10-25-00

Annoyed author's note: Can the people who wish to guide my story in the direction of their choosing STOP DOING IT! I am *so* tired of the reviews that say either the story doesn't have a plot or the recommendations for events. It *will* have a plot! Haven't you ever heard of character development? If you have, that's what I'm doing now! If I jumped right into the plot, this fic would not be that long. So *please* keep those kind of comments to yourself.

Pan got a brochure in the mail the next day. It highlighted a place in detail and it sounded interesting enough that she wanted to go there. But making the trip alone was *not* on her agenda. What better way to become closer than to share the experience with her new friends?

"It's a good way to get some training in a brand new place," she explained. "Sometimes it gets a little boring."

"I understand," Ukyou said. "But it'll be hard to leave my new restaurant."

Pan put one arm around her shoulders and said the one thing that the other girl couldn't refuse:

"It'll help you get strong enough to completely destroy Shampoo..."

Ukyou's face brightened. "I'm in."

The other girl grinned and turned to the last person. "What about you Akane?"

The blue-haired girl thought about it a moment. "Well, I think I'm in the way at Bulma-san's house. I *do* need to be a little stronger to kill Ranma. Okay!" She smiled. "Let's go!"

After packing and clearing it with her parents, Pan and the other girls were on their way. She selected a mini capsule plane and in less than an hour, they were in the air. Videl was the only one who had a problem with it. Since it would slightly interfere with her studies she didn't want her to do it. But Gohan reminded her about saiyans and their training so she had no choice but to give in.

After hugging her daughter so hard that she probably would have broken ribs if she were human, she lectured her on safety, eating correctly, and not talking to strangers -- all things she had learned when she was six.

"I'll be fine Kaasan!" She had assured as she stepped away from the embrace. "I'm not going alone you know. Akane and Ukyou will be with me."

"That *really* sets my mind at ease," Videl had said sarcastically.

Pan remembered all of this as she controlled the plane. On one side the brown-haired girl was reading a manga and on the other, Akane was lifting weights. Both of them were just as excited as Pan was to be going on a training journey.

"So Pan," Ukyou drawled a few hours into their trip. "What do you think of Ranma honey."

The quarter-saiyan snorted. "He's an idiot."

"I agree," Akane said between counts. "A complete and utter jerk. By the way, Pan-chan do you know where you're going?"

"Hai," Pan said with more than a little hostility, "I have a map..." She then looked beside her. "That I left at home!"

"NANI?!" The other two both shouted in unison.

"It's okay. I *do* know that it's in a valley on the other side of this mountain. We can just land and walk the rest of the way."

"Sure." The other two put up their things as Pan tried to find a good place to land.

A few moments later they were on the trail that led up into the mountains. It was rather straight-forward -- no forks or anything -- so they continued their conversation from before.

"Why do *you* like him?" Pan asked Ukyou. "You seem a little obsessive."

"I am not! He's just my best friend from when we were six. We played and sparred together every day until the time he left on that stupid trip. His father got my hopes up when he engaged me to him. I can't believe that man just left me by the side of the road!" She clenched her fist. "I really hate that Genma Saotome!"

"He ruined my life too! Everyone knows Goku-ojiisan is *not* the brightest penny in the fountain. It was pretty easy to trick him. If he had tried the deal with Tousan, this would have *never* happened!"

A sign was coming into view. It's sun, rain, and wind faded surface was almost illegible. All three of them peered at it, trying to read what it said.

"Ju- Jusen.." Pan just gave up, she was straining her eyes. Akane just happened to be the one who 'discovered' what it said.

"Jusenkie! I think that's what it says!" She turned to the other two. "We're almost there!"

Walking on, they started into the valley.

***

"THEY WENT WHERE?!" Ranma asked loudly a few hours after the girls had gone.

Videl paused from where she was putting on her make-up for work. "Some place called Jusenk."

"Did they say 'Jusenkyo'?" Genma asked in a tense voice.

"Hai! That's it. Jusenkyo." She continued what she was doing, not even taking note of the name.

"Oh kami!" Ranma moaned. "They went *there*!"

"What? What's wrong with it?" Gohan asked on his way by.

"Son," Genma began, "how would you like to have a daughter who could change forms?"

That was all it took. Five minutes later, business suits and all, Videl and Gohan took off in a capsule jet for that cursed training ground.

"I'm coming Pan-chan! I'm coming!"

