Shampoo raced towards the open door. She took a moment to turn around and look at Tate as he squared off against that foppish bastard Kaguro. Wishing him her best, she stepped into the portal, and through another land entirely.
Lao Shan Fu, the descendant of Lao Jiukiu Tsesao, the current (and last) Chinese Amazon of the Lao clan, descended into hell to meet the ancient foe of her family and of the earth itself:
Down
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Down she walked, through nothing but a soul searing whistle of a wind that was not there and a true feeling of hell-spawned torture and destruction, of immolation and despair, or every and all pain imaginable.
Shampoo felt nothing of these, though. She knew what she was doing, what she would do to the demon, even if it killed her. Which was doubtful; after all these years, she still had a bigger bag of tricks than Felix the Cat. She knew that she had to avenge Ran-chan's death; Mousse and Libby's injuries and possible death, and to save the world. Dangerously, her mind wandered faster and less cautiously than her body.
Here I am. After all that time, and all those things we did in Japan, fighting ghosts, zombies, phoenixes, and other such fantastic creatures, here I am. Fighting a demon with nothing but sais and a determination to stop it at all costs. I wonder: is this what all my life's training has really meant? I knew that we had trained to honor the memory of the past and our commitment to the Emperor, even though there is no longer either. Before all that had been the recent past, was this the true origin to all that we were, Grandmother? Am I all that stands between the destruction of all that is?
Thousands of people in the ancient past lost their lives to this thing. Ranko, who was a better fighter than me, lost her life to this demon. What can I do? I am a martial artist, not a warrior. I may be a master of the Shaolin and Bushin arts, but in the end, I'm just a 26-year-old woman with a restaurant, my own home, and an extremely fucked up love life. I'm not the fighter and soldier that you were, Grandmother; I never fought in the Boxer Wars or in the Revolution. I'm not the fighter you said my grandmother and mother were. I fought to be the best in the village because I was a Lao and it was my heritage, birthright, and duty.
Heritage, Birthright and Duty. What is that in the final equation? My heritage is gone; wiped away by the jealousy, prejudice, and ignorance of the Peoples' Republic; I must find a new one. My birthrights, the Contrary Jewel and the so-called "Phoenix Eye"-actually the Heart of the Demon-have caused nothing but grief and pain for me and those around me. Duty-I failed in capturing Ranma's heart, and in killing Ranko. I betrayed everything that the Chinese Amazons and the Lao Clan stood for by becoming the best of friends with her, and giving my airen to the woman he loved.
So what does that leave me with?
The one thing that you never tried to teach me, the one thing that you apparently let me learn on my own-personal values. You told me that it was something that my predecessors never learned, but you never expanded on it. Does this mean that all along, you had the faith in me to let me learn alone, to let me find those seemingly elusive virtues, even though it meant that I would end up throwing away everything the Chinese Amazons stood for?
I have found those values to be self evident upon your passing away: the Amazons cared nothing about us, in the end. the Jiangs, the Dongs, the Tungs, the Zhans, the Shous-any of the other families could've been the elder family, and it wouldn't have made one damn bit of difference. All that mattered to the tribe was the Imperial Past, a Glory that we no longer had. I think, by forcing me to go after Ranma-and thus forcing Muu Tsu to go after me-you pulled us away from that dying concept. Joketsuzoku is a dead end.
I hope that I'm right, and if I am, I thank and love you more than ever, Grandmother. I promise you that I won't fail you, because of your wisdom, as I fight this demon, I'm no longer Lao Shan Fu, the Chinese Amazon.
Thanks to your foresight, I'm Shan Fu "Shampoo" Lao. Just myself, and that's what really counts.
Spurred by belief, hope and love, Shampoo picked up speed in her sprinting and continued to race on through the unnaturally tortured terrain, ready to carry her task to its final destination and completion.
If she had taken the time to notice where she was, she might not have been so determined.
