DISCLAIMER: "Ranma 1/2" is the registered trademark and copyright of VIZ Video, Kitty Film, Fuji TV, and Rumiko Takahashi. "Star Wars: is the registered trademark and copyright of 20th Century Fox, Lucasfilm Ltd., and George Lucas. All rights reserved. Any and all other characters belong to their respective copyright and trademark holders. *****

FOREWORDS: In the world of science fiction one name demands more respect from fans any almost any other. That name is "George Lucas". In 1979 he released a movie that would forever change Hollywood and would become the standard by which all other science fiction films would be compared to. "Star Wars" captured the hearts and minds of millions and it still holds them in its sway today with the release of the first two chapters to the saga.

This is not the first Ranma/Star Wars crossover, it will not be the last most likely, but that does not really matter. What does matter is the execution of the story. Most crossovers of this type, Jim Bader's "The Jedi Kasumi" being the best example, rewrite part of the "Ranma 1/2" saga but there is little or not change in Ranma at all. One fan fic actually cast Ranma as the Padawan of a Dark Jedi, but the story was not that good. A question I asked myself was how much would Ranma be changed if he did not have his father's influence over most of his life? What would also happen if Ranma was trained to be a Jedi Knight on the good side of the Force instead of the Dark Side?

Obviously I will try to answer these questions in this fan fic. According to the manga Ranma was about two years old when his father took him away from his mother. He was old enough to walk, so he was definitely around two or three. The Nekoken training took place when Ranma was six, it was also around the same year that the whole thing with Ukyo took place. I left much of this intact for this story. Ranma looses his father when he is six, so Genma had an influence over him for three years of his training. For this story Ranma will be OCC for good reason, but a few bits of the old Ranma we all know and love will show from time to time. As for the curse, I decided to leave that alone too. Ranma without his curse is like peanut butter without jelly, Abbot without Costello, Bill Clinton without a White House Intern. HA! I kill me! Anyway, I've meditated over all of this for a long time and this is the result. I hope you like it. As always C & C is welcome as long as it's constructive. Enjoy! **********

THE WAY OF THE FORCE

by Michael "The Zorch" Haney

**********

Chapter 1: Here's Ranma!

Rain fell in sheets over the city of Nerima, a quiet prefecture of the Tokyo, Japan. It fell onto the tiled roof of the home of the Tendo clan, ran down those tiles, and flowed noisily down through the gutters. Water also flowed down across the face of a lone figure sitting on the back porch. He held a letter in his hands and read over the kanji again just to make sure he read it correctly. It had been hand written, the writer had elegant handwriting. Tendo Soun put the letter down and wiped the tears from his eyes.

"Oh my dear old friend, how could it have happened?" he said in a low voice. His heart ached with the pain of loss. His dearest friend in the entire world was no more.

"Father? Are you alright?" Tendo Kasumi asked as she came out carrying a tray with the family tea service. He always had been a very emotional man, especially since loosing their mother, but the look on his face filled her heart with sadness. She had not seen that face on him since the night of the funeral.

"I-I just learned that my dear old friend, Saotome Genma, passed away over ten years ago." Soun said, the tears renewed their journey down his face. Memories of the olden days traveling with his burly friend at his side drifted into his mind like a stray summer breeze, and just as quickly faded.

"Oh my!" Kasumi said softly and knelt down with the tea service next to his father. She had heard him speak of him many times. They studied under the same sensei together many years ago. She had never met the man but some of the stories her father used to tell were rather incredible.

"His son has been traveling with a man named Tarin Abaru, " he told her. "That is whom the letter is from. Apparently Genma requested he take care of the boy the day he died, and now they are coming here." He wondered what sort of martial artist Ranma was now. Was this man Tarin a martial artist? If he was, what sort of style did he practice? Soun secretly hoped it was not Kendo, he knew it would remind Akane too much of the boy at school was a constant source of annoyance for her.

"We're going to have guests, I should make sure to make enough for 2 extra people." Kasumi said smiling happily as she got up and headed for the kitchen. She always enjoyed cooking for guests, the happy looks on their faces after eating one of her meals also made her feel so happy. This was going to be a special guest, the son of a friend of the family.

"They will be here today, but before they do there is something I must tell you and your sisters." Soun said as she walked by. A sudden feeling of dread filled Soun's heart. What if Ranma was already involved with someone? Certainly this Tarin would know nothing of the pact between the families.

"Alright, father, I'll see where Akane and Nabiki are." said Kasumi as she entered the house.

Elsewhere in the same city three figures walked down the street in the pouring rain. The first was a tall man with long white hair that hung down to his waist. He was garbed in an outfit that resembled a unique cross between a karate gi and a man's kimono. An air of power and peace seemed to surround him, his steps were graceful, evidence that his body was finely tuned, and he did not seem to mind the rain that was fall all around him drenching his clothes and his hair. Beside him walked two visions of immense beauty. The first was a short red haired girl dressed in baggy black trousers and a bag red Chinese style tunic. She was not smiling but she did not look upset either, her expression was neutral. Her red hair was cut short and tied back into a braided pigtail. Beside her was a girl almost as stunning as she was. She had long purple tresses that hung down to the middle of her back, small red bangles hung in her hair holding her twin ponytails. Her dress was far more revealing than the redhead's, it was a short cut Chinese dress that rode up high on her thighs and showed a generous amount of her ample cleavage. There was a slight smile on her face, which broadened a little whenever she looked in the direction of the red head.

"Sensei, I knew I should have gotten an umbrella." said the red head. Her voice was soft and soprano. She did not really mind the rain, nor the unusual effect it had over her. The one thing her sensei taught her was to make do with that you had if you made mistakes. Oh my, had she made one really huge mistake.

"The rain is refreshing after such a very hot day, my young Padawan." the tall man said. His voice was deeper, but had a gentleness to it that could be easily described in words. He also had an air of power about him, like the fury of a hurricane locked up in a bottle.

"It is going to take hours to dry out all our clothes in our packs." the purple haired girl said in Mandarin Chinese. She was used to being in the rain, often she had to train during the rainy season and often did so in the nude. That is when nobody was watching, that is, especially a certain boy whose name she did not care to remember or it might ruin her good mood.

"You should speak the native tongue, Shampoo, that way you will become more accustomed to it." the tall man suggested.

"Nihongo hard to learn, but Shampoo try." Shampoo nodded. The foreign words seemed so alien to her. She had been required to study Nihongo by her great grandmother as part of her training to succeed her, but it took a back seat to her physical training as she got older and it was clear she would be an impressive fighter.

