"Jusenkyo..." Ranma murmured as he let his gaze sweep across the valley. "After so many years, I'm back... and nothing has changed."
Back in Japan, right after the tragic accident which had turned the Tendo sisters into human-sized newts, Ranma had tried everything to turn them back to normal. He had asked Dr. Tofu, Cologne and even Happosai for advice. He had fought a couple of charlatans who had said that they had a cure for 'Jusenkyo poisoning' and threw Gosunkugi into a tree because he rammed a nail into Nabiki's behind. His protests and claims, he only wanted to exorcize the 'evil demon' within Akane and her sisters fell on deaf ears. But Kuno was the worst... In front of almost the whole school did he pull a REAL katana out of its sheath and tried to kill Akane.
Ranma knew that Dr. Tofu was right when he said that the Tendos couldn't stay in Nerima. Almost everyone began to believe Kuno's ridiculous story, and only Ukyo, Konatsu, the doctor himself and, to an extent, the Amazons, were willing to believe the Saotomes' and Tendos' side of the story: That Ranma and Genma had (with Nabiki's help) managed to order a complete barrel of pure, original Jusenkyo cursed spring water from China, to finally rid themselves from the Drowned Panda and Drowned Girl curses.
When the package arrived, the obvious happened: A fight broke out between Ranma, his father and Ryoga, who happened to be in the house at the time, since they own wanted to get a hold onto the water. In the chaotic mess, the barrel was sent flying... and right into Akane and her sisters.
Ranma now knew that the barrel had contained something that had a transformative effect on the Tendo sisters - but it wasn't water from the spring of Drowned Man. For a while, everyone thought that there might be a spring of drowned-girl-holding-a-newt or something like that, but the true horror began when they found out that the curse couldn't be fixed... not even with hot water. Ranma and Ryoga were grieved by what happened to Akane and her sisters and promised each other to stop their rivalry, at least until they found a cure for Akane.
Of course, Ryoga wandered off pretty soon after that. Ranma hadn't seen him ever since...
On the airport (it had been difficult to arrange for a plane that was willing to hide the three newt sisters on board), Ranma promised Akane that he would go to Jusenkyo personally, to try and find a solution for this mess. Personally, he didn't really believe the stories about the walking reptiles in the sewers of New York... the American news were always full of such silly stories. But he couldn't keep Akane from going to where a possible cure might be waiting for her. So they had a teary good-bye.
After the Tendos had left, Ranma told his father to continue their search for a cure in Japan... while he would go to Jusenkyo to find an answer to what happened.
And here he was... back in the accursed valley of springs, where everything started.
"The guide... he must know what sort of water was in that barrel," Ranma muttered to himself. "Maybe it was an honest mistake... but if he knows about that strange water, he must know a cure as well."
A little gecko had fallen out of the tree Ranma was standing under. He just wiped him off and walked over to the guide's little hut. He noticed that Jusenkyo valley was as desolate as ever... only one person was standing close to the spring. Ranma frowned a bit when he saw the heavy coat the man was wearing. He also wondered if that guy knew about the curses.
At any other time, Ranma would have warned that man to stay away from the springs... but now he had no time to waste. The memory of Akane's green-skinned face, as she looked back at him while entering the small cargo plane that was headed to the American continent, made everything else unimportant.
Ranma hurried over to the hut and knocked. A little girl opened. Her face brightened when she saw Ranma. "Honored customer, you've returned?"
"Hi there, Plum!" Ranma smiled. "Is your father home?"
"Yes, he is! He's eating lunch right now, but please come in, honored customer!"
While Ranma followed Plum inside, the man with the wide lab coat looked down into the clear waters of Jusenkyo.
If Ranma had only looked at his face, then he hadn't been so calm around him. The man's body looked human in that coat, sure... but his face looked like that of a giant fly!
"Bzzzz, Jusenkyo!" Baxter Stockman whispered to himself. "To think that I barely fell into one of the springs the first time I was here... I had no way of knowing that here, a cure for my horrible mutation is lying." He snickered. "I don't know what freed me from that dimensional limbo that accursed Shredder dumped me in... but it must be fate that made me appear here, right in Jusenkyo Valley."
Under his coat the two additional, more insect-like arms were moving around erratically. "The only thing that needs to be done... is to ask the man who cares for this place where the correct spring is located... the spring that can turn me back into a man! A HUMAN man!"
He turned around, but hesitated when he saw something in one of the other pools. He stepped closer, careful not to fall inside. "Bzzz? Now that's strange... I've never seen water of such a green color before. And somehow, this shade of green seems familiar..."
He went down on his knees and took a closer look. "There's no doubt about it..." he whispered. "There's mutagen in this spring. But... how did it come to be here? Very curious indeed... and a strange coincidence."
In the Technodrome, two days ago...