The locale that she arrived at once she stepped out of the spooky dimensional portal made the curse of Jusenkyo look like a minor inconvenience. She'd stepped into a bleak world, a place with an iron gray sky, and a desolate, barren wasteland. There was nothing at all save the distance of emptiness, a world of helpless silence that permeated all its environs and inhabitants-not that there appeared to be any save her. The air felt absolutely fetid, and stank of death and decay. In short, it was a very ugly, icky place with a sky that looked like you colored it with a pencil, and an accompanying mud-brown earth.
There was a true curse here, another land that cried out for help and had never received it. Another world that had been subjugated a long time ago and had been forgotten by whomever it was who was supposed to remember places like these. The scorched earth called for her help, asking, calling, begging for release of some kind-any kind.
Shampoo slowed to a stately, cautious momentum. Running in this place would be useless, as the bare land would let her know who would approach at any moment. The dark clouds of the sky hid much, but were distant enough that it couldn't be used effectively for camouflage. So she continued to move forever against this terrain, walking for what seemed like hours, weeks, years, or seconds; time didn't seem to hold sway here. A time that land forgot, if it bothered to look at it in the first place.
After a period (?), she arrived at a scorched, ramshackle brick building, its wrought iron door wide open, rusty and sand eaten in a place where such conditions would seem impossible. How it got there, inexplicable; how it continued to exist here, unknown. The building was a blight on an already sore land.
Without bothering to investigate, she knew this was the place, the culmination of her battle. This was where she would fight her family's foe, on its terrain, but fight it nonetheless. This was where she would prove her own skills in battle; a trial by fire of everything that was her core being.
So she stood, arms akimbo, and called out, "Yo, demon! You have a visitor!"
No answer.
She screamed again, "Demon, I am Shampoo, and I have come to challenge you!"
Still no answer came.
Time to play the trump card. Hope I get this right... She called out once more, this time in Chinese, "Weak, spineless creature of hell, I am Lao Shan Fu, Chinese Amazon of Joketsuzoku, the Emperor's Warrior, the great-grandchild of the legendary elder Lao K'o Lon, mountain girl, battle cat, Bushin and Shaolin mistress, and last but never least, descendant of Lao Jiukiu Tsesao! I have come across the worlds to deliver retribution and justice upon you for all your misdeeds and evils. I shall stand here until you bring your craven, unworthy carcass out here to face your eternal and righteous punishment, which is no less than death! By the blood of my fallen sister Saotome Ranko, I will bring down upon you the judgments of the heavens, foul monster! I am the noble soldier sent to dispatch you with utmost haste, and there is nowhere you can run or hide from me! COME AND FACE ME NOW, IF YOU DARE!"
Her speech was answered by a small tremor that shook the ground, nearly knocking her off her feet. I guess it doesn't care much for insults. She made a mental note to thank Tate for the quick speech writing.
As she re-balanced herself, there was a voice that sounded like nothing born of earth's womb. "lao shan fu, ARE you SO READY TO die? i CANNOT BE DEFEATED. your ANCESTOR, THE DAMNABLE lao jiukiu tsesao, DID NO MORE THAN MOMENTARILY HALT my EVENTUAL ENSLAVEMENT OF your WORLD; her LIFESPAN WAS BUT A BLINK OF AN EYE IN mine. dO you THINK you CAN DO BETTER?"
"Won't know until I snuff out your unholy life's candle, will I? Now put your money where your mouth is, and come on out and play!" Shampoo dropped into her Shaolin ready stance. "Are you going to make me come in there? I really think that's rude, refusing my kind invitation. But then again, you're a demon, so I guess you're used to being a total asshol-"
The building before her exploded in a shower of blood and flesh, spraying the ichor around for miles; a blood-red fog quickly descended on the lands around her. Shampoo was drenched by the spray of body fluids, and felt both burned and chilled by the strange, grisly fog, but she stood her ground. "It'll take more than cheap theatrics and parlor tricks to stop me, creature!"
