and I followed the rules that I had been shown by my instructors."

"It has only been known to have happened three times in the last five thousand years Dr. Diggers and I am only one of maybe twenty healers that know it it. I'm willing to bet that the wizards council has the knowledge buried in their books somewhere, but it is such a small thing that few would know about it or even care."

Dr. Diggers looked over at Ranma where Nali had lay him out on a bed to rest. "This boy is becoming one contradiction after another. Nothing I term as normal happens around him, if he wants to relax, someone will drop a glass of water on him before he can do anything. If he is doing something normal it suddenly turns into an all out war over something completely weird. A stray comment or action that most people would just ignore, but not when Ranma says or does anything, it all goes to hell."

"His natural aura is full of chaos and out of balance, even you should have noticed that." Nali said. "If he starts to manifest any magic he will be to dangerous to be around unless he can control it, and as soon as possible."

"It's not chaos actually, it is something else that I have never seen in anyone before. It changes every time you look at it."

"It does?" Nali said with some surprise, being surprised twice in one day was pretty rare for her now a days. She had looked several times, but they had all been at the same time. She wandered off to go and do a number of more tests that she didn't usually do unless there were odd circumstances involved. A quick check of what Dr. Diggers had said proved true, now instead of chaos he was radiating pure confidence and waves of wild magic. This was too much, she needed to call in some friends to look at this boy.

**********

The old castle stood upon the land that once belonged to the Demon Venger and could hold three hundred soldiers comfortably. Due to the battles that had taken place there in the past it has seen better days and over a third of it had fallen down or was inhospitable. It was currently being used as a temporary home for the man that had brought about the defeat of Venger. At that very moment there was a group of fighters making their way down one of the long abandoned tunnels. In front of the group was a man dressed in armor, bound from head to foot in magical chains. He was being dragged by a tall man in green and brown armor with long blonde hair and a red headed woman in a cloak.

"Come on Frank, I just did it to help us get home a little faster." Merric whined as Frank and Sheela dragged him down the hall. He was beat up and covered in bruises, his armor was dented and beginning to rust. Behind them walked a tired group of figures that had seen better days.

"You sold us out to Tiamat, Merric!" Yelled Bob. He had been here a long time and was now approaching twenty years of age and had aged quite well in the last ten years. He and his sister Sheela had traveled over a good portion of Jade in their travels and learned many secrets and had numerous adventures.

"I just want to go home!!" Merric screamed in despair. "She promised to send us home once we dealt with Venger once and for all."

"To bad traitor, we've had enough of your whining over the years." Sheela said as she adjusted the hood on her cloak. The last few weeks had been some of the worst they had ever had since being brought to this world.

An older man in a green wizards robe followed the group at a slower pace. "Indeed, I had not thought you capable of doing anything like this before Merric, I'm disappointed in you."

"Tiamat is nearly as bad and in some cases worse than Venger, she is always attacking us for no reason."

"She keeps her promises, we would have been home by now if you hadn't stopped me from killing Venger." Merric yelled back.

"Would you Cavalier?"

"Aghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!" Merric screamed and would have ran if Frank and Dinna wouldn't have been holding his arms. "Don't do that you bloated little midget!!"

Standing behind the green robed mage was a short man, about two or three feet tall and wearing a red and white robe. He was bald on the top of his head, but had hair along the sides that hung down to his shoulders. "Venger and Tiamat are enemies, but you keep Venger busy and on his toes most of the time. Your little plan would have had all of you dead, because once Tiamat was done with you she would have had no more reasons to keep you around and would have disposed of you."

"What would you like for us to do with him Dee'em?" The green robed one asked.

"Oh hello Presto, how are things going with you?"

"DON'T CALL ME PRESTO!!! I'm almost twenty six as it is and you still insist upon calling me by that idiotic name!!"

"Alright, then what would you like me to a call you?" Dee'em said with a forming sweat drop.

"Preston the Great." Preston said, posing proudly.

"Um...yeah, okay." Dee'em muttered as he turned back to Frank and Sheela. "I think you two should put the Cavalier in his room, it has been prepared for him."

"Yes sir." Frank said and dragged the struggling Merric off.

"How are you girls doing?"

"Good sir, just surviving and having a little fun." Sheela said with a shrug.

"I've joined up with a traveling circus. Frank asked me to come help him with this so that Merric wouldn't be able to cause us much trouble." Sheela said. "I should be getting back to, we have a small tour to start pretty soon."

"All the luck to you then, remember to visit the next time you get a chance to."

Sheela turned and strutted off, flicking her hair over her shoulder as she went. "Uh huh."

"How is your life going Barbarian?"

Bob shrugged and glared at the man he blamed for ruining his life, folding his muscled arms across his wide chest. "The usual."

"Excellent, well keep up the good work."

"Right." Bob said and walked off with his sister, they had places they needed to be and people to meet now that that idiot Venger was safely put away again. About eight years ago they had finally managed to trick Venger into the void and gotten him out of their hair.

