Chapter Text
Ranma 1.2
It all started with a spar.
Genma Saotome, practitioner of the Saotome School of Anything Goes Martial Arts, had lead his son, Ranma Saotome, deep into the Bayankala Mountains of China to find a legendary training ground he had found a guidebook to known as Jusenkyo. It was supposed to grant those who completed a special training regime there a boon or somesuch, the book was incredibly vague to start with, and it didn’t help that Genma couldn’t actually read Chinese. How did he know about the place then, you might ask?
Well, the person who sold it to him told him of course (Coincidentally, this was the same person who sold him the manual on the infamous Neko-Ken training).
But Genma wouldn’t let such silly things as curses and a language barrier keep him from tor- er, training, I meant training, his son.
When they arrived at the place, they were greeted by a guide, they never caught his name, but he was wearing Chinese military garb.
“Here sirs we come to famous training ground of cursed spring, Jusenkyo.” Here the guide brought out a sign with the name of the place in Chinese.
“Are you prepared, Ranma?”
“Ah man, this place ain’t near as bad as I thought it’d be.” He took off his pack and set it down, although a strange shiver went down his spine as he stared at the place before him.
“You sirs, you are very strange ones, no? This place is a very dangerous one, nobody use it now because more than one hundred spring here and each one have old tragedy happen there.”
“Ranma! Follow me!” Genm leapt forward.
“Right behind ya!”
“Hey sirs, what are you doing? I have no finish my tragic story! You can’t go there!” The warnings of the Jusenkyo Guide fell on deaf ears as the two prepared to fight, each balanced on top of a bamboo shoot.
“I won’t go easy on you, Ranma!”
“That’s just the way I like it!”
They leapt at each other, fists flying and feet blurring as they tried to get the better of the other.
“Please sirs! Very bad you fall in springs!”
It was right as the guide said this that Ranma kicked his dad into one, and he didn’t come back out immediately.
“Hey pops, what’s up? You done already?”
Suddenly a panda wearing Genma’s top burst from the water and somehow landed atop a bamboo shoot. Not even the guide could figure out how the thing didn’t snap under the large animal’s weight. “Rawr!”
“W-what the hell is that?!” Ranma cried confused as he stared at the large panda across from him.
“That one Shonmaonīchuan, Spring of Drowned Panda. Very tragic story of panda who drown in spring two-thousand year ago. The legend say now whoever fall into spring take body of panda.”
“Hey buddy, you never said anything about that to us…!” While he was focused on the guide, Genma-panda leapt at him and knocked him into a different spring.
The Ranma that went into the pool was quite different from the one that crawled out of it. For one thing, the former had black hair, a muscular physique, and a pigtail. The latter however had flowing red hair that reached a few inches past the shoulder, a not-so-muscular physique, and…
“Oh my, you fall in,” the guide then raced back into his hut and came back out with a notebook and glasses balanced on his nose as he flipped through several pages. “Fènghuángnīchuan, Spring of Drowned Phoenix. There very tragic legend of young phoenix who drown in spring two-thousand four hundred fifty-three year ago. Now whoever fall into spring take a body of phoenix.”
Luscious orange wings tinged with red extended out of the neo-girl’s back, although they were water laden at the moment so flying was out of the question. She coughed up water as she lay on the ground, not really registering the guide’s words. With the wings weighing her down, she had had a hard time getting out of the water, even with the pool being relatively shallow.
The guide brought over a kettle and a cup of water, he handed the latter to the redhead. As she was drinking, he spoke, “Curse is only temporary, hot water turn you back to male, cold water return you to girl phoenix.” As he finished saying this (and after she finished drinking), he poured the hot water onto her head, and the transformation was quite anti-climactic and not nearly as uncursey as either had hoped.
All that happened was the wings disappeared.
They stared at each other for a moment, before the guide nervously said, “Honored Customer remember it father that throw into pool.” Never let it be said that he had no sense of self-preservation.
Her eyes blazed. No, seriously, sparks were literally flying from her eyes and all she said next was, “Could you get me some cold water? I’m going to make a new rug. I hear panda fur is an excellent material.”
Still in self-preservation mode, the guide quickly obtained the water and dumped it on her head, and the wings popped back into existence.
And then she looked over the her currently-panda father who was trying to stealthily get out of sight and growled, “Father,” a shiver went up the elder Saotome’s spine. Ranma NEVER called him that, “You better start running. Cause when I catch you, YOU’RE DEAD!” And with that he bolted. She started running after him before he took to the trees and then she took to the sky, divebombing him at every opportunity as she chased him through the valley. Eventually she herded him to a cliff overlooking the springs, although he took a running leap off the edge, knocking a familiar-looking boy wearing black and yellow clothing along with a large pack and umbrella on his back off balance.
Ranma, having a unique aerial perspective, noticed this and swooped down, grabbing his arm and doing her best to get him back onto the cliff’s edge, but between the boy’s weight and her still getting used to her new body it was just too much and he slipped out of her grasp just before they reached it.
“No!” Her scream reverberated throughout the valley as she raced after him to make another attempt only for a large rock to come out of nowhere and smack her in the head, knocking her out straight away and resulting in her plummeting toward the ground, only to get swiped by the panda she was chasing.