"pERHAPS this IS WHAT WILL MAKE you HALT IN YOUR TRACKS, lao." The demon could vaguely be seen as it rose from the wound in the earth where the "bloodbrick" structure had been. The Chinese woman saw the vague shapes of a tail and wings, slight horns. At distant glance, the demon seemed to be of the Satanic, western stereotype than the one that she had grown up with, listening to the fireside tales as a child.
At it closed the distance between them, the demon began to bother her. She could see the glowing green cat's-eyes, smell the sulfuric scent that the body gave off, hear the ragged breathing of the damned fouling an already hurting otherworld. Shampoo could also see small ghostly shapes floating around it; foxfires or the torn souls of its victims. Furthermore, she could see the shape that outlined it as a female of about her own body stats, abnormal appendages notwithstanding. There was also something uncomfortably, vaguely familiar about this hellspawn, something very disturbing.
As the pair stood toe to toe, the dreadful realization came to Shampoo, something that did unnerve her. The demoness was her worst nightmare...
...a nearly exact clone of herself. Sure, aside from the options associated with a demon's body, the woman also had green hair in the 1940's China Doll style, those weird eyes, and wore a metallic bikini that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. Otherwise, it was the same face, the same body.
Shampoo stared at herself through the darkest mirror imaginable. "Yo-you...you look li-li-like..."
Even when the creature spoke, her voice sounded a tone lower than Shampoo's, as if the Chinese Amazon were altering her voice. "i DID NO SUCH THING ON PURPOSE. iMPRESSIVELY, THIS NEW BODY OF mine BELONGED TO A WOMAN NAMED jade chiang. dO you HAVE ANY IDEA how much she hated you?"
A streak of doubt in her voice, Shampoo squeaked, "I-I've never heard of her."
"oH, BUT she HAD HEARD OF you. tO HEAR her TELL THE TALE, your SUCCESS IN LIFE HAS CAUSED her ETERNAL PAIN AND DISTRESS. tHERE WAS NO END she WOULD GO TO IN ORDER TO GET her REVENGE. i, IN THE SMALL PRICES THAT HAVE BEEN PAID, AM ONLY TOO EAGER TO OBLIGE."
"How? I've never heard of her! I've done no wrong to her!" Shampoo was stunned. Somebody willingly giving themselves to host a demoness? Certainly, it was possible, and she read about possessions in all those horror novels she read (her personal favorite was The Shining), but this was too bizarre!
Unfazed, the demoness continued. "aCTUALLY, you SHOULD BE THANKING ME FOR LETTING you LIVE AS LONG AS i HAVE. dID you KNOW THAT IF IT WASN'T FOR me PRESENT IN her BODY AT THIS MOMENT IN TIME, she WOULD BE USING THESE POWERS OF mine TO COMPLETELY OBLITERATE you? nOT THAT you'll FARE ANY BETTER WITH me; you ARE A lao AND SO MUST BE SLAUGHTERED LIKE THE cHINESE SACRIFICIAL LAMB THAT you ARE."
Shampoo found her measure of strength again. Brandishing her sais in front of her, she hissed, "I'm no Sacrificial Lamb. Neither was Ranko! You'll pay for what you did to her! I'LL SEND YOU STRAIGHT BACK TO HELL IN A PINE BOX!"
"you IN TURN WILL PAY FOR WAKING me FROM my SLUMBER!" Without warning, a pair of foxfires crashed down, detonating the ground for yards around the demoness, completely and utterly destroying everything in its blast...
...except Shampoo, who had been expecting it and nimbly flipped out of the way. She landed just outside of the blast zone, and swung the sais with lightning action, parrying the debris that flew her way. She charged in, tossing a few shuriken that she'd liberated from a ninja along with the sais.