They had all thought they could go home them, but no, Dee'em had then come up with more jobs for them to do as they got more experienced and powerful. Bob had always known that Merric would cause them problems as he got more and more desperate to go home. No one had bothered to tell him that several ways of doing that had been found, but none of them wanted to go back because they had started to live their lives here. It was an open secret that Frank and Dinna were sharing a room and that Preston had increased his magical abilities considerably now that Dee'em was teaching him things.

Dee'em shrugged and wandered off, he had done what he could for the kids over time, but they had grown up too much for him to be of much help to them anymore. He motioned for Preston to follow him as they headed into the study. Things had gotten weird for him lately and he had a feeling that his life was about to get exciting again. He recalled that time a few months before when he had consulted on the strange case of Brianna Diggers and what happened with that. It had been the most fun he'd had in years and he wanted to have a little more, though he did hope that he didn't come so close to dieing again.

"Well boy, what did you think of Merric's plan? Was it viable or completely insane?"

"It had some potential actually."

Dee'em blinked in surprise, his student had always had good instincts for things like this, but he hadn't expected him to say that. "What do you mean?"

"If Merric had taken the time to be a little more subtle instead of telling everyone about his plans he might have gotten away with it and actually gotten sent home. Tiamat would have been more than happy to send Merric home since he doesn't seem to know about the differences in time between this world and the one we all came from."

"Indeed, many dimensions touch this one and yours had a faster time element. If I remember right, by the time I figured that out you and the others had been here too long. Even Bob and the others don't know about the time difference, that for every week you spent here a year would pass on your world."

"Don't worry about it sir, we have all realized that we would be spending the rest of your lives here and moved on."

Dee'em grinned and nodded. "Excellent, then I think it is time for the next lesson..."

As they entered Dee'em's study a light flashed from the corner and they saw a small crystal pulsing with white light. Dee'em walked over and picked it up. With a flare of energy a beam shot out and formed an image of Nali looking down at Dee'em and smiling. Preston had met Nali on a couple of occasions and she looked the same as always. Though it was a little strange for magic users to be in contact like this since it was a bit of a solitary existence.

"Hello Nali, how may I be of help?" Dee'em asked.

"Can you believe I've come across another anomaly?"

"Your kidding?"

"Nope, a human boy this time. I was wondering if you would like to give me a hand in trying to sort him out?"

"What is the nature of this one?"

"He is from the Earth Realm and has acquired a magical transformation curse, there is something about the boy that is making it affect his aura in strange ways that I can't quite figure out. Because of that he is generating a powerful magical aura that could be causing him some trouble in the future. The thing I want you to look at is his aura itself, it changes."

"Changes? Changes colors or in intensity?"

"No, it becomes different forms of energy. The first time I read his aura I did so several times and it kept reading as a powerful form of chaos. Then when I went to check him again a little while later it had altered to to pure confidence. Just now it changed to the purest form of naturally generated energy I've ever seen, even in Ki masters all around Jade."

"That sounds slightly familiar for some reason." Dee'em said as he started to pace back and forth in front of the image. He turned to Preston and pointed to a book on a nearby shelf. "Grab down that old black book from the top shelf there, the old one that has the lock on it."

"Yes sir."

Dee'em took the book and flipped through it for about twenty pages or so before stopping on a page and reading something. "Here we are. Nali what kind of transformation is this curse?"

"Shape change."

"No, no, what does he turn into?"

"He changes sex, turning into a girl."

"Go and ask Bugie about the legend of the 'Shi Hanna'."

"What is that?"

"Bugie is a master mage of Council and one of it's historians. He will have the full story of the Shi Hanna. Your patient is displaying one of the signs this book tells us to look out for so that we can prepare for his coming."

"I have Dr. Diggers here, would he have knowledge on that legend?"

"Dr. Diggers is also one of the council, but he specializes in Aura Magic. You can ask him, but I think your best bet would be Bugie."

"Thank you, will you be coming here any way?"

"I'll be there in a couple of days, I want to teach my student a little first."

"Of course, I had forgotten that you had taken on a student. I'll see you in a couple of days then."

"Until then, good bye Mistress Nali." Dee'em said with a smirk as the crystal in his had flared and darkened back to normal.

"The Shi Hanna, Master?"

"None of that now Preston, it is time for your to deal with your next lesson."

"Yes sir." Preston said.

"Excellent! Then let's begin." Dee'em said. "Go and get me some tea." **

**********

Ranma gasped as he opened his eyes and launched himself out of bed and doing a flip right over several peoples heads and landing in a combat crouch looking aroud for the girl that he had been fighting. It would have been pretty impressive, if Nali hadn't stripped him of his clothing during her exam and left him in only his colored boxers. Several of the Edge Guard were there and applauded Ranma's jump while Sheila gaped at him from her bed where she was talking with her brother Gar. It was her first time getting a good look at Ranma's muscled chest and subtle power, it didn't hurt that his boxers fit him perfectly and left nothing to the imagination. It was a sight she liked, something Tirga noticed as well and glared at Ranma from where he was sitting on the other side of Sheila.

"Huh?" Ranma said as he relaxed and looked around, where was that girl in the revealing armor?