"It is hard to learn only in your mind, focus your thoughts, and you will find it is far easier to learn than you expected." the tall man replied with a smile. "I had to learn both Nihongo and Mandarin from scratch so I did not have to depend upon my universal translator all of the time." he added.

"Tarin-sensei, are you certain this Tendo person is a friend of my father's?" the red head asked the tall man. She had few memories of her father, most of the ones she did have were not pleasant. He had not been one of the nicest people, so if that was so, what would this Tendo person be like?

"I do know that he studies the same martial arts style as your father, so there is some sort of connection there." Tarin told her. He was not certain himself what the real connection was. All he heard were old rumors and strange stories of the pair once traveling around Japan and China together in the company of an impossibly small man. The only person Tarin could recall who was as short as the old man had been described to be was the young Jedi Knight Yoda who had just earned a seat on the Jedi Council.

"I can't help but feel a little uneasy," the red head frowned. "Something just doesn't feel quite right." She felt it when they arrived in Nerima, an uneasy feeling. The last time she felt it was they came to a place filled with the power of the Dark Side, or that place with all the springs. She shuddered at the memory of "that" cursed place.

Tarin scratched his chin in thought for a moment and said, "I did feel an unusual tremor in the Force this morning." He looked at the red head, "Perhaps, Ranma, we should walk with caution, but I do not sense any impending danger ahead of us." He did not perceive danger ahead of them, but he did sense something that did make him slightly uneasy. There was something in the air around Nerima, the Dark Side had a veil over this place, he could feel it, but why and what its source was he could not determine.

"It isn't danger sensei," said Ranma. "Maybe I'm just nervous." She had been nervous since learning about the Tendo family and their connection to her father. That had been a month ago.

""Be mindful of your thoughts Ranma, let the Force be your guide, trust in your instincts and it will lead you along the correct path." Tarin told her and patted the red head on the shoulder. That was one of his favorite speeches, of course he had heard it from Master Yoda, who was perhaps one of the wisest Jedi he had ever known.

Elsewhere in Nerima, Tendo Soun sat before the dinner table facing his three daughters. They were all three beautiful. Kasumi had a graceful beauty with her long brown hair, modest attire, and gentle smile. Beside her sat Nabiki who sported a page boy haircut and dressed in a loose fitting T-shirt and shorts which showed off her impressive figure. The last was Akane, she was dressed in a white karate gi, her dark purple (Thought it was Dark Blue) hair hung in long locks down her back, tied back with a white ribbon. She was pretty, not as beautiful as her two sisters, but she had her own qualities that made her stand out.

"Iinazuke?" said Kasumi looking at her father in surprise. Did she hear him correctly?

"Yes, he is the son of a good friend of mine who-who passed away," Soun explained. "He has been traveling around Japan and China training under the man whom his father entrusted him with when he died. They will be here very soon. If one of you three girls were to marry him and take over this dojo, then the legacy of the Tendo clan would be secure."

"Daddy, how can you expect us to marry somebody we've never even met?" Akane asked him, a scowl on her cute face. 'Oh great, more boys, I bet he's a pervert like all the rest', she said to herself.

"Yeah, daddy, what is this Ranma like, is he cute, how old is he?" Nabiki asked. She was a bit more excited about the prospects of a cute guy coming to marry one of them. If he was cute enough and rich it was help, if he was not rich at least he would have great looks. It reminded her of just how lonely she was, and just how unlucky she was in the dating department despite the fact that she was the most beautiful of her three sisters.

"I do hope he is older," Kasumi said with a sigh. "Younger men bore." She did not really like immaturity in her men. She enjoyed older men who were more dignified, and had better manners.

Soun stood looking out into the back yard facing the koi pond. A fish decided to jump up out of the water and snag a passing fly. How was he going to explain this? "I have no idea." he said glancing back at them.

"I can't believe this." Akane groaned under her breath and looked away from her father. Her sisters looked at their father's back and frowned deeply. 'Oh great, he's a complete stranger and we're supposed to just go along with this, what a farce', she groaned inwardly. The tense mood was changed quickly when the doorbell rang shaking every one of their different moods.

"Oh my, that must be our guests". Kasumi said, as she got up to answer the door.

"Ooo, that must be Ranma!" Nabiki said with a bright smile on her face and hurried after her sister. 'Please let him be cute, please let him be cute', she repeated in her mind.

Akane just sniffed, stood up briskly, and walked towards the front of the house muttering, "Boys, how depressing." 'I bet he'll just go after me like all the other perverts in this town', she sighed in though.

At the door what greeted her eyes was not quite what she had been expecting. There was an older man dressed in what appeared to be strange robes. He was obviously a gaijin, possibly a Westerner. Beside him stood a girl with long purple hair who looked way too pretty for her own good wearing a dress that would put most of the boys in her high school into cardiac arrest on sight. She look like she might be Chinese, at least her dress was Chinese. The person in the middle was cute with short red hair, but was dressed in clothes that seemed a few sizes too big.

"Good afternoon, you must be Mr. Tendo," the tall man said. "I am Tarin Abaru, the one who sent you the letter, this is Mr. Saotome's heir Ranma, and the young girl is Shampoo of the Joketsuzoku of China." He regarded the people before him. He sensed a slightly latent ability to use the Force inside the one with the pageboy haircut. That would require some investigation later.

"Oh, he is cute!" commented Nabiki happily. He certainly was cute, very, very cute. She wondered at the baggy clothes, but assumed it was because he was a martial artist. His most striking feature where those incredible blue orbs. They shined on his equally cute face like a pair of diamonds. For only a moment Nabiki had unusual feeling that she looking at the face of a girl, but it lasted for only a few seconds. There was no way that could be, Ranma was a boy after all.

Soun's face filled with joyful tears as she reached out and grabbed Ranma into a tight hug. "Ranma, you have no idea how happy I am you are here," he weped. "I am so sorry to hear of your loss-I-I-huh?" He squeezed Ranma to his chest a few times, took the teen by the shoulders and held Ranma out at arm's length. Nabiki leaned in close to look at Ranma and her eyes trailed down to the teen's torso. She reached out with a finger and gave Ranma's chest a gentle prodding, feeling soft flesh she then reached out and took told of a generous amount of- Uh oh.

"Would you please not do that." Ranma said quietly. She did not mind really, Shampoo enjoyed playing with her but getting felt up by a stranger was not exactly something she liked happening out in the open.