The stars bounced off the demoness' unprotected face; she didn't even bother to block the blows. This however, left Shampoo with an opening. As she continued her attack, she leapt between the demoness' wings, grabbed each end, and threw the demoness back, expecting her opponent to be set up for a combo.
Unfortunately, the demoness' wings that Shampoo had used to her advantage became her disadvantage, as the demoness simply took to the air after the throw and dive-bombed Shampoo. The Chinese Amazon touched earth just in time to spin and backhand stabbed the demoness with all her strength, driving the sai deep into the arm of the creature. The creature roared in pain, and with one hand, smacked Shampoo away over a distance of several feet, knocking the wind from her sails.
The demoness took to the air, and floated long enough to launch another barrage of its foxfire projectiles.
Shampoo landed, dorsal side up, and bouncing her head off a rock that wasn't readily noticeable earlier. As she felt the pain slapping her in the skull, she noticed it now. There was a second sensation as the foxfires hit mere inches from her, blowing away enough of the landscape to send her flying again. Fortunately, she did manage to somewhat land a bit better, bouncing off her posterior instead of her stomach. Dazed, she looked up and saw another storm of foxfireballs coming straight at her.
The demoness was overjoyed. She hadn't had this much fun in a while, her sense of accomplishment accompanied by a sexual rush of delight as she bounced the current Chinese Amazon back and forth like a pinball. Today had been the best of days, certainly: she easily killed the reincarnation of the original Lao, assumed this new body, and was now on the verge of killing the only so-called opposition. The demoness sighed; she'd have to think of some kind of showstopper for tomorrow's antics. What she needed was something to really rock her world.
She snapped out of her reverie long enough to eat a ki charged foot.
She nailed the demoness at the extreme range of her Thrust Kick, and as the pair both fell earthward, Shampoo threw her Cat Scratch Fever, landing punch after punch to the demoness' face. As the demoness landed, shattering the terrain, Shampoo bounced off, flipped in mid-air, spun and launched another volley of shuriken, which this time ripped into the demoness' abdomen. As the creature screamed in pain and fury, however, Shampoo was blasted aloft by the sonic boom caused by the unnatural power of the banshee-level roar. This gave the creature enough time to get up, and form a ball of hellfire in her hands.
As the cat warrior landed and charged, the demoness fired a fireball the approximate size of a Volkswagen towards her. Shampoo in turn called upon her ki for a Feline Assault Super.
The world wavered, warped, and shimmied with amount of willpower being released. Shampoo, speed-blurred, dove through the Hellfire blast, screaming in mortal pain due to the feeling of her flesh being scorched away. She emerged on the other side, carbon scored, much of her clothing burnt to a crisp, and hit the demoness with a total of a thrusting punch, three slice kicks, one elbow, a punch to the gut, a knee to the solar plexus, an uppercut, and a Thrust Kick in a matter of seconds, before both opponents dropped to the ground.
Shampoo leapt to her feet, fell, and rolled back to a standing position, avoiding another burst of foxfireballs. She loosed her last batch of stars at the demoness, ripping holes through her wings, but not doing much more damage than that. The demoness launched another Hellfire blast at her, but Shampoo easily did the splits under it, defiantly flipping off the demoness as she did so.
The demoness huffed, "Is that the best you can do, Lao?"
I must've weakened the human host. She sounds like a normal person, now; even speaking English. She casually flipped her off again, and doing her best Tank Girl imitation, "Eat shit. If I die, I'm taking ya wit' me."
"I doubt it. My destiny is to rule the earth, and be the best, as my daddy taught me."
Shampoo painfully crossed her arms. "'Daddy'? Demons don't have parents. Whoever is within you is waking up, monster. Your control is slipping."