Nali walked up and guided him back to his bed with a grin. "No need for that Ranma, you still need to rest for at least the rest of the day before performing acrobatics like that."

"Your that doctor, Nabo something, right?" Ranma asked in confusion as his mind caught up to the change in scene and circumstances.

"I'm the Healer Nali and I own this clinic, yes." Nali said.

Ranma looked a little funny as he blushed a little and rubbed the back of his head. "Sorry about that, I couldn't remember your full name."

Nali smiled and nodded. "That's alright, you just need to get a few hours of rest. When Mrs. Diggers comes back from visiting a friend she said you would be ready to go, I'll have your clothes returned to you then." She said and walked over to check on Sheila to see how she was coming along. The weapon that had taken her out was a magical one and her healing was a lot slower than it normally would have been.

"Clothes?" Ranma asked himself and look down at his boxers and yelped. Diving under the covers of the bed, but not before everyone saw him turn bright red. "Someone could have said something."

"Why? I enjoyed the show!" Sheila called out with a laugh that set off Cheetah.

"Agreed!" Cheetah said, kind of wishing it had been Stripe standing there in his underwear.

"Now calm down girls, we have to keep him here to for a little while yet to complete some tests. We don't need him running away just when we are beginning to go through some of them." Nali said with a smirk.

"Okay Nali." Sheila said with a smirk and innocent act.

"...but what about us Sheila?" Tirga asked from a nearby bed. He flexed his muscles and smirked.

"What about you?" She asked with a snort.

"Hah! Shot down again Tirga!" Thropan laughed. He was one of the few Edge Guard that Ranma hadn't met yet as he peaked out from under his blanket. What he saw was a black furred werecat that reminded him of a panther on the prowl for something, he figured it would be safer if he stayed under the covers a little longer. His life was just a little to weird at times and he didn't even know why this was.

"Ah...shot through the heart by my one true love!" Tirga called out, pretending to die while in bed and falling over Sheila in a lude way.

He sighed in contentment as he lay his head somewhere he shouldn't have, Sheila growled at him and sent him flying through a nearby wall head first. She glared at where the pervert had landed and turned to look over at the Ranma's bed with a weird look on her face, glad that he was still hiding under the covers. "You can come out Ranma, it was only a joke, we didn't mean anything by it." She called out.

"Yeah right." Ranma called back from under the blanket. He had been gaining a little control over the Neko-ken lately, but being in a room full of werecreatures was a bit much for him than he had expected. It went against all his instincts to come out from under the blanket and confront them, they were too cat like for his tastes. He was a bit baffled why his feelings on cats and werecats kept going from one extreme to another and it was irritating.

Sheila sighed and nodded silently while her brother Garfield looked on with more than a little surprise, an unwritten question on his face. His sister had been pinning after Tirga for some time now, for her to suddenly start to ignore him in favor of another was quite an accomplishment, and even more surprising for it to be over a meer human. He wondered what this Ranma had done to attract his sister's attention like this and decided to look into the situation a little more. As far as he could tell this Ranma wasn't all that different from any other human fighter they had ever met, a little on the weak side and painfully slow by his terms. He had caught the tail end of that battle between him and Hanza as he was beat up with a simple haste spell, there had to be something else here that he was missing.

"Let it lie for now Gar." Julia said as she sat down beside him.

"But why Master Julia, he doesn't seem like a good match for my sister."

"...and Tirga is?"

"Well he is a werecat at least..."

"It's not like you to be against a human fighter?"

"Just him, because my sister is interested in him. I can see it in her eyes Master, she gives her heart away to freely and if he was to break it I would have to avenge her honor."

Julia snorted. "Your sister is safe in Ranma's hands Gar, of all my students he is the least active in certain areas. His father taught him to be a Martial Artist and nothing more, he had no idea what a relationship between a man and a woman means yet. He has read about it in books and watched some things on TV, but actual relationships are a complete mystery to him."

Gar frowned. "That makes it even worse..."

"So you don't think that Sheila could defend herself against him if it was needed?"

"I don't trust him." Gar said and folded his arms.

"Your just being stubborn." Julia chided.

"Yep and I will not back down until he proves himself worthy of the love she wants to give him."

"I'll talk to him, but for now you have nothing to worry about since we will be leaving for Brod's Tower in the morning."

"That is for that special training you were telling me about, the one that needed an escape proof room for at least tree weeks?"

Julia nodded. "I is the main reason we came to Jade in the first place, he needs to complete the training he started under his father and repair the damage done to his soul."

Gar just grunted. "I'm still going to watch him around my sister."

"You do that, but I think you have nothing to worry about."

"We'll see, Master Julia."

**********

In another room in the clinic Nali was having tea with Dr. Diggers, they were discussing the odd situation with Ranma. Nali was looking a little stressed, though she still did what she could to look like she was as calm as ever. This was a case of something she had never encountered before and she wanted to tread carefully or Ranma could be hurt if she did the wrong thing, the old knowledge had been told of was so vague and hard to understand that she didn't want to jump to conclusions. She stirred her tea as she walked over and sat down across from Dr. Diggers and sighed a little as she decided to get right to the point. "Is there anything you can tell me about the Shi Hanna?"