"Why do I always have to scrub the floor?" Bebop complained as he crawled around on the metal floor."
"Because someone needs to dust the machines, and my fingers are much more delicate than yours," his fellow henchman Rocksteady smirked.
"Yes, as delicate as a bull in Pisa," the porcine half of the mutant duo muttered.
"You're such an idiot!" Rocksteady grunted. "The running of the bulls isn't in Pisa, it's in Prague!"
"Is Prague even a Greek city?" Bebop wondered.
"The city with the bulls isn't in Greece, you moron!"
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I am! It's in Italy!"
"Ah... I never knew Prague was an Italian city... you live and learn..."
Rocksteady grinned. "Not me! I know EVERYTHING! I am the smartest mutant on Earth!"
In that moment, he hit one of the switches on the machine he was dusting off.
The two mutants jumped up in surprise when, all of a sudden, the portal leading to the Dimension X opened up. "Hey, be careful, Shredder always tells us that the portal uses too much energy!"
"No problem!" Rocksteady said. "We just throw something else through, then it will close again." And he took a small canister from the table and threw it through the portal, which closed itself as soon as the object went through.
"See, problem solved!" the smug rhino grinned.
"Um, what did you just throw through the portal?" Bebop asked.
"Ah, nothing important, just a canister of mutagen. You know Krang has more than enough of that stuff in storage..."
But what the two mutants didn't know was that the portal's programmed destination wasn't the Dimension X... it was Jusenkyo Valley in China.
And on it's way, the mutagen canister just happened to pass the dimensional rift in which Baxter Stockman had been stuck for a long, long time...
The Jusenkyo guide scratched his bald head. "I'm sorry, honored customer... but there no spring of drowned newt. We got spring of drowned toad, spring of drowned salamander, spring of drowned chameleon, spring of drowned poison arrow frog, spring of drowned snapper turtle, spring of drowned iguana, spring of drowned Mudkip... but no spring of drowned newt."
"But that barrel you sent me was full of cursed water, and it turned Akane and her sisters into talking NEWTS!"
The guide scratched his head. "Maybe was salamander?"
"I know what a newt looks like. I looked it up in Nabiki's books. It was no salamander, I swear it!"
"But Papa, why could hot water not turn the honored customers back to normal?" little Plum asked her father.
"Is too strange... normally, Jusenkyo cursed can't be locked, unless with Musk artifact..."
"I can't believe it! What kind of strange effect did that green water have?" Ranma groaned.
"Green?" The guide blinked. "Jusenkyo water never green."
"Are ya sure? The water that hit Akane, Nabiki and Kasumi was as green as Akane's last chocolate cake."
"If the water that cursed your friends was green, it was no Jusenkyo water," the guide proclaimed. "Jusenkyo water is never green!"
Suddenly, the door was kicked open by a strong, purple leg. "Maybe you should look at your beloved springs more often, old man!" the human-sized fly in the lab coat cackled as it came buzzing inside. "More than one spring is now contaminated with mutagen."
Plum yelped in fright and hid underneath the table. The Jusenkyo guide's pipe fell from his mouth when he saw Baxter. "Who...? You... you are cursed?"
"Cursed? Yes, this body is a curse indeed... but now you will show me where the spring of Drowned Man is, so I can be my normal self again!" Baxter shouted. "Or else..." He pulled a small gun out of his coat.
Only a second later, he flew back out of the little hut... with a nice footprint on his forehead. With a big splash, he fell into one of the springs.
"There's more where that kick came from!" Ranma shouted as he ran outside, after his opponent. "You leave that man and his daughter alone, ya hear me?"
Baxter Stockman angrily rose from the crystal clear water with a growl. 'If that Karate Kid wannabe wants trouble, he got it!' he thought. 'Let's see how he likes my shock gun...'
When he reached for his pocket... he realized that he wasn't wearing his coat anymore. It had been ripped into pieces during his transformation.
His transformation into a panda.
'How ironic that this guy fell into the same spring as Pops all those years ago,' Ranma thought when he smacked his fist into Stockman's skull, knocking the scientist-turned-fly-turned-panda out for good.
The pig-tailed martial artist grinned. "Well, that takes care of that!" He turned around and waved to the hut, where the guide and Plum had watched the whole battle with awe. "It's safe to come out now, he's out cold!"
And then Ranma slipped on the wet grass and fell head first into green spring water.
When Ranma came crawling back out of the spring, the first thing she heard was: "Papa, I thought that was one of the springs that aren't cursed?"
"Very strange..." her father replied. "And I know there is no spring of Drowned Gecko..."
'Wait a minute...' Ranma thought. 'Gecko?'
She looked down at herself... and saw that she was still the buxom, petite redhead she knew.
But this time around, she had green scales on her skin... and a tail, too.
There was only one way for Ranma to express her feelings in that moment.
"FUCK!!!"
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(Posted Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:05)
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