Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters of Ranma 1/2. They are owned by persons far more fortunate than I. I use them with due respect to Rumiko Takahashi and whoever else happens to share the rights to them now. I don't even own this disclaimer, so seriously, don't sue me. -Cat5

Now, on with the show!

Chapter 1

Of Cures, Of Curses

"Where th' heck is this place?" Ranma Saotome muttered as he trudged through the dense flora that characterized the particular region of Japan that he currently occupied. With an aggravated, jerking motion, he swung his pack around and extracted a fairly beaten looking scrap of paper from one of the small pockets. On this scrap of paper, in childlike scribbles, were markings indicative of a map of some sort. Ranma scrutinized the piece of paper, as if trying to make out a particularly difficult calculus problem.

"I swear I've followed this thing to the letter. This should be where it is. Where is that fricken' temple?" Ranma complained to the trees and shrubs. He sighed, stuffed the paper back into his pack, and defiantly marched forward.

Had the sun already set, he might have not seen the object of his quest (a good three miles further than his map had indicated). As it were, with the last of the soft lavender light cast from the sun, he spotted a ziggurat-esque construction in the distance, almost obscured by the vines and giant conifer trees covering and surrounding it.

With a rakish grin on his face, Ranma Saotome began to accelerate, gaining momentum through his abuse of the nearby tree branches.

"Never gonna be a girl again! Never gonna be a girl again!" the mantra repeated over and over through Saotome's head and from his mouth as he raced towards the temple.

He slowed to a walking pace as he approached the stairs at the base of the temple. He wondered if he had pulled a Ryoga and disappeared to a country in Central America, so out of place was this erection.

"There's gotta be traps or some sorta guardian protecting this place, no way is this gonna be easy," Ranma thought to himself. "I'd bet Nabiki my last 100 yen this couldn't be as easy as strollin' up there and grabbin' that diamond."

As he ascended the staircase, his muscles both tensed and relaxed at the same time into the familiar battle-ready state in which Ranma thrived. Plans for battle maneuvres and structural analysis of his surroundings raced through his head as he approached the entrance at the top of the ziggurat. Yet, no indications pointed to this being anything other than... simple. Easy, even.

Ranma shook his head. Nothing was ever that simple for Ranma Saotome. It just wasn't. Ranma could hardly go to the bathroom without winding up in a martial arts distance pissing competition with exclusively female combatants judged by his mother who would force him to commit ritual suicide if he performed less than "a man among men".

"Nuh-uh, no way, it's never that simple." he thought as he entered the opening. Fate had a hand in this, as it had a hand in every event involving one Ranma Saotome. This time, however, it dictated that nothing would interfere with an ominous grin on its face.

Resting on a pedestal, not 30 feet from the entrance to the room, illuminated by torchlight, was the object that Ranma sought. A single diamond, no bigger than his clenched fist.

"That would sell for a pretty yen," Ranma mused, but it was not for the monetary value that he sought this gem. It was for it's inherent magical properties. This pure and shining diamond was the key to his happiness. To his cure.

He approached the pedestal with caution, still distrustful of the apparent ease of his errand. As he reached the pedestal, he marveled at how it glimmered in the torchlight, casting small rainbow colored shards of light on the nearby walls and columns.

Then, quicker than untrained eyes could perceive, Ranma Saotome snatched the diamond from its pedestal. A blinding rainbow-tinted light flashed from the diamond, obscuring all but itself from his vision. A fragment of a thought passed through Ranma's mind just before he blacked out.

"Aw shi-"

~~.~~.~~.~~.~~

As Ranma drifted back into consciousness, he noticed that firstly that he was half submerged in flowing water and secondly that he was currently a she. A bad way to wake up, on both accounts, in her opinion.

As she sat up in the stream, the rest of her brain kicked in she recalled what had happened at the alter. "I oughta known it was too good to be true." she mumbled tiredly as she brought herself to her feet and checked her surroundings.

She stood in the middle of a stream, barely wider than a couple of meters. On one side of the stream, there was an outcropping of boulders. Past that and on the other side of the stream, there stood the trademark composition of a forest.

Ranma glanced around at her feet and noted that however she had gotten here, her pack had not followed. "Well, that'll make the trek home interesting, at least." she mused.

As she took her first step to exit the stream, in what she assumed was a southward direction, she faltered, almost stumbling. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

The very least she could say about her balance was that it felt off. She performed a cursory self-examination and suddenly, 'very, very wrong' seemed entirely inadequate to describe the situation.

She felt her hair stand on end as the beginnings of a conclusion began to form in her head. She shook it furiously, rejecting the notion as impossible. Hastily, she crouched down, preparing her body for a jump. She lept, anticipating the cool air whipping past her face, the weightlessness that came at the apex of her ascent and the view that accompanied the heights that she so desired.

None of these things came to pass. She fell all too quickly back down to the earth and landed on her rear in the water.

As the shock faded the conclusion that she had so forcibly rejected crept back into her head, weighing on her like the heaviest boulder imaginable. She had lost all of her conditioning. She had lost the fruits that ten years of labor had bore her.

How could this have happened? Did someone hit me with a modified version of the strength -sapping moxibustion while I was out cold? Ranma checked her back for any burn marks. She found nothing. Suddenly, it clicked. "Gods damn it!" she cursed. That DIAMOND. Cure to all curses my ass. My conditioning is not a curse.

She considered her underdeveloped muscle groups. "Make that was not a curse. Shit." Her body was in the same condition as a person who exercised infrequently, nowhere near even her most conservative standards.

I need to head back. Maybe that hag or the old lech know some way to reverse whatever has happened to me. I'll need to be careful. I have no idea how long I can trek for in this condition. If I don't reserve enough strength, I might not be able to fend off any wild predators that populate the wilds.

She refused to go out like that. That was a fool's death, not the death of a warrior.

***Temple of the Diamond***

In the center of the room, a wet figure stands triumphantly with an empty plastic bottle crushed in its grasp. He takes in a deep breath and lets out a crow of victory before dashing to the entrance and out of the temple, a black pigtail trailing behind him in the wind.

~~.~~.~~.~~.~~

Short first chapter, I know. Has to start somewhere, right?

-Cat5