Meanwhile the boy who fell crawled out of the pool that he had landed in, looking decidedly less human as he put one fur-covered paw in front of the other, shaking the water off himself before he blinked and looked down. The terrified yips that could be heard were quieted as the guide came over.
“Oh too bad, you fall in Lángzǎinīchuan, Spring of Drowned Wolf Cub. There very tragic legend of baby wolf who drown in spring eight-hundred forty-six year ago. Now whoever fall into spring take a body of young wolf.”
It was then that wolf-Ryoga keened, lamenting his rotten luck.
“You is lucky, customer, you almost fell in Heitowennīchuan, Spring of Drowned Black Piglet. Very Tragic story of little black piglet who drown in spring twelve-hundred year ago. I was actually looking forward to having pork for lunch.”
Suddenly he was grateful that that girl had grabbed him when she did, even if she couldn’t hold on. Now that he thought about it though, didn’t she have wings? While he was distracted the guide poured some hot water on him.
“Yeow! Watch it you… hey, I’m me again.”
“Hot water return you to normal, cold water activate curse.” The guide looked down. “Apparently you need work on retaining clothes when not cub.”
It was at that moment he discovered he was naked, and hurriedly covered his crotch with his hands and he looked back at the pool where his things were sitting at the bottom of. He went back to grab them when the guide grabbed his arm.
“No touch the water, touching it second time lock curse.”
Suddenly understanding the gravity of the situation, he grabbed a nearby fallen branch and used it to fish his things out of the water. After being assured that putting them on wouldn’t lock him he proceeded to get dressed, and then dumped any remaining water from his pack back into the pool.
It wasn’t long before found his thoughts wandering back to that winged girl who had tried to save him. “Who was that girl?” He asked himself.
The guide answered the rhetorical question. “That be Honored Customer, no know family name, but go by Ranma.”
The face Ryoga made at that tidbit of information was hilarious to behold, and the guide was quick to bring out a camera that he always kept for such occasions to record it for posterity (i.e. his daughter Plum).
The sad part was that he was almost saved by the rival that he had chased to China in the first place. And while Ranma couldn’t keep him from falling, she did her best, which was more than that weird panda could say considering it knocked him off the cliff in the first place.
The guide left him to his thoughts as he went inside to develop the film from his camera.
Back with Ranma, she was being carried unconscious with no real sense of what was going on, slung over a panda’s back like a used rag.
It was concerning to Genma when his son-turned daughter didn’t turn back into a boy with hot water. What was even more concerning was how the foolish boy attacked his dear master and father out of some misguided sense of revenge when clearly it was his own fault that this had all happened. After all, he had tried to tell him not to practice here but the brat didn’t listen, as usual (Naturally, everything Genma believes is false, but hey, imagination has to count for something, right?).
The journey back home (as Genma didn’t stick around long enough to hear about the Joketsuzoku) started then, but he had to take a detour when he noticed a dark cloud in the sky rapidly approaching. A few moments later had his eyes bulging in shock as he realized that it wasn’t a cloud at all but in fact a horde of winged people and they were headed right for him. He knew that because whenever he tried to get out of their path they changed direction to face him again.
“Growf! (Damnit!)” He swore under his breath. It was about this time that Ranma woke up, and started squirming frantically trying to get out of the unfamiliar grip as her just-awakened brain still hadn’t processed Genma’s transformation.
Genma tried to knock her back out but only succeeded in hitting air as Ranma deftly avoided all strikes on instinct. It was after a couple minutes of this that she somehow managed to slide out of his grasp, falling several meters to the ground as they had been mid-jump. Genma swore and tried to grab her before she got too far away but as he was already speeding in another direction he’d have to land before he could come back for her.
She belatedly tried flapping her wings, but as she had learned earlier with Ryoga (not that she knew it was him) she was still unfamiliar with her new form and as such she was slowly dropping to the ground.
It was around this time that the winged people caught up to her, surrounding her so that the panda couldn’t come back and then having several fly underneath her so that they would catch her.
Ranma was panting heavily as she finally noticed she wasn’t so alone anymore, and that she was completely surrounded. This wasn’t looking good as she was still out of it from Genma knocking her out on top of everything else so when she finally fell unconscious and started to plummet they were there to keep her safe.
Kiema held the new phoenix in her arms gently, her strong wings flapping in the wind as she pushed stray hairs from the girl’s face. Smiling softly, she nodded to the others and they took up a guard formation around the pair, watching from all directions lest that panda return.
Genma glared from below at the flock, not caring if they sensed his anger. After all, they were kidnapping his meal tick… I mean son, yeah, that’s it. It wasn’t like Soun was so far gone that he’d let his old friend marry one of his daughters (completely ignoring the fact that he was technically still married).
With Kiema and her precious cargo secured, the Phoenix people flew away, heading straight for Mt. Ho’o.
Ryoga looked on from below, he was in animal form again but this time he had a little backpack on. Since getting his new curse his original directional curse was diluted due to his wolf form having an excellent nose. He had used it to follow Ranma but then saw the flyers and knew he wouldn’t be able to keep following them indefinitely.
The flight to the mountain was uneventful, and Kiema glanced fondly at the resting girl in her arms. It had been several ages since a true phoenix had been born, and one coming out of a spring was even more rare as the spring itself did not default to true phoenix. It more often just made them like her and the others, who were winged but not phoenix.
And that was how it all began.