"Ranma isn't a boy, she's a girl!" Nabiki snapped at her father. Soun's eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he fell backwards. She thought back to that brief moment when she thought she was looking at the face of a girl and almost wanted to kick herself. Well, she is cute., she thought.

"Oh my. Father!" Kasumi gasped. The other two sisters groaned. Why was Kasumi's reaction to anything surprise always the same old generic "Oh my"?

"Maybe we should have gotten that umbrella after all." Tarin said while shaking his head feeling a little embarrassed for having inadvertently caused this to happen.

*****

"Oh, father's awake," Soun heard Kasumi's soft, sweet voice as he opened his eyes. "He must be so disappointed." That was the understatement of the millennium, he could see the future of his family legacy crumbling into dust right before his eyes.

"He's disappointed! This is all your fault daddy, you should have made sure your friend had a son and not a daughter!" Nabiki scolded him. She was kneeling down next to him with Ranma, Shampoo, and Akane beside her. Kasumi knelt down on his other side. It figures when she had a chance to finally meet a guy who had never heard of Tendo Nabiki and her reputation he turned out to be a she. It would have helped maybe if she swung a certain way, actually she liked sitting on the fence really, but she was not ready to go or felt secure into going full out lesbian.

"But-But, when I last heard from Genma he told me he had a son." Soun stammered as tears filled his eyes. That was what he said in his many letters years ago., he thought.

Nabiki reached out and grabbed a huge handful of the red head's generous bosom. "Does this look like a son to you daddy!?" Nabiki said angrily. 'Geeze, she even has bigger tits than I do, its not fair', she fume inwardly.

"Uh, please stop doing that." Ranma said with a depressed expression. If she keeps fondling me like that I'll have to restrain Shampoo, she can so very protective., she thought.

"Hentai girl stop groping Ranma!" Shampoo snapped at the girl.

Nabiki leaned towards the Amazon pushing Ranma aside and stared into her face. "Excuse me, did you just call me a lesbian?" she asked. This girl was a real piece of work, she was certainly cute, very cute actually, almost as cute as the red head. Her broken Nihongo seemed to go along with her outfit and completed her bimbo sex-kitten appearance.

"Please, Shampoo this is no time to provoke a confrontation, there is a misunderstanding that must be resolved here." Tarin said after clearing his throat. He turned to Kasumi and asked, "Kasumi, would it be possible for us to have some warm water, not boiling, just hot?" He certainly did not want to have to help Ranma restrain the girl from attacking the young Tendo girl. It was not that they could hold her back, but for a person who did not use the Force she had a great deal of power.

"Of course, Tarin-sensei." she said and happily went off to the kitchen. She returned a moment later with a steaming copper teakettle. "Here you go." she said as she passed it to him. The robed man walked around to where Ranma was sitting and poured a generous amount of the hot water over her head. Instantly to the shock of almost everyone in the room Ranma's hair turned black, her chest flattened, and she grew several sizes taller and broader. Where there had been sitting a young pigtailed girl, there was now a young pigtailed boy.

"OH MY!" Kasumi gasped as Nabiki and Akane jumped over to the other side of their father. Soun sat up with shock and stared at Ranma for a moment then he began to weep. To say they were all shocked was an understatement. Yes they have all seen strange things at one time or another in their lives, they lived in Nerima after all, but this was just too strange for words.

"H-H-How?" Akane stammered the question and pointed at the handsome young man sitting in front of her. 'Oh great, daddy is trying to hitch us up with a transvestite', she said to herself in disgust.

"I blame myself, during our journey through China we came to this place called Josenkyo," Tarin explained. "Ranma had an unfortunate accident there. Josenkyo is an ancient martial arts training ground with hundreds of cursed springs." He took a breath then continued. "Whoever falls into a spring transforms into what drowned there when splashed with cold water." In the beginning he had not believed the stories, but upon reaching the training grounds his Jedi senses screamed "danger" the moment he set foot there.

"It is my own fault, sensei," said Ranma. "I should have listened to the guide's warning before jumping up onto those monkey poles." He also knew that he should have listened to the warning from the Force as well, which at the time has been screaming like a siren in his ear. The intensity of the feeling he had felt upon leaping up onto one of the bamboo monkey poles had nearly overwhelmed him. It was certainly enough to send him tumbling down to fall into the spring that would forever dominate his destiny.

"Curse?" Nabiki said inquiringly.

"Is ancient place, forbidden," said Shampoo. "Joketsuzoku use as to punish those who break sacred laws of Amazon women." She shuddered at the thought of it and the memory of some of her sisters who were punished in that way. Her third cousin was still cursed to turn into a crocodile.

"A-A-Amazons, the Amazons of China?" Soun asked a suddenly fearful look on his face.

"Hai!" Shampoo nodded happily with a smile. She wondered at the look of fear on his face. Perhaps he heard about their ferocity and feared her presence. It was good for a man to know his place. Ranma, he was a different issue, she could not treat him like a normal man.

"Warm water reverses the effects of Ranma's curse," said Tarin. "As you see, he is very much a young man." Hopefully this will ease the tension in the room. It was thick enough to cut with a lightsaber.

"Then . then you're problem isn't so bad after all." said Soun as he threw his arm around Ranma's shoulder. "Which makes me so very happy! Long before you were born, Ranma, your father and I were good friends, we trained under the same master together." He suppressed a shudder upon saying the word "master". 'Happy thoughts, think happy thoughts', he told himself.

"So you were a friend a of my father's." Ranma nodded in understanding. His heart filled with hope, perhaps this man would know of his mother.

"Hai," Soun replied. "After we both married, Genma and I made a pact of honor that we would join our two branches of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts. We agree that if we were to have a son or daughter we would engage them and the future of the Anything Goes School would be secure."

"Uh, engage?" Ranma said looking at him questioningly. Not again, how many girls did he engage me to before he died?, he asked himself. He did not mind the attention of so many girls, but his heart only belonged to one right now, and she was none to happy to hear this bit of news.

"No, Ranma is Shampoo airen!" Shampoo exclaimed and threw her arms around the pigtailed boy protectively. Ranma has told her of the other iinazuke that popped out of the woodwork during his travels with Tarin- sensei over the years. It seemed Saotome Genma had been a very busy man, or at least a very foolish and gluttonous one.

"Mr. Tendo, uh-no offense to you sir or your daughters," Ranma said nervously. "Uh-I think-uh-they are all-uh-very beautiful, and they're probably all-uh-very nice, but I'm already engaged." They were all very cute, especially the one in the one sitting in the middle with the short haircut, but he put those thoughts out of his mind.