"Mere words, designed to fool me. I speak this way because my transformation is now complete," the demoness said, sounding almost as if she was trying to bluff the Chinese warrior. "This is my form now. Jade Chiang is dead. I have assumed her powers, just as I have assumed those of your dear Ranko Saotome. Would you like to see them?" The demon formed the foxfireballs above her head, and they began to orbit and her like Jupiter and its moons. A flare of red formed in her left hand. A blaze of green enveloped her right. She willed the two together, and launched all three volleys at once: "Foxfireball! Blood Chi! Moko Takabisha!"
Shampoo danced around the foxfires, and ducked under the green blast; that was the unknown. She timed it, and with her hand, easily swatted away Ran-chan's blast. Laughing contemptuously, she said, "I would never try that again, if I were you. You have no power over my friend's soul. She would never hurt me, and that is a plain fact. That is why your blasts failed, and why you will ultimately fail." And why I was lucky to counter that. I don't know if I could pull it off again. Ran-chan, my friend, I truly hope you guided my parry.
With quick reaction, the demoness launched a Hellfire blast at Shampoo, who bolted away from it in the proverbial nick of time. She fired three more at Shampoo, who danced around them, but at a slightly slower pace; the Chinese Amazon had apparently begun to tire.
And with exhaustion would come an eternal rest.
The two had been chatting for what seemed to be forever.
"So how did you ever recover from your husband's death, Jiu?" Akane asked.
"I was, um, told by a 'little birdie' that what I had to do was far more important than fading away like a delicate flower at the loss of my beloved Sun Mei. I had my child to consider. Also, my little sister as well, who, from what it sounds like, is a bit like your Ranko."
"Another Ranko out there?" Akane joked. "The world couldn't take the strain. Seriously, though, maybe I was too hard on her." Akane absently wiped a tear from her cheek. She'd let herself go in front of this wonderful person who seemed to know exactly what she was going through. "I was rough on her, because she was younger than I. She was the same age as my sister Kurumi, but seemed to drift a lot more, as if she didn't know what she was truly looking for in life." Akane didn't mention that Ranko hadn't been alive long enough to really know what she wanted.
"Let me ask you this, at the risk of being rude: why didn't she live with her parents? Why with you and your husband? I would think that if she had the problems that you say she did, living with her mother and father would've been a better choice."
Akane replied, "That's an easy one to answer. Living with us was really the only option. Before I stepped into their lives, Ranma and Ranko were all the other seemed to really have in the world. Both of them aren't too close to their parents, and only seem to matter to each other. It sometimes seemed that I was the other woman, but I knew better; at least I think I do. They're so close, they're like one mind in two bodies." Which is better than what we had earlier, Akane smiled inwardly.
Jiu patted the other girl's hand comfortingly. "Don't worry Akane; everything will turn out all right. Call it a sixth sense if you will, but I think things will turn out for the best. Furthermore," she winked, "I'll bet that somewhere out there, Ranko really knows how much you both love her, and has seen it somehow."
"Thanks, Jiu. You've been an absolute joy." Akane grinned brightly.
"It's no problem whatsoever; I know you'd do the same if our positions were reversed." Jiu rose from her seat, and fixed her uniform. "Sorry to have to leave, but duty calls, you know."
"You know, I just noticed something," Akane mused. "You look fairly like her." Akane produced a picture of her and Ranko at Nabiki's wedding. "Kinda weird, actually-you don't meet many pure blood Orientals with red hair and blue eyes. You happen to be the third I've met."
"Really?" Jiu smiled sweetly, though Akane could've sworn that Jiu had a look in her eyes that said this was nothing new. "But I don't look that much like her-after all, she's Japanese and I'm Chinese. But you are right, at a distance we could probably be mistaken as the same person." She looked at her wrist, and tsking at the watch. "Gotta bother the passengers in business class again. Take care, now." She bowed to Akane.
"I will. Thanks again." Akane returned the honor.
About five minutes later:
"This is your Captain speaking," the voice said over the plane's intercom. "Due to an unexpected and sudden tailwind, we'll be arriving at SF International within the hour."