Dr. Diggers blinked and looked thoughtful as he considered the question, he hadn't considered that angle, it was a big possibility too. "That old Legend?"

"Yes, I want to know if there is any validity to what Dee'em told me."

"I hadn't even thought about that old legend in regards to Ranma, but he fits some of the requirements doesn't he?" Dr. Diggers mussed to himself and rubbed his chin, that was the thing that had been on the tip of his tongue for so long now. He wondered how he could have missed it before this. "What do you know about the Legend?"

"Not much really, just what I was able to get out of Dee'em a little while ago, he was the one that suggested it in first place."

"The Shi Hanna is a being out of legend, he was neither good or evil, just a figure shrouded in mystery that helped people at one point while at the same time doing unpredictable things to others. It is rumored that he is to be reborn one day and lay waste to the entire realm of Jade, forcing the retreat of thousands of races."

"That sounds horrible..."

Dr. Diggers laughed a little and looked at Nali. "The Shi Hanna is just a legend that has been corrupted over time, only Bugie would have any knowledge on that Legend, he has read all the books in the great library. He has even accessed the Library of Time upon occasion to look up things that were thought lost on the subject, he has been doing so for the last hundred years or more with all kinds of old legends and mysteries."

"Dee'em also suggested I go to Bugie, but I was hoping that you would know more about the Legend before I did that."

Dr. Diggers frowned and shook his head. "I only know the basics of the Legend Nali, I'm not sure how much help I'll be."

"Well alright, then we also need to talk about Ranma's other propblem."

"Hmmm...?"

"We have to stop those magical surges that the boy is going to start going through pretty soon, he must begin magic training."

"I know, but his style of magic is hard to pin down because of his aura."

"Just teach him the basics and a couple of spells, he doesn't need anymore than that to get the surges under control."

"I know..."

"...but you like to do something all the way through without stopping, even training Ranma in magic."

"That's it exactly."

"What about having Brod do it then?"

"No, Ranma's training is my responsibility since he is under my care while he is with my family."

"Then I would like for you to start once you are done at Brod's Lookout."

"Won't that be a little soon? He will be going through some very dangerous training while there."

Nali nodded as she recalled what Julia had in mind for the boy. "No, I think it is very necessary for him to go through the training as soon as possible."

"Alright, I'll begin as soon as Ranma recovers from the training."

"That's all I can ask of you Dr. Diggers, he needs that training or he could end up killing someone when he loses control."

"I don't think he is that dangerous Nali, he figured out how to use his Ki in less than two weeks and has nearly doubled his speed and power under my wife's training."

"Dr. Diggers there is something about that boy that is beyond what a normal human is capable of. Take this last fight of his, he took on an opponent that was using powerful magic to back up her up..."

"...and he lost."

"No, he lost because he underestimated her and didn't have the proper understanding of magic and how it works. Even I could feel the Ki in the air that he was using when he figured out how to do that speed punching technique that the witnesses described him doing, after Hanza cast her haste spell. Every mage and Ki user in the city had to have felt something when he did that."

**********

This morning Julia had announced that they were going to head over to Brod's lookout and had all their stuff sent on ahead. Ranma had been excited about this all morning and he had gladly helped everyone gather what would be needed for the trip. Then had to stand back and watch as everyone but him and Julia had teleported to the Lookout. She had grinned at his bemused look and handed him his weighted pack and told him they would be taking the scenic rout, he had to been in bed and needed to pick up his strength for the trial ahead. The scenic rout turned out to be a leasurly run through the woods, only forty miles from the Hamlet, but Ranma didn't mind all that much and it gave him a chance to stretch his legs.

About an hour later the two of them were speeding along one of the regular roads that led out of the valley. Ranma wasn't really thinking about things, just concentrating on keeping up with Julia as they raced down the road. He had to admit that his control had taken a considerable jump lately, even more than what he had been able to do while he was at Jusenkyo. His muscles were working over time and he didn't even feel the strain as his Ki pumped through his legs and allowed him to keep up his incredible pace. Just ahead of him Julia was leading the way and very slowly increasing the pace of the run to push Ranma to his limits.

"How are you doing Ranma?"

"Fine." He yelled back as she started to pull away from him.

"Then keep up and don't complain, Student!!" She yelled back.

The road seemed to blur around them as they ran, taking curves and sharp turns at speeds that would have wiped out a car easily. Julia just grinned and picked up the pace a little more and decided to take a short cut, she angled through a nearby field and sped down one of the open spaces between crop rows. She didn't seem to have any problems, but Ranma found himself having to dodge leaves and large rocks, at the sped the was going the plants were cutting his shirt sleeves to ribbons and the rocks threatened to take him out permanently. To navigate properly he had to concentrate even harder to make sure he didn't make a mistake.