"Nani!?" Soun shouted as he face faltered. He could almost see the pillars holding up the legacy of his family already starting to fall into ruin.

The man was back on his feet, his long hair stood up on end. "Son, please listen, this is a matter of family honor, in the name of your late father I demand you do what is right!" he shouted. It had to be done, they had made a pact. Genma was dead which meant Ranma had to honor the agreement, no matter what other commitments he had made. That was at least what Soun in his current state was about to reason out in his mind.

"Father, he's already engaged, how can you ask him to do that if he's in love with her !?" Kasumi yelled at her father as she looked at him angrily.

"This isn't about love, it's about duty!" Soun cried.

Perhaps this is why I felt the strange tremor in the Force, Tarin said to himself. "Ranma and Shampoo have been engaged for a short time," he said. "The circumstances of their engagement are rather unusual but it is no less official."

"Ranma defeat Shampoo, law say she marry him!" Shampoo argued.

"Did you say you have to marry him because he defeated you?" asked Akane, a strange edge on her voice. There was also a slightly dangerous gleam in her eye directed towards Ranma. He did not miss noticing it. She regarded him for a moment. He was handsome, very well built. It was obvious just looking at him he was a martial artist. She imagined him holding a wooden bokken and dressed in samurai garb. The thought made her frown ever more.

"After Ranma's unfortunate accident at Josenkyo our guide lead us through the Quing Hai mountains to the village of the Amazons, Nyanchiczu." said Tarin. He sat down, folding his legs lotus style and said, "Her people were holding a competition to see who would be the Village Champion- "

*****

"Ah sirs, this village of Amazon Womans, Nyanchiczu." the Josenkyo guide told them as they walked in through the walls of the village. In the village square, a challenge log had been erected over a large pond, a crowd of mostly women was gathered, and upon the log a savage battle was talking place.

"These woman very strong sirs, they holding competition, very great honor to be witnessing." the guide told them. His two customers, Tarin Abaru, and a red haired girl with a pigtail watched the fight before them. The combatants were women. The larger one look more like an ape than a woman, she was burly and huge with massive arms and legs. Her opponent, who appeared to be winning, was the most beautiful creature that Ranma had ever laid her eyes on. She had long light purple hair that was almost blue and dressed in a Chinese women's fighting outfit that suited her figure well without being too revealing. She was captivated by the immense skill the two fighters were showing off when her nose immediately picked up on the smell of something delicious.

She looked down towards the smell and noticed that she was standing next to a table that had been laid out like a buffet. Without asking first, with her stomach screaming out for food, Ranma dug in with both hands. She glanced up in time to see the lovely creature decimate her opponent with a few swift blows of her massive bonbori maces. Ranma remembered thinking that they were such huge weapons for such a small woman. How on earth did she manage to carry them let a lone move then around so fast?

"Uh, Ranma I don't think it would be a good idea for you to eat that." Tarin said. His Jedi senses told him trouble was coming, so he braced himself for anything. It seemed that wherever they went chaos seemed to follow in Ranma's wake.

"Huh, sensei?" Ranma said questioningly then followed his gaze down to the front of the table to a sign in Chinese kanji that read "First Prize".

"Opps!" she said turning red. 'Oh great, my first time visiting these people and I go and offend them', she chided herself harshly.

"You there, outsider girl, why are you eating my prize?" the beautiful fighter asked as she approached speaking Mandarin. The entire crowd now had its attention focused on the scene before them.

Ranma bowed towards the girl and said in Mandarin, "I beg your forgiveness, I acted in haste and did not see the sign." Now that she could see the girl up close, Ranma was immediately captivated by her incredible beauty.

"I will accept your apology if you join me on the challenge log." the girl said and pointed towards the rope suspended log.

"Sure, I'm a martial artist," Ranma said as she leapt up onto the log. "If that is alright, sensei?"

"It is an official challenge Ranma, you must accept." Tarin nodded. He could see a small fragment of the old Ranma, the brash, arrogant little boy he knew during his first days on planet Earth showing through.

"What are the rules?" Ranma asked turning back to the girl. 'Kami- sama, she is so beautiful, I wonder what her name is, I bet its as beautiful as she is', she said to herself.

"The one who remains on the log wins." the girl said. She studied her opponent for a moment trying to appraise her fighting skill. She was not sure, but she felt something about cute red head that was not quite right. There was a warning going off in her head at that, but she pushed it to the side. The fight referee, a young Chinese girl, walked up to the log between the two girls and waved a fan between them.

"Begin!" she shouted.

"HIYA!" the beautiful girl cried as she launched herself into action. Her opponent did not move an inch and for an instant she was certain she had an easy victory. Suddenly, the red haired one burred out of sight for a moment and Shampoo felt a powerful kick strike her below the breast. She went flying backwards, and landed hard. When her vision cleared she found herself on the ground and the crowd around was murmuring with gasps of surprise.

"Oh, too bad, she loose." said the guide. He suddenly began to feel very nervous. He knew these people very well and knew they would not take to this happening very kindly, so he readied himself in case he had to make a quick run for it.

The beautiful fighter picked herself up off the ground and walked over to Ranma who leapt off the log. "I hope I didn't hurt you, but I sensed you weren't holding back so I didn't either." she said. She did not fail to notice the look of mortified embarrassment on her face. The look on her face was mirrored by the feeling in heart. She had been beaten, beaten with one blow, and by a nameless outside girl who committed an offense against her. Ranma was surprised when the girl gently took hold of her chin, turned her face, and gave her a soft kiss on her cheek. She looked at the beautiful girl who just smirked at her and humphed.

"AHHH!!! Mr. Customer's we run quick!" the guide shouted grabbing Ranma's hand. Panic gripped him and his instinct for self-preservation kicked in full force.

"Whatever is wrong?" Tarin asked, but something was suddenly nagging at him. He recognize it as the subtle voice of the Force. Something just happened and he missed the entire meaning of it. Sometimes the Force was oddly vague about its warnings, but then if the Force just told people what was really happening in so much words how would they ever learn and grow as individuals.

"Amazon womans have much pride, to loose to outsider woman is worse than death," the guide yelled in a panic. "She give Kiss of Death, it is promise to track down to ends of Earth and kill!"

"K-K-Kill!?" Ranma stammered. She met people who wanted to hurt her, maim sometimes, but never kill. Well, there was that one boy who got lost all the time.