At the sound of those words, Ranma Saotome woke up very gently, very softly, very quietly. He looked around, as if waking from a dream, and found that he was still in his living nightmare.
He also found that Akane was looking at him, the look of concern etched in her eyes. "Feeling better, Ran-chan?"
"No. Not in the least. But at least I'm in some measure of control." He stared down into his lap for a second, then turned back to his loving wife. "Probably the calm before the storm, I have to admit. Right now, I'm blank. The fury really hasn't set in."
"I understand, and I'm here for you. Always." She held his hand. "Ranma, I have to apologize about something."
"About the way you treated Ranko?" He smiled briefly. "Don't. You were only trying to do what was right. You were only trying to treat her the same way you do Kurumi. Don't deny that you don't. You even treat Natsumi the same way, and you two are the same age."
"Ranma!" Akane's face flushed. "How could you-"
Ranma shook his head. "I didn't mean it like that, Akane-chan. What I meant was, you were simply trying to be the 'BIG' sister for them that Kasumi was for you and Nabiki. The thing is, though, that it didn't work because it's Kasumi's way that your trying to use, not your own. They also have had life experiences and personalities completely different from you, Kasumi and Nabiki. Natsumi's so dedicated to being the best fighter in the world, that she has nothing else for her in life; she's even more dedicated at times than I am. Kurumi has no clear idea as to whom she's going to date at any one given time, and has as many suitors as you and I have had. Ranko's still learning about life, trying to find out who she is, and where she fits; she's partially haunted by the 'ghost' of 'Ranma-chan'."
Akane opened her mouth to protest, but immediately shut up. Ranma was calm right now, and anything she might say could possibly make it worse. Then, there was the minor detail that he was probably right.
"So what are you saying, Ranma?"
"I think you'll be the greatest mother that our children could ever have. But you don't need to be a mother to people who are nearly your age. Kasumi had to deal with that problem, and I think that in some ways, it ruined her own childhood; she never seems to be anything other than a housewife, even when she wasn't married." Ranma, of course, would not mention the other details in public.
"Yeah. I can remember when she wanted to be a doctor, before Tofu moved into the neighborhood."
"Basically, the three need a big sister, especially Ranko. I'm the closest thing she has, and that's usually not a problem, but there are times when being a guy is difficult-for her, that is. I've gotten used to my end of the female persona."
He's still talking about her in the present tense, Akane noticed. Is he just denying it? Why is he? She mentally shook her head. No. Something's up, but I can't tell what it is. Is she still alive? No, he would've told me. She thought for a second or two, then decided that it would be best to change the subject. "Ranma, there's somebody I want you to meet. While you were asleep, she and I had the most enlightening conversation."
"Um, sure." He smiled, then kissed his wife on the cheek. "Not a problem, and I'd do anything for you."
She squeezed his hand in a loving response, then hit the button, calling a flight attendant. Another woman, the one from earlier in the flight answered Akane's call. "Yes? What can I do for you?"
"Is it possible to talk to Jiu? I wanted to ask her something."
The woman looked puzzled. "Excuse me, but who are you talking about?"
"Jiu-Chinese woman, with red hair and blue eyes, the attendant up in business class."
"I'm terribly sorry, but we have no one like that in business class. In fact, I can tell you I'm the only female attendant aboard today; the rest are all men. As for redheads, there's not a single person aboard fitting that description. A couple of blondes, and one or two azures or verdanttes, but that's all." She looked at Akane again. "Is there something wrong?"
Akane, seeing the expression on the attendants face, and sensing that Ranma was just as puzzled, she let it go as she shook her head in dismissal. "Um, nothing. Never mind. My apologies."
As the attendant turned to walk away, Ranma asked, "What was that all about, dummy?"
Akane sentimentally thought how odd and wonderful their relationship was when the most insulting things they could say to each other were simply terms of endearment. "Nothing, Ranma. Just forget it." She caressed his cheek. "You know, I wa-"
"Excuse me, ma'am," a kid caught her attention, mentioning, "but ya dropped this." The kid thrust something small into Akane's hands, then scampered off before she could thank him.