***

The first thing the three noticed at the springs was that they were not alone. In fact, three people -- two of which who were obviously related -- stood there. The third was a small man who looked to be the servant of the other two.

"Sasuke, that is *not* how you carry our luggage!" The girl shouted in a shrill, annoying voice. She wore her hair in one ponytail on the side of her head and was clad in a cyan leotard.

"Will you just drop it onna," her older brother snapped, "I just want to train! Sasuke, move out!"

"Right away Master Kuno. Right away, Mistress Kodachi."

"Oh no!" Akane said as she hit behind Ukyou.

"What? What's wrong?!" Pan asked. When she didn't answer Pan got louder. "WHAT IS IT AKANE!?"

"Akane?" Kuno looked up. "Can it be? Is the fair Akane Tendo on the same ground as thee?"

"What's his problem?" Ukyou asked. She jumped back as he appeared in front of them. Akane dodged aside in an attempt not to get stepped on. "Wow! That was fast!"

Pan circled, looking him over. "Who are you?"

"Who am I?" He exclaimed. "Who am I?!"

"Hai. Who are you?"

"I am the rising star of the kendo world, the Blue Thunder of Furinkan High." He raised his bokken high into the air. "I am Kuno Tatewaki, age seventeen."

"And I am the glorious black rose of Saint Hebereke's School for Girls. Kuno Kodachi, age sixteen."

"What egos," Ukyou said to herself.

Pan smirked and began *her* introduction. "Well *I* am the martial arts champion of Orange Star High School. The daughter of Gohan the Wise and the granddaughter of Goku the Slow." Akane and Ukyou snickered at that one. "Son Pan, age sixteen."

"No introduction for me. I'm Kuonji Ukyou. Pan-chan, can we *please* go train?"

"Right." She, Akane, and Ukyou ran off down the path.

"Wait!" Kodachi screamed after them. "Brother dear, they are taking our turn!" But the boy didn't hear her. He was already in hot pursuit of the girls.

"Akane! Come back to me, my love!"

His sister sweatdropped.

***

Ultimately the three girls got there first. "This is it?" Akane asked. "Just some pools of water with bamboo sticking in them?"

Pan and Ukyou shrugged in unison. "We came all this way so let's do it!" They all jumped to the poles.

"Wait ma'ams!" The guide cried as he ran from the hut. "You no do that!" They didn't listen. It seemed Ranma, Genma, and Ryouga's fate was going to repeat itself.

Then Kodachi and Kuno came up to the springs. "You won't take our turn and get away with it!" The younger cried loudly. She also jumped onto one of the poles. Kuno, little hearts in his eyes, followed. Soon it was a free-for-all.

Akane fought of Kuno even as she tried to spar with a Pan who was engaged in battle with Kodachi. Ukyou sort of stood on the sidelines until she got it with Kuno after the Tendo girl gave him an uppercut he wouldn't soon forget. The chef threw him off to the side, directly into a spring.

And so the first curse of the day took place.

Genma, Ranma, Videl, and Gohan ran up the path into the valley. Seeing with their own eyes that it was too late. The Jusenkyo guide was running around screaming at them to please stop the madness and it was chaos on the poles. When the heard the splash, they all flinched. Gohan and Videl prayed to kami that it wasn't their little girl.

"She's okay!" Gohan sighed as he looked on. "Pan come down!"

"Nani?" She asked at the same time Kodachi lunged for her. The punch didn't hurt her too bad but it certainly caught her off guard. She wobbled toward the edge, windmilling her arms.

"Pan!" Videl shouted even as Gohan flew to catch her. At the same instant he took off, Pan grabbed onto Kodachi to keep from falling. The Kuno girl, not going down without taking everyone with her, caused a domino effect that sent everyone towards the water.

Pan, not thinking too clearly, didn't even try to stop herself. She flew into the icy cold water, everyone else into their own separate pool.

"On no!" Videl ran to the edge of the one her daughter fell in. "Pan, are you okay?"

A dark head popped up and Pan coughed up some water. "I'm fine," she said in a hoarse voice. Her mother pulled her out and looked her over.

"You *are* fine!" Videl said in relief as they walked slowly back to the shore. "Nothing happened! I guess those springs are a fake."

Then a *huge* white tiger leapt out of another nearby spring.

"AH!" Ranma screamed in a panic. "NEKO[1]!" He jumped back and climbed onto Genma's head to get out of the way.