"There has been a terrible misunderstanding here, we will not run away." said Tarin turning towards the beautiful fighter. His hand crept slowly towards the lightsaber hidden under his robes just in case he needed to take a more direct approach. A Jedi never used the Force for attack, but defense was another matter.

"K-K-Kill!!??" Ranma continued to stammer.

"If you don't run now you're friend will be very dead." the Amazon women who refereed the fight said. She delighted in the fear and confusion on the red head's face. She had it coming for doing that to Shampoo, shaming her in front of the entire village.

"No, she will not." Tarin said, waving his hand in front of the woman. He reached out with the Force and touched her mind. It yielded easily to his manipulation.

"No she will not." the girl repeated her face suddenly looking emotionless.

"There has been a misunderstanding that must be resolved," he said, waving his hand again.

"There has been a misunderstanding that must be resolved," the girl said. The Josenkyo guide looked from the girl to the man and back again with an expression of surprise on his face. He had never in his life seen an Amazon back down to a man before in his life.

"Bring me someone of authority in this village." Tarin commanded, waving his hand once again.

"Bring you someone of authority in this village." the girl said and ran off towards one of the many houses. A few moments later the girl returned followed by the most unusual person either Tarin, or Ranma had ever seen before. She was an ancient, wrinkled old woman who stood about three our four feet high. She walked by using a twisted old wooden walking stick like a pogo stick. She had large eyes and long white hair that was longer than she tall. The crowd of women parted to allow her passage.

"What is going on here, what is all the fuss?" she demanded in Mandarin. Tarin could sense an air of nobility around the impossibly small woman and power. He did not sense any latent potential to use the Force within her, but he could tell a fight with her would seriously stress the limits of his Jedi abilities. Perhaps the stories of the little old man who traveled with Ranma's father at one time had been true after all.

"There has been an unfortunate misunderstanding resulting in my friend here receiving the Kiss of Death from this girl." Tarin explained and pointed towards the beautiful girl Ranma had just defeated. With only one blow, and without using the Force. The ways of these people did seem rather barbaric to him. Killing someone who defeats you in battle just because she was a woman, it seems senseless to him but he was put in this universe to judge other people's way of life.

"Is this true, Shampoo?" the old woman asked her. The beautiful girl, Shampoo, nodded with a happy smile. Shampoo, what a strangely cute name, 'I would have thought her name was Saffron or something along those lines.', thought Ranma.

The old woman turned away and was preparing to bound off when she said, "My condolences to your friend, it is our way." What a waste it was too, the girl had beaten her great grand daughter and that in itself was not an easy feat.

"What if the girl was not what she appears to be?" asked Tarin. He was not so much worried for Ranma's welfare, he was worried more for the Amazon girl. Ranma has never killed before, but there was always a first time for all things. For Jedi taking a life was often an unfortunate necessity. Besides that, Ranma had a lightsaber hidden in her clothing and he was certain the Amazon did not have a weapon that would fend that off. The blade could literally cut through almost anything.

"Only a few days ago we visited a place called Josenkyo." Tarin said. The old woman stopped, turned back and looked at the red head as if deep in thought. Josenkyo? This required investigation, and it filled her with a little hope as well.

"I will temporarily suspend my great grand daughter's Kiss of Death until this can be resolved," she said. "The perils of the cursed spring are well known to my people. If you speak truthfully I will rescind the Kiss of Death." 'And if I suspect what I think is true my great grand daughter's position in the village will assured', she told herself.

"Great grandmother!" Shampoo shouted. She certainly had the right to do that, but she did not like having her interfere like this.

"Silence child," Cologne snapped. "Perfume, go to my house and bring me the kettle on my stove." One of the girls in the crowd, another vision of loveliness carrying a pair of axes nodded and bounded away. She returned a few moments later with a steaming kettle. A few hours later Ranma and Tarin sat inside the old woman's house as she prepared dinner. Shampoo, her great grand daughter, sat across the dinner from them and kept looking over at Ranma. The pigtailed boy blushed a bit when he noticed her looking at him, her gaze was no longer filled with hate and contempt, except now it was filled with surprise . and a longing? Shampoo had never seen a more impressive looking man in her life, and he was a man who defeated her in battle. That said a lot for his fighting skills. There also seemed to be a kind of strange sense of power and peace surround him that put her at ease for some reason, but she could not put her finger on it.

"Let me understand this, Miss. Cologne, you are rescinding the Kiss of Death," Tarin said. "But instead you are making it a Kiss of Marriage?" 'She's trying to rope a husband for her great grand daughter', he realized.

"Shampoo is the strongest and most skilled warrior in our village," said Cologne as she prepared their plates. "Only another martial artist of considerably greater power could have defeated her. It is our way that if an Amazon woman is defeated by a strong male that she must marry him so that his strength can be added to our own."

"That is eminently logical, but should that not be something for Ranma and Shampoo to decide on their own?" Tarin asked. In nature the females of most animal species almost always selected the fittest or strongest to be their mate. Breeding one powerful martial artist with another would produce children with great potential. There was also the added benefit of combining the fighting styles of the parents into a stronger suite of techniques.

"Six thousand years of Amazon history are at stake here," said Cologne, she tossed filled plates onto the table one by one without spilling a single drop. Tarin looked at the plates then back at the old woman with a look of respect on his face. 'She is extremely skilled for someone without the power of the Force', he said to himself. "Shampoo is to succeed me as matriarch of our people, if she is to lead she must have a powerful man at her side to help bring strong new blood into the village for future generations."

"This could not possibly happen," Tarin told her shaking his head. "Ranma is in a very important stage of his training and it would be incredibly dangerous to interrupt it." The Dark Side seemed to take delight in tempting young Padawans into his embrace. He did not fear that Ranma would go along that path, he showed no indications of wanting to pass over to the Dark Side, but there was always that danger during this phase of the training so close to the final trials.

"Agreed, he 'must' continue his training, but he will marry Shampoo." said Cologne. If he was still in training, and he was able to defeat Shampoo then when he was finished with his training he would be an even more impressive fighter. In this, he made an even better husband for her great grand daughter. A lot better than the fooling boy who would not take her refusals for an answer.

Later that night Ranma sat out on the roof of the house. Cologne gave him and his sensei a spare room to stay in while they were in the village. The pigtailed Padawan lay out on the tiles and stared up at the stars. Tarin-sensei came from somewhere out there, 'I wonder what that Republic he keeps telling me about is like', he said to himself. His finely tuned Jedi senses told him he was not alone and he looked to the side. Shampoo stood there in a mandarin dress that reached down to her knees and just looked at him.