"What is it?" Ranma said. "Something you picked up in Kuta Beach?"
"Ranma, it would take too long to explain." She looked at the object, and couldn't help but smile. She placed it on the meal tray and went back to what she was saying. "I was about to say that I was beginning to worry, love. I'm not used to seeing you like this."
"I figured out that there's nothing I can do at the moment, except make all the other passengers worried, not to mention you. So I'm going to calmly wait until we get to San Francisco. Then I'll do what comes naturally."
"Well, if you say so," she said, cautiously. "At least now I have a chance to relax." Without so much as a word (as if one were needed), Akane slid her head against his chest. "Well," she yawned, "I'm gonna get some sleep. Wake me when we get there." After a second, she added, "I love you," then closed her eyes.
"I love you too." Ranma kissed her softly, then spent a few minutes absently toying with her hair as she drifted to dreamland. When she was completely out, Ranma reached over and grabbed the object to take a peek at it.
It was a small silvery-golden ornament in the shape of an ancient Chinese coin, with a gold chain attached to it-a small golden pendant, in other words. The other side was completely blank, except for an inscription in Chinese: AKANE. JUST BELIEVE. YOUR FRIEND, -JIU.
Definitely weird-o-rama, Ranma thought. Akane doesn't know Chinese. But then, he shouldn't have been too surprised; he and Akane had been married for six years, now, and still constantly surprised each other. That's one thing I love most about her.
"You missed! Bet you couldn't hit the broadside of the TransAmerica building if you tried. In fact, should I paint a big bull's-eye on my shirt? Would that help?" Shampoo teased, standing rock still with her hands symbolizing an apple on her head. "Never got to read the William Tell stories when I was a kid; wrong culture. But is this right? If it isn't, well, then I can-"
"SHUT UP!" the demon screamed as it fired another blast of hellflame, which Shampoo ducked to avoid. However, this time the blast went out in a conical spread, and tagged Shampoo at its edge. She was flung to the side by the burst, the effect causing blisters and welts on her right arm to appear.
As Shampoo looked at her suddenly much stronger opponent, the demoness laughed. "Yes. I have simply been toying with you all this time. I was merely gauging your skills. I have come to the conclusion that you're not worth the waste of chi I'll use to kill you, but I'll do it anyway just to be thorough.
"I DON'T THINK SO!" Surprising her opponent, Shampoo leapt to her feet, raced in and delivered a flying kick. The demoness' head snapped back from the blow, but as she fell back, she snatched one of Shampoo's legs and bolted skyward, racing as fast as possible.
Shampoo drove one of her sais into the demoness' legs hard enough that it became embedded. As the creature roiled in pain, she dropped Shampoo, letting Shampoo dive into an uncontrolled fall of 100 feet-higher than she was used to jumping. She hit the floor with a bone-jarring thud, and she felt the pain in her body arc through every nerve. A series of foxfireballs followed her down and exploded around her, slamming the debris into her like a shotgun.
Shampoo crawled away from the wreckage, barely able to retain consciousness. She tried to lift herself to her feet, but was instead lifted...by a massive clawed foot that sliced fresh cuts into her side, ripping what was left of her shirt away. She landed on her back ten feet away.
The demoness moved in, fast as lightning, and delivered an uppercut that snapped back the Chinese girl's head, lifting her off her feet. She was able to control her landing and do a footsweep, but her leg was caught by the tail, and she was slammed into the none-too-soft earth. She pulled the tail, and dragging the demoness down, landed a fierce kick to the ear of the demoness, then lunged forward and raked her claws across the creature's face.
The demoness responded by slashing at Shampoo's unclothed torso. Shampoo leapt away from the brunt of the cut, but still got sliced by the razor sharp claws. As the creature threw another blow, Shampoo ducked under, parried the throw, and speared her fist into the look-alike's face. The head twisted to the side as a spray of blood shot from the nose.