Then things got weird as Julia streaked out of the field and suddenly jumped a wide ditch that seemed to come out of nowhere. She seemed to sail across it like a catapult shot and landed with ease on the other side and skidded to a halt to see how Ranma would react. He shot out of the field and was upon the ditch before he had a chance to do anything about it and lost his concentration as his feet left the ground. A trail of dust trailed behind him as he sailed out, quickly losing momentum and hit face first into the far wall of the ditch. He tumbled down the side and landed in the water running along the bottom of the ditch with a heavy splash and gave out a female squawk of surprise and flailed around for several seconds.

Julia just blinked and started to laugh as Ranma crawled out of the wet and muddy water and glared at her teacher. "That was a dirty trick!"

"Dirty trick?" Julia laughed. "Who's the one covered in mud?"

Ranma snarled and started to make her way up the side of the ditch, but half way up the side she slipped and tumbled down into the water again. She rolled into a sitting position and sighed as mud dripped off her face and dragged herself to her feet. With a little jump she was in the air and landing on the edge of the ditch, she shook her head to get as much of the mud and water out of her hair. She looked down at her body and cursed Jusenkyo's existence once again. Living with the curse was pretty easy and she had no problems with that, it was the complete loss of her manhood that bothered her whenever the damned thing activated.

She shrugged herself out of her back pack and tossed it to the ground with a grunt, happy to get that lead weight off her back. "I don't like to be wet and muddy, is there a river or something around here where I can get cleaned up Master Julia?"

"Sure, it's a little off our course, but I can understand the reaction." Julia said with a grin and nudged Ranma. "Now have you been practicing in your female form all that much?"

Ranma sighed. "Just basic forms to adjust to the difference in balance and movement."

Julia frowned and looked Ranma over, it was painfully clear that Ranma hadn't taken much time to do much with his female form. The large breasts were going to be a problem as they ran to the spot she was thinking of. She thought about it for a few seconds and decided that Ranma needed to take care of that little problem. She dropped her pack and opened it up to pull out a long wrap around bandage that she had used on a number of occasions for helping her friends when they had broken or cracked ribs. "Take your shirt off Ranma, you need to take care of a problem."

"What problem?" Ranma asked as she looked down at her breasts.

Reaching out, Julia tapped one of them and made it bounce around a little. "Your too big up here, the run I have planned for you will leave you in a lot of needless pain by the time were done so we need to restrain them from bouncing as you move."

"Huh?" Ranma said. Then she shrugged, so far Julia and her daughters had explained a good number of things to her about being female. This must have been one of those little things they hadn't thought to mention to her at the time. Ranma unbuttoned her shirt and pulled it off to toss it to the ground in a muddy splat.

"Now take off the undershirt Ranma."

"You want me topless?" She asked in surprise.

"Yes."

"Um...okay, whatever you want." Ranma said as she pulled her tank top off and let her breasts free.

Julia frowned at her student for a second before pulling out her canteen and pouring it over Ranma's chest and back to clean a bit of the mud off. Then she took the bandage and had Ranma lift her arms while she wrapped it around Ranma's chest to restrain her prominent chest. It only took a few minutes and Julia made it tight enough so that things wouldn't move all that much. "Now put your tank top back on, that should keep you from injuring yourself while we run. Just wring your shirt out and tie it to your pack, we can take care it in a little while."

After that it only took Ranma a few seconds to do as she was told and took off after Julia. At first Ranma was a bit confused as to why she had been wrapped up the way she was, then the differences of this body started to become apparent. Her hips moved in different ways, the lower gravity made her adjust her running form to reduce the strain on her leg and back muscles. Her breasts were moving all over the place too, but nowhere as much as they should have been, the sudden realization of what Julia had meant hit her and she nearly went down in shock.

She grumbled to herself as their pace increased, this was just one more thing she didn't want to know about the female body. Then she shrugged mentally, it was just one more indignity she would have to get used to as time went on. They ran out of the field and made their way cross country for about half an hour, Julia continued her original plan and ran Ranma through an improvised obstacle course. They jumped several more ditches and dodged around the occasional tree that popped up until the careened into the forest at break neck speed.

By this time Ranma was getting used to the different way this body moved and easily keeping up with Julia. To liven the run up she spent several minutes in the trees jumping from one branch to branch to another, Julia was right beside her for most of the way. Eventually Julia motioned for them to change course and they headed deeper and deeper into the woods. After about twenty minutes Ranma started to hear a sound the she hadn't heard in a very long time, the sound of a water fall. They burst out of the trees and flipped a few times to land at the edge of a large pond.

On the far side of the pond was a small water fall, it stood over seven feet and looked like the perfect place to get all this mud off her body. Most of it had dried while they were running so she was in even worse condition than what she had started out in. Ranma dropped her pack and wadded into the pond fully clothed and swam her way over to the water fall while Julia watched. She found a rock out crop just under the water and stood up on that, the water was just like taking a cold shower and she spent a few minutes washing the caked mud out of her heair and clothes.

At the edge of the pond Julia watched as Ranma cleaned up, but froze as her danger sense started to tingle. She turned to look into the woods just as ten scruffy looking men stepped into view and looked the two of them over lecherously. Julia's eyes narrowed as she looked them over and recalled the day before when Brit had told her about all the bandits in the area that the Edge Guard had been trying to get rid of. It had been a long time since she had been in a situation like this and knew that getting away would be pretty easy, but it went against her oath as an Armsmaster to do so.