He then looked back up to the sky. "I like to look at the stars, I always did ever since I was little." he said. It was one of the few pleasant memories he had of the days before meeting Tarin-sensei.

"I never really noticed, I was usually in training most of the time." she said as she sat down next to him. He has such a nice voice. she thought to herself.

"Sometimes you have to stop and take notice of the beautiful things around you, that is what Tarin-sensei often tells me." said Ranma. He look at her briefly and shivered. He could not believe he was in the presence of a girl who more beautiful than a dream.

"He seems like a very wise man." Shampoo said. He reminded her of an elder, the only thing about was the fact that he was male instead of female. Other than that he was a descent person.

After a few moments of quiet Ranma decided to speak. "My father was killed by the Yakuza when I was little," Ranma confessed. "He wasn't a smart man, made a lot of bad mistakes, and one of them cost him his life. I saw him take three bullets, and I was only six years old. I ran away terrified, I hated myself for it because my father had always taught me to never show fear. That was when I met Tarin-sensei." That had been when his life took a full one hundred eighty-degree turn for the better. Gone were the nights of freezing in the cold while his father slept in a warm sleeping bag. Gone were the days of going without food while his father stuffed his face. Despite the abuse he remembered from his past he still loved his father. He had brought him into this world, and for that he had to thank him for at least.

"He took you in?" Shampoo asked. 'That was rather nice of the man', she said to herself.

"Father was still alive when we went back," he said, a tear ran down his face. "With his last breath he asked Tarin-sensei to make sure I was safe and to take care of me. I've been with him ever since. He's been like a father to me, he's taught me so much and there isn't any way I could possibly repay him for all the things he's done for me." Ranma then looked intently at her shimmering eyes. She knew that he did more than care for the man, he loved him like he was his father.

The young Amazon sighed looked briefly at the starry sky and then as her companion did said her story. "My mother died," said Shampoo. "Cancer took her. She was exposed to chemicals from a government run paper mill several miles away. They contaminated the waters with their waste, and my mother unknowingly drank some of it. The mill was ultimately shutdown, it was too expensive to keep running the government said, but I know the real reasons." Her heart filled with sadness at the memory of seeing her mother on her deathbed. She smiled a little at the memory of the raids they perform late at night sabotaging the machines of the mill when the workers were gone. The cost of the constant repairs to the equipment and increased security were starting to skyrocket, and the local officials decided to scrape the plant altogether. But by then Shampoo's mother, as well as many others it had affected paid the ultimate price.

"I'm sorry." Ranma said sitting up. The light of the moon shown on Shampoo's face, reflected in her eyes. Ranma felt a clenching feeling in his chest. 'Kami-sama, she is so beautiful', he thought to himself.

"I have my great grandmother, she is very nice . unless you get on her bad side." Shampoo said with a smile. She was her support during the first few months after he mother died. If she had not had her, Shampoo was certain she would not be the person she was today.

"W-W-What do you think about this engagement thing?" he asked her. He looked at her with a little hope in his heart. Ranma had never thought about getting involved with a girl before. Tarin-sensei had neither encouraged it nor discourage him from it. He did make sure Ranma was well educated in how to deal with a girl though. The little speech about the "birds and the bees" had been rather enlightening.

"It is our way, it is the ancient law of our people which has made us so strong and kept up safe for six thousand years." said Shampoo. She felt pride when speaking about her people. They survived through so much hardship over the past few thousand years. The latest example of their staying power of their ability to last through the domination of the communist government relatively unchanged.

"I-I know what the laws say, but what do 'you' think about it?" he asked again. He felt a soft, gentle hand cover his own and looked up at the girl. She was sitting closer to him, her hand on his, a gentle smile on her lips. Her skin is so soft, I expected them to be rough, but its not., he said to himself.

"Since I was a little girl I dreamed of one day meeting a strong man and becoming his wife," she said softly. "In my dreams he was very strong, he was very handsome. You are all these things." Ranma blushed furiously and looked away. Was he the one? Shampoo had wished for this day to come for so long, to find a powerful man to love. Ranma had certainly proven how powerful he was.

"C-C-Can I tell you something?" he asked her. Should I say it, what if I offend her?, he asked himself.

"Sure." she replied softly.

He looked back up at her and said, "When I first saw you I thought you were the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my entire life.". Ok, I said it., he thought and looked at her for her reaction. She smiled at him and blushed furiously. A good sign.

"If-If-If you want to, we can give this a try, see if it works?" he asked her. Shampoo nodded with a smile, they held each other's hand and sat together on that roof until late into the night. The longer they spent with one another the more it felt right in their hearts. Slowly the moved closer to one another going from holding hands to embracing, even cuddling. It was love at first sight.

*****

"That was so romantic." Kasumi sighed. It was true love, her father could not possibly break up a relationship like that now.

"Her great grandmother and I found them both asleep on the roof in each other's arms." said Tarin. He smiled a bit at the memory of it. They both look so cute laying there in the warm night air. Certainly they did look right for one another.

"See daddy, you can't possibly make him choose like that." said Kasumi.

"I'm not marrying the pervert, he turns into a girl." Akane said with disgust. I bet he looks at himself in the mirror, the pervert!, she shouted inwardly. There was no tell what else he probably did when in girl form too. The thought made her skin crawl. Yes she liked to occasionally stimulate herself, it was perfectly normal for a girl, but he was a guy. It seemed wrong.

Soun turned to Tarin with a pleading look in his eyes and said, "Sir, you are a man who understands honor. This is vitally important to the future of the Anything Goes School of Martial Arts. If it is not passed on it will die out and will never be seen of again."

"Ranma has not trained under the Anything Goes style for many years since his father's death," Tarin explained. "He has been learning the art of the Jedi from me ." This is where they would have to reveal certain truths. Obviously they would be curious as to what discipline Ranma has studied under all of this time.

"Jedi?" everyone except Ranma and Shampoo said questioningly. They had never heard of that before.

"I think we're giving them a little too much at one time sensei." Ranma said laughing at the bewildered expressions on everyone's face. He wondered if these people would be able to handle the truth of Tarin- sensei's extraterrestrial origins. Yes, he came from the stars, but he was still human though.

"Oh my, look at the time, and I haven't finished dinner yet." Kasumi said and she hurried off to the kitchen. As far as she was concerned the issue was closed. Ranma loved Shampoo, she wanted nothing to do with anything that threatened such a power relationship.