The creature countered with a short range hellfire that seared the air just above Shampoo's head. Shampoo in turn grabbed the demoness' head and brought it to connect with her knee, but the demon just bit into her calf, drawing blood. Shampoo threw the creature away before the teeth could tear away a chunk of her flesh.
The demoness landed softly, and shouted, "Are you ready to die, Lao Shan Fu? I am done playing, and it is time to kill you now."
Standing mere feet away, breath coming in ragged gasps, one eye swelling, clothing shredded to nearly nothing, topless, hair charred, body carrying multiple cuts and wounds, splattered in blood, but still defiant, Shampoo breathed the final words, the words that she never thought that she would ever have to use. "Foul Demon! I have come to vanquish you, and vanquish you now I shall!" Her battle aura exploded into crimson fury, a lightstorm of pinkish-purple. "LAO CLAN SHAOLIN FINAL ATTACK! LEAPING TIGE-"
What happened next was too voluminous for mere words. As Shampoo readied to pounce into the Leaping Tiger final attack, there was a drop of darkness, accompanied by the ground around the two fighters erupting in gouts of red and blue flame. The demoness seemed to stretch past Shampoo in a haze of blue and red, then stopped just behind her. The land and sky regained its sickly colors, the flames dwindled to nothingness. Shampoo remained in her leaping phase.
The demoness snapped her fingers.
Shampoo was rocked from the after effects of:
Several punches to the head;
Twenty kicks to various areas of her body;
A tail slash across her breasts;
and a powerful 148 rapid-punch combo.
All within a matter of a second.
As Shampoo fell to the floor, in absolute shock and paralyzed, the demon walked over to her. "So, the high and mighty Lao Shan Fu, the Chinese Amazon, vanquished."
Shampoo lay there, unmoving, gripped by fear and the knowledge that she would be dead in a matter of seconds. The demoness had countered her final attack-a previously unstoppable move. Now, she lay there, unable to speak, blink, or scream in horror. She felt her eyeballs begin to dry. She felt the hot sweat of the demoness pool on her chest. She felt all of these and more. Worst of all, she couldn't do a thing about it.
The demoness that was once Jade Chiang laughed, the humor of the damned spouting from her lips. "This is perfect, absolutely delicious! I have waited forever for this moment!" She stood over Shampoo, then bent down long enough to administer the traditional Chinese Amazon kiss of death, mocking her victim. Kneeling astride the fallen warrior, the demoness raised a fist in the air, and it glowed with the same blue-red aura Shampoo'd seen earlier.
She pronounced her doom: "Say your last living words, Lao. Speak them, and prepare to join your ancestors, Warrior of the Emperor!"
A tear rolled down the side of her face, as she spoke the truest words her heart had ever known, true words in the language of love and beauty, her native tongue. "Muu Tsu. I love you. I've always loved you and was ever a fool to deny it, to have thrown away everything we've had, time after time. Still, you were there, even as I blatantly rebuffed you, even as I chased Ranma in front of you. What a fool I've been, giving my heart to Ranma, when all I had to do was turn to you, something I should've done years ago. I just wish I had the fortune to tell you in person. Farewell, my beloved Mousse."
Fortune took the time to smile upon her. There was an explosion of blue light, and the sky fell away as a dimensional portal opened, letting a flare of electric blue in. A woman, silhouetted by the blinding energy, carrying a larger person in her arms, walked through, a second person slowly following behind. She gently set the other person down, motioned for her companion to wait, then walked a short distance from them. She dropped into an offensive stance, and the electrical aura flared like the corona of a newly born star.
When the woman spoke, she spoke with an air of authority that was both awesome and terrifying to behold:
"GET AWAY FROM MY BEST FRIEND NOW, YOU BITCH!"