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    The Secret of Shampoo's Heart

            by Chris Jones
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It was a quiet day at the Tendou dojo. Soun and Genma played shogi. Kasumi 
was cooking, and Nabiki was figuring her income tax. Everything was quite, 
and everything was serene.

	Even Ranma and Akane were keeping busy, spring cleaning the dojo and 
repairing the hardwood floorboards which tended to become cracked after two 
or three of Ranma's frequent duels.

	"Ya know," Ranma mumbled as he worked at tapping a floorboard into place. 
"On a day like this, something's *gotta* happen."

	"Don't say that!" Akane chided angrily. She was just getting caught up at 
school from the *last* time she had been kidnapped.

	True to Ranma's expectations, it was too good to last. Just after Akane's 
mouth closed, the door to the dojo slid open, revealing none other than the 
hidden-weapons expert, Mousse.

	"Ah man," Ranma grumbled. In truth, however, he was spoiling for a good 
fight and it had been days since the last time he'd seen 'P-chan'.

	"What do you need, Mousse?" Akane asked cautiously.

	There was something different about the usually robed warrior. Instead of 
his typical robes and bottle-bottom glasses, Mousse wore jeans, a polo 
shirt, and thin wire rims. His long hair was pulled back into a loose 
ponytail as well.

	Akane and Ranma goggled, but said nothing about his appearance, or 
apparently casual demeanor.

	"I have come, Akane Tendou, to release Ranma Saotome from the sentence of 
death."

	"Uhhh..." Ranma boggled.

	"You no longer have to fear attack from me or death at my hands."

	"Yeah," Ranma chuckled. "Whatever."

	"Thank him, you moron!" Akane commanded.

	"Yeah, what she said," Ranma seconded.

	Mousse nodded, and began to stride from the dojo.

	"What about Shampoo?" Akane called out just before Mousse stepped out of 
the room. "Have you finally, given up on her?"

	Mousse turned, a his eyes flashing confidently.

	"On the contrary," he stated calmly. "She's given up on Saotome."

	"WHAT?!?!" Ranma cried out in shock. "I mean, why all the sudden?'

	Akane glared at her fiancee, but seemed more interested in hearing 
Mousse's tale than berating Ranma.

	"How?" Akane asked.

	"I," Mousse explained, "Have finally found the secret to win my true 
heart's love."

	Ranma chuckled, his ego giving way to grudging respect for Mousse's 
seemingly bottomless determination.

	"So, tell us already?"

	Mousse laughed out loud and adjusted his glasses.

	"In truth, I should have noticed when I was much younger, but was I was 
much too inexperience and much too blind. It was only events in the last 
few weeks that brought the secret into the light, and to my attention."

	Mousse launched into the story.

	It started a several months previously. Shampoo and Cologne had bought a 
computer to help keep the books for the Nekohanten. After becoming 
accustomed to using the machine, Shampoo persuaded Cologne to pay for an 
Internet account do that she could exchange email with her sisters and 
friends back in the Niichezu village.

	It was February when Mousse noticed her spending late nights on the 
machine. Then one day, she was exuberant after an all-nighter.

	"My first thought was that she met some one online," Mousse explained. "It 
wasn't until just a few days ago that I found the *files*."

	"What were they?" Akane asked.

	Mousse held up a finger, putting her off for the sake of storytelling.

	"Shampoo suddenly didn't need to spend so much time on the computer after 
that..." Mousse continued.

	There was, however, a kind of fever to the girl as May approached. She 
became more and more excited as the weeks progressed. Finally, at the 
beginning of the month, Cologne announced that the two of them would be 
taking a trip. They left on the fifteenth and returned on the following week.

	"It was when I met them at the airport that it all became so obvious," 
Mousse noted.

	The purple haired girl came of the JAL airlines at Narita airport animated 
and excited. She was acting out both sides of a sword fight with a rolled 
up magazine.

	"What on earth happened, I wonder?" Akane mused.

	"She made 'whoosh' noises all the way home from the airport," Mousse 
explained. "It was later that night, when I was hanging the laundry when I 
found her ticket stubs for 'The Phantom Menace'".

	"No way!" Ranma exclaimed.

	Mousse nodded in reply. "It's true. Shampoo is a Star Wars head. She hides 
it well, but she had been saving for months to be able to afford to see the 
movie when it opened in San Francisco."

	Later, Mousse also came across the widescreen 'Special Edition' Star Wars 
videocassettes that she had picked up the previous year, 'Just on a whim' 
she claimed.

	"It was then I remembered how excited she was when several of the amazon 
children made the long trek into Hong Kong to see 'Return of the Jedi' when 
it was released. All the files she had on the computer were 'Star Wars' 
video clips. The one she had waited all night for was the Internet release 
trailer for the new movie."

	Ranma shook his head in disbelief. "You think you know a person," he 
wondered aloud.

	"So where do you fit in to all of this?" Akane asked.

	Mouse held his hands out, rolled up the sleeves of his polo shirt, and 
produced a rolled up poster out of thin air. He flicked it once, revealing 
a theater-edition poster for 'The Empire Strikes Back' autographed by 
Carrie Fischer, Harrison Ford and Billy-Dee Williams.

	Shampoo, it turned out, got turned on by talk of the 'Force'. For the 
first time in his life, Shampoo turned to putty in Mousse's hands with his 
discussion of Jedi training. The consummated the bonds of Amazon Marriage 
only moments after Mousse promised her half ownership of his original 'Star 
Wars' light-saber prop. (Actually used by David Prowse in the duel between 
Obi-Wan and Darth Vader!)

	"I thought that an Amazon had to be defeated in combat before she could 
marry," Ranma countered.

	Mousse chuckled merrily. "She could not stand before the onslaught of my 
true might, when it came to LucasFilm trivia. I seduced her, defeated her, 
and then married her, as is my right.

	"Well," Ranma conceded. "Congratulations, man. You've... simplified... 
things for me."

	Akane smiled warmly for the Chinese warrior. "Are you going back to 
China?" she asked.

	"Heh... Now that I know Shampoo's true weakness, we're moving to 
California in preparation for 'Episode II'!" Mousse exclaimed. Still 
laughing, he strode happily from the room, never to be seen in Japan again.

	Ranma exhaled deeply.

	"Well," he concluded, "That's the end of an era."

	"I'll say," Akane agreed. She smiled nervously at Ranma.

	"What?" Ranma asked.

	Akane giggled nervously. She could only hope that Ranma would never come 
across her secret stash of 'Star Trek' videos.

* * *
The characters of 'Ranma 1/2' and the likenesses thereof are used without 
permission.

Goofy as hell, I know. I apologize to anyone who was expecting a romance 
story, rather than a spoof. I tore a ligament in my hip a few days ago and 
have been bedridden since, so this is the result of perhaps one too many 
pain pills. 'Use caution when operating a motor vehicle, or writing 
fanfiction,' the label reads.

Shampoo a closet 'Jedi'? Akane a secret Trekkie? Unlikely, I know, but fun 
to think about considering just how much hype the aforementioned science 
fiction movie has generated in the last few months.

C.


* * *
Chris Jones - guilty@arn.net
The Ranma 1/2 Gallery - http://cyberwheel.simplenet.com/ranma

It's 1999. Do you know what your children are?

"The impeachment scandal tarnished everyone who caused it. On
the Democratic side, that would be: President Clinton. On the
Republican side that would be: The United States House of
Representatives."       - Jack Hitt