Ranma looked up from her position under the water fall and noticed the men stepping out of the woods. She could see several more staying within the trees while the others moved to surround them, a smirk formed on her face as a plan formed. Most of the dirty looking men had swords out and looked ready to use them, Ranma could see a bit of dried blood on most of the weapons as well and knew that these guys were not to be taken lightly. They had either hurt or killed with those weapons and proved to her that they needed to be taken down. She also noticed that they didn't move like trained soldiers and fighters, this lowered their threat level enough to make her consider taking them all down.

"Hello beautiful ladies, it's so nice for you to enter our forest and offer your bodies up for our use." Said one of the ones off to the left.

Ranma frowned and narrowed her eyes at him, marking him out as the first to go down, she kept her mouth shut for the moment. She had been similar situations with her father when people had managed track the old thief down from time to time. With folded arms she started to draw in Chi from all around her to augment her speed and power, these idiots had no idea what they had just set themselves up for.

"All of you had better get out of here before you..." Julia started, deciding to give them a warning before this got out of hand. She could feel Ranma drawing in insane amounts of the Chi from around them.

"Shut up bitch, you aren't allowed to talk, just strip out of those clothes and get to severicing my men or we'll for you to do it." The leader snapped. His men snickered and nodded, eyeing the two girls with total lust written on their faces.

"I DON'T THINK SO!!" Yelled a voice from on top of the waterfall. Ranma blinked in surprise and spun around, she hadn't felt or heard anything approaching her.

On top of the fall, standing on a rock out cropping was Thropan, the black panther werecat. He was one of the members of the Edge guard Ranma hadn't had a chance to meet properly and only seen in passing while at Nali's clinic. She glared up at the black furred man above her and shrugged, at least she knew he was on their side. Thropan had a strange staff in his hand and was wearing his Edge Guard uniform.

"Damned Edge Guard lackey!" The bandit leader yelled. "Men, take the ladies and prepare them, the rest of you kill him and get him out of our hair."

Julia's eyebrow rose a little at the well disciplined group that surged forward in two formations. about seven of them headed straight for Thropan while the rest moved towards her and Ranma. Her sword was out in a blink of an eye and she had knocked two of the bandits out before they had time to even think of avoiding her attack, two others went down hard from a well placed kick. From there the sword came into play, they didn't stand a chance of defeating one of the Armsmasters of Jade and they were about to learn just why she held that title.

Several others ran out into the water to get Ranma, the lust crazed looks on their faces made her shudder, but an anger welled up in her that could not be denied. The bandits were a bit surprised when the girl didn't run and thought they had an easy target on their hands, then they got to within two touching distance of her. Ranma's expression turned murderous and a bright silver aura flared around her body and she exploded into motion, fists swinging and feet flying, Ranma overwhelmed them in a blink of an eye and sent them all flying back into he forest with cries of pained shock. Most of them hit trees and collapsed to the ground where they didn't get back up again. Those that tried found that they had broken bones to deal with and their eyes locked on Ranma as she stood under the water fall in a cloud of steam as her aura vaporized the water before it hit her.

Thropan the Edge Gaurd werepanther jumped off the rock as the last of the bandits attacked and tossed out several round disks. The bandits tried to swat them out of the air with their swords, having learned that this particular threat tended to use unorthodox weapons. This proved to be a mistake the Thropan had known they would make and use it against them. The instant the blades touched the disks they explodes into a thick gel like substance the covered them completely and hardened. This took out all but two of the Bandits, the leader and one of his men, so he flipped off the top of the waterfall and tossed out several more of the disks. Unfortunately Ranma's little light show distracted him and threw off his aim and he missed completely.

The bandit leader cursed as he nearly slipped off the falls and glared at the werepanther as it landed near Julia. He had been leading long enough to know when to back off and cut his losses and took off into the forest before anyone could stop him, only his partner was able to follow him and he gave them a look that promised a lot of pain if he ever came across the group again. Thropan looked over at the cute red headed girl and blinked as she suddenly turned male while suspended above the water, it was Ranma.

He blinked in surprise. "Huh?"

Ranma relaxed before he had a chance to understand what had happened and cried out when he dropped back into the water with another squawk of surprise. She resurfaced a few seconds later and shook the water out of her hair and growled as she waded her way back to where Julia was standing with Thropan. There was a pile of tied up bodies all around her, groaning in pain. She even noticed the one's she had send flying into the trees, a part deep in her mind still wondering how in the world she had done such a thing.

"Ranma? Is that you?" Thropan asked in shock as the cute red head walked out of the water.

"Yeah, I've got this odd curse that turns me into a girl with cold water."

"Incredible, what kind of magic would do such a thing like that?" He wondered, silently going over his magical weapon knowledge to see if there was anyway to duplicate such a feat.

"I just have to get my hands on some hot water and change back."