"Let us not make any hastily made decisions," Tarin said as he stood up. "Ranma and Shampoo have only just met one another a weeks ago, and your daughters have only just now met him. It is unfair to force such a decision on his shoulders like this until he has gotten to know all of them better, besides there may be an alternate remedy to this situation." Besides, he had studied the laws of the Amazons and found an interesting loophole that might work to remedy this situation. That was assuming his Padawan and his vivacious bride to be approved.

"How so?" Soun asked, his curiosity peaked, Hope was restored, and the crumbling legacy of the family began to rebuild itself.

"I will explain that in detail when the time is right, as for now we need to dry our belongings from our walk in the rain." Tarin said. He could also do with a good bath, his robes were getting heavy and cold.

"Of course, uh-Akane could you show our friends where they can find the wash room and the bath so they can freshen up." Soun said turning to his youngest daughter.

"Sure, it's this way." Akane said and waved for the others to follow her. She showed them to the wash room and the adjoining bathroom with the large furo. A few hours later the three were bathed and dressed in fresh dried clothes and sitting at the dinner table. Akane helped Kasumi bring the food out from the kitchen and set the table for their guests then took her seat next to Nabiki.

"What sort of martial arts do Jedi practice?" Akane asked Tarin. "I never heard of this Jedi thing before, is it new?" she also asked. She could care less about Ranma no matter how gorgeous he looked compared to the boys at her school. Where the hell did that come from?, she asked herself.

"I am not surprised you have not heard of the Jedi," he told her. "For Ranma and I are the only practitioners of the Jedi arts that walk this world. For now." They were probably the only Jedi in the galaxy as for as he could tell. None of the stars around the Earth matched anything in the portable navigational computer he carried, and it was programmed with all the known systems of the galaxy from the Jedi Archives.

"The Jedi arts are very similar to martial arts in many respects, but are also very different in others." said Tarin. "The true power of the Jedi is out ability to use the Force."

"What is that?" Nabiki asked. Maybe it was their word for "chi" or "ki". She sometimes heard her father mentioning it to Akane during their occasional training sessions. It has something to do with improving yourself as a martial artist, thus she paid it little mind since was not interested in learning how to beat someone up when she could just pay someone to do it for her,

"It is an energy field from which a Jedi draws his power," Tarin explained. "It surrounds us, binds us together, life makes it grow, the Force guides us, it speaks to us." He knew Master Yoda would be very pleased with him for using his speech again. For such a small creature the Jedi was certain something else.

"You make it almost sound like a religion." said Nabiki. She wondered if they were warrior priests of some kind, a cult?

"In some ways it is, for the Force has a will of its own, and we follow its will." he told her.

"What sort of power does this Force give you?" Akane asked. She was curious. If Ranma knew how to use this power it must most certainly improve his martial arts skills, and if she could learn this Force thing it might help her. Perhaps, she reasoned, there was a use for Ranma after all.

"The powers of a Jedi are many and varied." he told her. "But to use the power one must have the gift use the Force." He did not fail to notice the eager expression the youngest one's face. He did a quick appraisal of her. She seemed too eager to learn about the Force. She was someone who tended to try and take the quick and easy path. That path often lead to the Dark Side. It was comforting to know she had no latent ability to use the Force within her or she might have one day become a problem.

Time to let her down easily. "I do not sense the latent power to call upon the Force within you Tendo Akane." he told her. The eager look of hope and anticipation crumpled into a frown of disappointment.

"In your sister, however, I do sense potential." he gestured toward Nabiki. It was there, not as strong as Ranma's immense potential, but it was still very strong.

A surprised and wide-eyed Nabiki pointed at herself, "Me?" She had not studied martial arts since her mother passed away. Now this guy was telling her she had the potential to use some mystical power of or some such.

"The Jedi code does not permit me to take more than one Padawan learner, but you could learn through observing my training sessions with Ranma." Tarin told her. He could sense the chances of this one falling towards the Dark Side were smaller than with the younger girl. Within each of the members of the household he could feel a hidden pain, a feeling of loss that they all carried. Perhaps it was a loss of a family member from long ago. I seemed to have profoundly dominated the destiny of the family. This also certainly required some investigation on his part to learn more.

"Maybe it would help if I knew what all this Force stuff was like, that might help me understand better and I'd be able to make a decision." she replied. Tarin nodded in agreement. He could see she had a good head on her shoulders. She was no martial artist, that much he could tell, but you did not have to be one to become a Jedi. There was more to being a Jedi Knight than fighting. That was something that Ranma sometimes seemed to forget.

"I saw that your house is attached to a dojo," Tarin said speculatively, looking in the direction of the structure. "If we could use it later on today you could watch our daily practice session." He had made the offer. That was the best he could do under the code. He was stretching the code a bit when it came to Ranma's engagement to Shampoo. Under the code Jedi was not supposed to get married at all, but it was an option to enforce that part of the code here while being isolated from the Jedi Council.

"Sure, after dinner." Nabiki said with a smile. She did not miss the frown directed her way by Shampoo, and the fact that she moved a little closer to Ranma. 'She thinks I'm after her man', she realized. Well, she had to admit he was very nice to look at. He had an incredible body, every inch of his frame was in almost perfect muscle tone, but his build was not too overdeveloped like the bodybuilders in the school's gym class. He had the body of a powerful martial artist who was at the top of his game. She would have to wager on how many girls at Furinken would fall in love with him at first sight. Compared to the skinny perverts at her school Ranma was an Adonis, he would probably have an army of admirers the first day he attended classes. Nabiki reminded herself to set up a betting pool to see how many girls tried to ask him out on the first day. Of course, they would all have to get past Shampoo, and that would require another wager to see how many could survive long enough to ask him out. All in all, things were starting to look up financially. There was also Kuno to take into account too. How would he react to the pigtailed mega-hunk living under the same roof as her ever-popular sister? Probably not very well, Kuno baby had a very strong inferiority complex and any threat to his delusion as Kami-sama's gift to women was violently opposed. Hell, anything that threatened to impose on his quaint little fantasy world he lived in automatically deserved to be destroyed, with the utmost urgency. It was that quality about the bokken wielding baka that made him so easy for her to lead around by the nose all the time. Ranma, he was different. Nabiki could tell right away that he was not altogether the brightest of guys, but he would be a lot harder to manipulate. She was not sure why, but something within her, a voice of sorts she could not recognize, warned her that trying to manipulate him would be a bad idea. She heard this "voice" before speaking to her, warning her of danger. Nabiki usually obeyed her instincts, and this one was practically screaming at her.