Pan looked him over and shook her head. "I'm not even going to ask."

Gohan noticed something different about his daughter. Maybe it was the way her clothes seems a little too small, or the way she held herself. But one thing was certain.

Son Pan was not the same person she was before she had left home.

"I think something *was* in that pool," Gohan said to his family. "Hey mister!" He shouted to the guide. "What do you call the spring my daughter fell in?"

He walked to them. "That one called Nannichuan."

"And that is?" Pan asked.

"Spring of Drowned Young Man. Man drown there one-thousand, three-hundred, seventy-five year ago[2]."

"Ma-Ma-MAN!" She shrieked. She patted herself down. "OH MY KAMI!"

"I have a son!" Videl began to cry as she clutched at Gohan. "Instead of a daughter I now have a son!"

The tiger who was terrorizing Ranma walked over to Pan who absently petted it's head. The large animal purred and almost knocked her down in an attempt to get closer.

"Who are you?" Pan whispered as she crouched down. "Who did you use to be?"

The next person to exit the spring was a vampire bat. It flitted over to Pan and perched on her head. "Am I attracting all of the animals here?" she wondered. That was also when a medium sized haiya dragon[3] and wolf walked up to her. "I'm the only human!"

"That I help," The guide led them to the hut where he kept large amounts of hot water just for such purposes.

***

"When you transform," The guide said, "you have no clothing on." That alone prompted Gohan, Ranma, and Genma to stay outside. Videl took the water from the guide and shoved him away as well.

"Unless you want to be classified as a pervert, you stay outside too." And so she began her task, starting with her daughter.

"Thanks so much Kaasan!" She exhaled. "What a relief."

The next was the tiger. Videl poured a liberal amount of water over it and he became Akane who was crouched on her knees.

"I petted Akane?!" Pan asked. She stared at the finger thrust in her face.

"Don't *ever* mention that again!" Akane said firmly.

Eventually the dragon turned into Ukyou, the wolf into Kodachi, and the bat into an extremely embarrassed Kuno.

"At least I have on clothes," Pan mentioned.

"You pervert!" Akane shouted as she covered herself with one hand and punched Kuno with the other. She knocked him through the wall and on the other side of the valley.

"Remind me never to make that girl mad, okay?" Ukyou asked Pan who giggled in response. Akane calmed down and turned to her friends.

"Let's go back. I have the *perfect* way to get back that that jerk!" She smirked evilly at the chaos to come.

***

"So, you're a boy," Ranma said later that day on the ride home, "Ucchan's a dragon, and Akane's a," he gulped, "a n-neko?"

"Yep!" Pan said. "Actually, being a boy isn't as bad as I thought."

"It's probably because you already act, walk, and talk like one," Videl mentioned.

"Maybe."

"What's so bad about nekos, Ranma," Akane asked in a strange voice.

"Nekos? Uh nothing. Felines are perfectly fine with me!" He laughed nervously. Pan elbowed Ukyou and Akane and told them to watch closely. She leaned close to Ranma's ear and made a loud sound.

"MEOWR!"

"AH! NEKO!" Ranma jumped about two feet and clutched at his father.

"What happened to him?" Videl asked. Then she narrowed her eyes suspiciously. "I'm sensing that you had something to do with it Genma."

He sighed. "Hai. I did." He produced a book and began to flip through it. "The technique is called 'Neko Ken[4]'. You tie up the person who is to learn the skill with fish sausages and throw them in a pit of hungry cats. Ranma had undergone this when he was six."

"NANI?!" Gohan exclaimed.

"It gets worse. Unfortunately, I failed to read the next page."

Pan took the book from him. "Warning: this training may have psychological side-effects." She raised an eyebrow. "Is that what happened to you Ranma?"

The boy stopped shaking and sat back down in his seat. "It's all the old man's fault! He ruined my life first with that 'Neko Ken' and again at Jusenkyo!"

"I'm sorry boy! I told you that all ready!" He pushed his glasses up onto his nose. "I even tried to cure it."

"How?" Ukyou asked curiously.

"I repeated the process with every kind of meat that I could find[5] but nothing cured it completely. After a prolonged exposure, he becomes completely cat-like. That is when he uses the Neko Ken."

"I don't remember anything after I get snapped out of it," Ranma shook his head, "I really must have screwed up in a past life or something to deserve all these things that happen to me!"

"Calm down," Ukyou smiled, "it's not so bad. You get a sugoi attack and a neat curse. *I*, on the other hand, get transformed into an animal."