"What did you do to those guys Ranma, I've never seen you manifest a silver aura before and nothing strong enough to do what you just did."

"I'm not sure, they attacked and suddenly got really angry at them and wasn't about to just let them have their way with me. Then everything went silver." Ranma said with a shrug as she pulled some drier clothing out of her pack. This had already been a long day and she didn't want to spend it being wet for the rest of the run, so without a care in the world that Thropan was standing there she stripped and changed clothes. He fainted when she dropped her pants and stood there in all her glory. Julia just shook with suppressed laughter and wondered what her student would do next, she hadn't had this much fun in years.

About half an hour later Thropan, who wouldn't look Ranma in the eye anymore, used a magical gate device to teleport him and all his prisoners back to the jail house in Seer's Hamlet. Julia and Ranma waited a few minutes to make sure everything was in place and resumed their run. Ranma was back in male form and quickly got back into the pace of things as they ran the rest of Julia's obstacle course. It was nearing noon by the time Ranma and Julia topped a hill and saw the small structure that only a hand full of people ever visited more than once in a life time. It was a building that looked like an observatory from earth, but was a little smaller and built right into the side of a cliff and surrounded on all sides by woods.

Ranma wasn't quite sure what the place was exactly, but Julia had told him that she was friends with the Troll that ran the place and that he had agreed to let them use one of the special rooms at his look out to help him complete his final training. Ranma wasn't sure what to think of all this though, on one hand he was going to finally get a chance to get rid of the cursed Neko-ken once and for all. He had been slowly using the meditation techniques for almost a month now and he felt ready for this. Then there was the other side of the question, he was nervous about this because of what it involved. He would have to skirt his madness and over come it before he could master the Neko-ken completely. Before he took up the special meditation exercises the mere sight of a cat of any size would send him fleeing in fear for his life. Now after mastering them he could keep his control for the few precious seconds needed to get away or deal with the problem. Even the werecats of this strange world didn't give him much of a problem anymore, though they did make him edgy. Britanny Diggers had helped him start to get over his fear of them and Sheila had also help further things along by being nice to him when he was lost. He didn't hold that little scene at the clinic against her since he had been in the wrong, though he could have done without being hit through a wall for it.

That reminded him of the fight he had with the girl in the weird armor, it had been one of his most embarrassing fights in a long time. Even the one over the Jusenkyo springs hadn't been as bad as this, at least there he had known what he was getting into even if he didn't like the results. This was a whole new story and he had spent a little time thinking about it to determine what had happened to him, just where how he had screwed up. No matter how much he thought about it, or how he had fought that girl, he found that he would have lost the fight because of the magic involved. It disgusted him that he had no way to fight against a magic user, it was like cheating to him and there seemed to be no way he could have done anything about it. Master Julia had told him upon a couple of occasions that she had fought and defeated several magic users, it just took a different way of fighting that what he wasn't trained in, but that was something that she planned to correct over the next few months while they trained.

With the Neko-ken mastered and some training from Master Julia and Dr. Diggers, Ranma hoped he would be able to get out of this increasingly bad situation he was in. He had lost nearly every fight he had been in over the last few weeks and it galled him to no end what kind of failure he was turning into. At this point he would have gladly accepted a beating from his father for being so stupid and clumsy. Julia had beaten him with ease, Daichi had taken him down twice in a row and made him regret each of them in ways that had affected him to the core of his being, and that Hanza chick had easily used his lack of magic knowledge against him, all of them had beaten him and severely hurt his pride in his abilities. He had always been told he had to be the best of the best, only to find lately that he had so far to go that he was next to useless at protecting everyone around him.

Ten years in hell, training with his father, the daily beatings, always pushing himself beyond the normal limits just to survive the next bit of training with his old man and it had been for nothing? Then to find out that he wasn't even close to reaching his goal of being the best was something he didn't want to think about either, it meant he had failed. The old man would kill him for that when he found out and quite possibly do something drastic. He was glad that the Diggers seemed to think differently about what had happened and had taken a little time to explain what the differences his new forms meant, though he was still in the dark about a good number of other things that had been hinted at. Like that crap earlier when Julia had bound his female chest up to keep him from bouncing all over place, he was just glad it had been with the bandage and not a real bra. The would have been humiliating.

Ranma was beginning to think that he would have to do something drastic to get out of this slump he was in, but he wasn't all that sure what he could do except continue to train. He hadn't lost a fight to anyone since he turned thirteen over three years ago and he had been in dozens of battles before he was tricked by Master Julia because of his pride. Even his father had started to win one out of every ten fights against him, but his failure was beginning to make him think about some things he had always taken for granted. Then Julia had started to train him in ways that had fascinated him and brought out just as much skill and power in him as his father's ways, but didn't bring him to the brink of death or permanent disability. Now he was here at the top of a hill with just a few short miles away from the place he had been trying to reach for weeks now.

"Were almost there Ranma." Julia said as she jogged up beside him and looked out over the valley where the Lookout was located.

Ranma nodded. "I'm looking forward to this."

"I should hope so, you've been working toward it for some time now."

