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Joketsuzoku Village; Somewhere in the PRC:

	Shampoo ached all over.
	She was having trouble seeing out of one eye, favoring her left
knee, and tasted blood on the inside of her mouth.
	She felt great.
	Every year, her village had a contest of strength and skill among
all but the oldest and most powerful of their women; and for the past 3
years, she had defeated all comers with increasing ease (not bad,
considering she was only sixteen).  This year, she had scarcely worked up
a sweat as she sent the closet thing to compitition flying in the final
match.
	#What else is there?# she wondered as she hopped off the suspended
log where all battles took place, #Great-Grandmother has trained me to the
utmost, to the point where almost nobody could defeat me, and for _what_? 
Everybody my age... everybody _twice_ my age either thinks of me as a
challenge to overcome or some sort of idol to look up to, but nobody
(except for that blind, grovelling, pathetic shmuck Mousse) _talks_ to me!
	#If this is the price of being the best, then I could live with
being second place, or even having some decent competiti-eh?#
	Then she saw them.
	The traditional banquet set out for the victor that was normally
on this table, a heathy feast which she usually ended up sharing anyway,
was all but gone; and at the table were a _severely_ embarrassed man in
the garb of the Communists, a large panda(!?!) patting it's belly with a
satisfied look on his face, and a short outland girl in an odd white
outfit looking around at the hostile stares with some confusion.  The man
blushed even more and began to sweat as he pointed out the sign on the
table and said something in a language she had never head before to the
two companions.  More than a little annoyed at this intrusion, she decided
to make her displeasure known to them and slammed her chosen weapons on
the stripped table.
	"Hey you! The girl with the panda!" she yelled as the heavy wood
table shattered under her bonbori, "Why did you eat the prize!"
	When the girl continued to blink in confusion after the guide told
her something Shampoo assumed was the translation, she narrowed her eyes
imapatiently and continued, "This is a yearly martial arts competition, I
just won, and that _was_ the first prize."
	She then waited as the two had a brief exchange in... whatever
they were talking in, and finally the man turned to her and said; "She
challenges you, if she defeats the champion, than the prize is her's."
	Shampoo sized up her opponent, taking in the borrowed or cast off
clothing that obviously belonged to a much taller male, the diminutive
form, and the slightly off-center stance which made her seem unused to
walking with breasts.  
	Her conclusion: cakewalk.
	Shampoo heasitated briefly, questioning whether the girl actually
_knew_ what it ment to challenge one of the Joketsuzoku maidens, but she
then shrugged; not a month goes by without someone shows up on the road
from the city that the Communists called the 'district capital' to
challenge one of the attractive village girls and, as an outland male
defeating her in single combat, take her as a bride.  Invariably, such
contests result in the man limping, crawling, or being carried down the
same road before the sun sets (assuming the woman he picks is not
sufficiently besotted at first sight to throw the fight).
	She raised an eyebrow as the smaller girl managed to match her
leap onto the log, rather than clambering up tho the 'field' of combat. 
She then shrugged, a simple charge should unsettle her opponent enough for
her to be pushed off without much harm (the kid had spunk, she did not
_really_ want to hurt her). 
******