"Just write signs like I do," Genma suggested, "There are a lot of advantages as an animal."

"I almost forgot to tell everyone," Gohan spoke up from the pilots chair, "I found out something from the guide before we left. He said the name for the springs had gotten changed to attract tourists he said. No one wanted to come to Jusenkyo anymore since everyone had heard of it one time or another."

"Whatever for?" Videl asked. "Why would someone voluntarily go there to get cursed?"

Gohan shrugged. "He said it was the Jusenkyo Police's decision, not one of his own."

"What an idiotic decision!" Akane snorted. "I'm a tiger because of that! But," She amended, "it does have it's uses." She shot Ranma a meaningful look as she said this.

He gasped. "You wouldn't dare!"

"Try me!"

"Kids, kids. Calm down!" Videl scolded. "We'll be back in Japan soon and maybe we can find a way for you guys to be normal again."

"I hope so!" Ukyou cried.

"Not me," Akane said.

"Me neither." Pan said as well. "I'm stronger now. I can give Trunks the as-" Her mother shot her a warning look, "*butt* kicking of his lifetime! After Veggie-ojisan of course." She corrected herself.

***

Surprisingly nothing else happened for the better part of the day. Videl made both Pan and Ranma go up to the school to get their homework, but that wasn't so bad. Around seven-thirty at night, when Akane was over talking to Pan, someone knocked at their door.

"It's open Ucchan!" Pan shouted. The person still didn't enter. "I guess it isn't her then." She stood and went to answer it. "Uh konichi-wa?"

"Is Akane Tendo here?" Asked the man at the door. When Pan nodded he brushed past her and went right on inside.

"Well come on in then!" Pan said sarcastically to the empty air. She shut the door and went back into her living room.

"Akane how I've missed you!" The man burst into tears as he hugged the surprised girl tightly.

"Uh Tousan? Why are you here?"

"This is you Tousan?" Pan asked as she sat back down.

"Hai," Akane said as she tried to break his embrace. But grief held it strong. "Can you please let me go? And stop crying like a big baby!"

"My dear, dear Akane!"

"TOUSAN LET ME GO!"

He jumped back at the harsh tone in her voice, sniffling. "You yelled at me," he said in a small voice.

"Gomen," she sighed. "What are you doing here?"

"Well, I missed you so much I decided to come to this city."

"That's nice but shouldn't you be getting on back home?"

"I am home!" Soun brightened. "Akane, your sisters and I moved to Satan City to be close to you!"

"You WHAT?!" Her father mistook her exclamation for joy.

"Hai. I moved the dojo here so that I could help the union of you and Ranma. Where is the boy anyhow?"

"Hey short girl!" A voice shouted from upstairs. "Are you going to use the bathroom any time soon? I don't want to be called a pervert again?"

Pan growled at the name Ranma had made up for her. "My name is Pan and no." Then she changed her mind. "Ranma dear! Why don't you come downstairs. Saotome-san, you come too! There's someone here who would like to see you..."

"Saotome," Soun's voice held a warning note, "what is the meaning of this?"

"Now, now Tendo don't get mad but my son's engaged to this girl over here."

"My name is Pan," she said flatly. By this time, her parents had drifted downstairs as well.

"He's what?!" Tendo shouted angrily.

"Tousan, it's not that bad." Akane tried to calm him down. "I don't want to marry that jerk anyway."

"I'm sorry sweetheart but the Anything-Goes Schools of Tendo and Saotome should be joined."

"Why not let Ranma decide who he wants?" Videl asked. "He doesn't have to do it now. They're still young!"

"That's right!" Ranma said, relieved. "But, I wouldn't want an un-cute tomboy and a short quarter-saiyan anyway."

"RANMA YOU JERK!" Akane grabbed the table while Pan grabbed some ki.

"He asked for that one," Genma said as he was attacked from both sides.

[1] = Japanese for cat
[2] = I made this up since they never said in the anime
[3] = Just think of Gohan's pet dragon, Icarus.
[4] = Cat Fist or Cat Fu
[5] = I don't remember exactly what he used so just excuse that please.

I know Ranma hasn't been changing genders all that much, but he will in the near future. I just had to set this all up first. More people to arrive in the next chapter (one of which is everyone's favorite pervert).

PS: Again, I'm so sorry for the wait. Fanfiction.net hasn't been kind to me lately.