"I just hope I'm ready."

"You are, you just need to stay focused and work your way through it until you succeed."

"I won't fail, I always win in the end!"

"Cut the crap Ranma, you're usually more talkative when you train and you've been pretty silent since we left the waterfall. What's on your mind?"

"I was just reviewing the past few weeks in my head."

"What did you come up with?"

Ranma frowned and looked away as he took of at a run.

"He's getting worse, I hope this training is successful or it could be very bad for him mentally, he already starting to get more and more depressed when he thinks we're not looking." Julia muttered to herself as she moved to follow the sprinting Ranma. Even after forty miles of running Ranma was still using his Ki to keep up a speed that would have done a car justice. Julia kept her doubts to herself as she picked up the speed to catch up with him and moved to pass him, but his competitive spirt reared its head and he tried to make sure she didn't do that.

Julia knew that she could have moved faster, but this was for Ranma's training and he didn't seem to understand that certain fighters held back at certain things, something he would have learn if he was to ever become a teacher. She hoped that a little competition would help him get back on track and more confidence in himself, his self confidence had taken several blows over the last few weeks. Theo had started to help him after the curse and his loss to Hanza hadn't done much help either. She was tempted tell him just how much progress he had made over the last few weeks, but figured it would have more weight when he realized it on his own.

They arrived a few minutes later and skidded to a halt by the large door to Brod's Lookout. Julia smirked as Ranma grinned in happiness, she had cut the race as closely as possible and turned a near win into a tie. Ranma didn't seem to mind though as he took a few seconds to cool down. She stepped to the door, knocked, and waited for it was opened a few seconds later by a huge thing that glared down at her. With a smile she hugged the ugly thing, much to Ranma's shock.

"Hi Brod, how are things going for you?"

"Things are going well, Master Julia."

"Where is everyone?"

"Inside waiting for you to arrive, everything has been set up and prepared to the the information that you send along."

"Excellent." Julia said and grabbed Ranma's arm and pulled him over. "This is your guest, Ranma Saotome."

Ranma looked up at the monster before him in shock, he had yet to meet a true monster while here on Jade and this thing came the closest yet. Brod was almost ten foot tall and hunched over like a monkey on huge limbs filled with muscles that looked like they would allow him to shatter stone in his bare hands. He was bald and had a craggy face complete with a large nose and square chin. "Um...hi?"

"Sorry Brod, I didn't get a chance to tell him you were a troll." Julia explained.

"Ah, that explains it." Brod said with a nod. "Don't worry young one, I am a Troll Archmage and tend to spend more time studding than anything else. I'm one of few of my kind that has risen above the level of a mindless beast and bid you welcome to my home."

Ranma shrugged, when one was around the Diggers long enough they tended to be stranger than some of the possible monsters he might encounter. "No problem, you just caught me by surprise."

They made their way inside and Brod knuckled his way along with them as he led them through the small structure until they reached a natural cave with one side of it sealed off with a pair of large doors. Ranma saw that Dr. Diggers, Nali, Brittany, and Sheila were waiting for them to show up. If he remembered right, most of the Edge Gurad were out on patrol and Sheila had come along since she wouldn't be allowed to go back to work for a day or two. He didn't see Charlotte though, but quickly forgot about her as he happened to glance into another room and paled. It had about a dozen caged cats of varying sizes and shapes just waiting for use, it sent a shudder down his spine as he unconsciously edged away from them.

Dr. Diggers stepped forward as they approached and opened one of the doors to let them see the small room on the other side. Julia could tell that it was similar to the room she used to use when she had been forced to travel here once a year for over a decade when she under that curse that kept her away from her family. She turned to look at Ranma and saw a bit of fear in his eyes for what he was about to do and couldn't really blame him in any way. A quick look inside showed that the walls had a number of spells cast on them and a large spell symbol carved right into the floor. There were a couple of small alcoves in three places along the walls where Brod had removed some special lamps and been replaced by torches.

"It looks perfect Brod, were there any problems getting it ready?"

"Not at all Master Julia, it only took about an hour to get it ready and Dr. Diggers has been inside for most of the morning in preparation for what is to happen."

Julia turned to Ranma. "Well, do you want to rest after that run or get right to it?"

"Let's get this over with, I'm not looking forward to this and the quicker it's done the better." Ranma said. It wasn't like him to admit things like that, but he'd learned that Master Julia didn't care about his pride and insisted that he tell her the truth.

"Then get in there and take a seat, the door won't open until you pass this or you die as per the book's insistence."

Ranma nodded and controlled the growing fear. "Let's go for it."

**********

To Be Continued...


* This is one of those pointless Akane like moments where the physically impossible becomes possible for the sake of a sight gag. Sheila's werecat form isn't strong enough to do this, but her human form is. ^_^

** I've altered the names of the original crew of the Dungeon's and Dragons cartoon characters in the ways that Fred Perry has or would have. He has used Dee'em in one of his comics already, I just decided to use the rest of the crew in this short segment. There is a possibility of them returning if I find a use for them and enough people request it. The only names I didn't change were Venger and Tiamat.