	Ranma could not beleive this.
	She had initially assumed, despite considerable evidence to the
contrary, that this conflict over the food that she and fur bearing
companion (once father and son, now furball and d-d-daughter thanks to
those DAMNED SPRINGS!) had consumed could be solved by simply knocking the
girl off the log and being on their way.
	The bloodied nose, _very_ sore elbow, and swollen eye she bore had
long since proven her wrong.
	Saotome Ranma never liked fighting girls: all his life he believed
it to be unmanly to harm those weaker than he; and since girls were weak,
he should never fight girls (logical, ne?).  As the taller lavander-haired
girl charged in while leaving herself wide open, she decided that a
comparatively gentle kick would send her off the log and to the ground
without hurting more than her pride.  She was half right, but had not
counted on her managing to snag one of the ropes from which the log was
suspended with her weapons on the way down.  With a swing and a flip
Ranma's opponent was back on her perch and eyeing her with a strange
combination of anger and... something else.
	As the fight began in earnest, Ranma initially pulled her punches
somewhat, assuming her opponent would soon stagger back or fall off.  Not
only did Shampoo fail to return the consideration, but she acted as if she
did not even feel them and did not even bother to block.  Within about
five minutes of the beginning Ranma noticed that her opponent was actually
beginning to bother trying to block, counter, and avoid her blows and
absently realized that she had stopped holding back; and the attractive
girl was actually giving as good as she got.
	That was roughly 25 minutes ago. 
	Ranma finally managed to break the handle of one of those
'Lollypops from Hell' Shampoo wielded against him, but spotted the other
one as it closed in on her head.  #I'mnotgonnamakeitI'mnotgonnamakeit#
she thought as she bent away from the weapon.
	#I made it!# Ranma thought, genuinely astonished as the club did no
more than muss her bright red hair, #I _am_ faster now!# She sprung up and
delivered some downright punishing shots to Shampoo's torso, only to have
her stagger back and deliver a powerful kick she barely managed to block.
	#She's 'bout strong and tough as I... used to be,# Ranma observed as
stumbled back, #and got moves I ain't even seen before... I'm-#
******

	#-_impressed_!# Shampoo observed as she stepped back and brought her
guard back up.  She had not had this close a fight in two years, either it
was a matter of Great-Grandmother pounding her with consumate ease, or
herself doing much the same to almost anyone else who challenged her.  She
knew full well that she could lose this match by virtue of this
outlander's skill, and part of her mind wondered whether she would be
willing to kill her as perscribed by law.  If Great-Grandmother was not on
one of her many journeys, she would probably ask that the elder adopt this
stranger into the tribe no matter what the outcome, but as it were.... 
Still, she could not help but smile somewhat crazily as she beckoned her
opponent closer with her free hand.
	The redhead blinked, nodded, and accepted the invitation by
charging in.  She suddenly ducked and rolled preparing to get inside her
guard.  Unfortunatly, Shampoo rapidly backpedaled and thrust out with the
remaining bonbori as her opponent stood.  With her usual speed, the
smaller girl bent over backwards to escape and did a handspring kick to
eliminate the last weapon.  She did not even realize that Shampoo had kept
moving forward until she saw the fist centimeters from her stomach.
******

	"iie."
	WHAM
	"Ahhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!"
	SPLASH
******

	Shampoo fell too her knees as adrenaline hangover, fatigue, and all
of her aches and pains slammed into her simultaniously.
	"I... won." she said quietly, not as a boast as she normally did, but as
a statement of a fact that she was not sure she believed.
	She simply kneeled there, seriously concidering collasping where
she was and taking a nap for the next day or three until she heard the
commotion coming from the direction of the warm springs that served as the
village hot-tubs.
	#No!# she thought as she hopped to the ground and limped quickly
towards the crowd, #Nothing but solid rock over there, she could have
split her head wide....#
	Finally, the crowd parted and she took in the sight before her; 
laying half in one of the larger springs was a muscular, black-haired,
downright handsome boy about her age.  Shampoo's eyes then widened in
shock as they examined the clothing, hairsyle, pattern of bruses and cuts,
and face; for she easily recognised them all. 
	"I thought the curses of Jhusenkyo were only a legend." she
muttered as she thought back to the stories Cologne told her about the
legendary and forbidden training ground.
******

	The old woman sat on the rooftop unnoticed.  She had returned to
the small village in time to see the last minutes of the battle and she
was both genuinely suprised and pleased by the closeness of the battle. 
Shampoo had been showing signs of disintrest in continuing her training,
and an equal alongside which to compete would be more than benificial.
	Then she saw what had happened when the Japanese 'girl' landed in
the hot spring, and a smile spread across her wizened features as a more
intricate plan began to take shape.
******

	The Panda that was Saotome Genma sat worridly in the midst of the
crowd of men and women around the springs.  His son was unconsious at the
moment, but he had taken harder blows than that fall in stride and was
already being seen to by a the local healers so that was probably Not A
Problem.
	But now he had to worry about paying for that banquet. 
******

The Beginning?