Later, Akane and Nabiki were seated in the dojo with Shampoo sitting not far away keeping a wary eye on them. Ranma and Tarin stood in the center of the dojo facing off one another. For a long moment neither person moved, but suddenly as if by some unspoken command the two sprang to action. Akane's mouth fell open, the stick of Pokey she's been chewing on fell to the floor with a slight pinging noise. Never in her life had she seen two people move so incredibly fast, it was almost superhuman. The bodies of Tarin-sensei and Ranma blurred as they bounded all around the dojo trading blows in some sort of martial arts style that Akane could not identify at all. She saw some similarities to Kempo or Karate, but there were little bits and piece of what looked like Tai Kwan Do, or at least she thinks it was. It took her highest efforts to keep watching them bounce around the dojo like a pair of hyperactive jumping beans the two fighters return to their places where they had started.'

"You're physical prowess is improve my young Padawan," said Tarin. "But, how is your skill with the lightsaber progressing?"

'Lightsaber? What the hell was that?' The Tendo sisters watched as Ranma and his sensei withdrew something that looked like the hilts of swords without the blades. Upon closer inspection they looked more like high-tech flashlights rather than sword handles, but they were certainly long enough to be the pummels to a space-age katana. There came a click, a hiss, and a sizzling sound like electricity passing through high tension power lines. Slender blades of light extended out of the handles and grew to the length of a large sword. Ranma's weapon shimmered with a blue blade while Tarin's was a bright green. The weapons hummed louder as they were moved, then the two fighters leapt into action. Moving as fast as they had before they attacked each other, their weapons issuing loud screeches as they struck. Five minutes of the most furious, intense sword fighting Akane had ever seen played out in front of her until the two fighters withdrew to their starting positions and deactivated their weapons. The blades made a fizzling sound as they diminished. Neither fighters seemed to be sweating nor breathing hard.

"Holy shit." was the only thing Nabiki could manage to get out of her throat. 'Kuno baby would not stand a chance in a fight with this guy!', she realized. 'Hell, he could cream the entire Kendo Club!'

Akane just swallowed hard. She had never seen anything like that before in her life. What was up with those glowing swords?, she wondered also. How did they move that fast? Why weren't they sweating or even breathing hard? She got the sinking feeling that Ranma was light years ahead of her in fighting skills. If only she knew just how close to the truth she really was. She looked over at Nabiki, a bit envious. Tarin- sensei said she had the potential to be a Jedi like Ranma, but he could not formally teach her because his rules said he could only have one student at a time. She could learn by example by watching him and Ranma. Her sister, the girl who had no interest in martial arts at all, had the potential to be just like the pig tailed sex-changing boy. The gravity of it all almost made her want to faint.

"I think we have sufficiently impressed our audience." Tarin said with a satisfied smile upon seeing the reaction from the two girls.

"Ranma is just a Padawan, but he is progressing better than I had ever expected." Tarin said. He looked over at Nabiki and asked, "If you are interested, I will permit him to give you limited instruction in the use of your latent Jedi powers?" Nabiki looked at the pigtailed boy with a stunned expression. In the artificial light from the ceiling she could clearly see more of him than she could before. He was gorgeous beyond description dressed only in his white martial arts gi. A part of her heart which had grown cold over the years began to slowly grow hot again, that part of her that was set aside for the sake of her family so she could take up the duties that her father normally handled. That was making money to keep the family from loosing the house to creditors and ending up homeless. She put her life on hold for the family. She lost out on several opportunities at happiness with young men who were interested in her before she earned her reputation as the Ice Queen of Furinken. Nabiki knew she was beautiful, the constant line of possible suitors she had when she was younger was evidence of that, but that line died down as word of what she was like and what she did got out. Pretty soon, no boy would dare approach the Ice Queen to ask her out or face a fate worse than death. Smothering debt. It tore at her heart, she wanted to have someone to reach out to, someone to love, and to love her back. No, she needed someone to love her, to hold her, to cherish her. She needed him. Never had she ever wanted someone so bad in her entire life. If he rushed over to her and ripped off all her clothes she would not resist one bit, she would probably help him. When she came out of her revelry she immediately felt the tender soreness of her breasts as her rigid nipples struggled against the tight fabric of her bra, and there was the warm wetness between her legs. She was turned on something fierce, and was thankful to the Kami that she had gotten new batteries for her play toy she keeps hidden in her room for those lonely nights. She was going to need them tonight or she was going to go crazy. The prospect of being taken apart by Shampoo, who looked like a fierce fighter in her own right, for trying to seduce her iinazuke did not appeal to her at all. She would have to make sure Shampoo did not suspect anything of how she was starting to feel about the boy.

"Ok, I guess that could work." she said nonchalantly, hoping that she could hide the shudder in her voice. 'Kami, I wanna run over there and ride him like a wild bronco!', she screamed inwardly. She would have to remember to get more batteries, she just knew she was going to run these new ones out tonight. Well, at least she would get to use some of the more interesting attachments she did not get to try yet.

Kasumi lead Tarin and Ranma upstairs after nightfall and showed them to the guestroom. She quickly went to the closet and pulled out the sleeping mats, pillows, and blankets for her guests. The room the two would be sharing was sparsely furnished, it had been meant as just a guest room after all. The floor was made up of tami mats, the door was the sliding type with rice paper pasted across the square latticework of the door. There was a dresser for Ranma to store his clothes, what little he had, and one closet for him and his sensei to share. He was use to sleeping in the same room as Tarin-sensei, so he was perfectly comfortable being with the man. After stowing their traveling gear in the room they went down to join the others for evening tea before it was time for bed. Shampoo reluctantly accepted to share a bedroom with Kasumi, after the eldest Tendo sister convinced her it was not appropriate for her to sleep in the same room as Ranma as she had been insisting most of the day. The conversation at the table change abruptly when Akane asked a question.

"What was with those glowing swords?"

Tarin-sensei withdrew his lightsaber and held it out to her. She took it into her hand as was amazed at how light and well balanced it felt. It was made is metal, the handle had grips that looked like rubber but did not exactly feel like rubber. The end was a tube cut into a cross-section and within was a multi-faceted lens of some sort. She found what looked like a contact switch, turned the lens section away from her, and pressed it. The weapon emitted the same sizzling sounds and the green blade sprang to life. The handled seemed to vibrate in her hand.

"The lightsaber is the weapon of the Jedi Knight," he explained. "It is an elegant weapon requiring the great skill to master."

"Its beautiful." Kasumi gushed in gleeful wonder.

"Is it magic?" Akane asked the weapon's owner. Tarin shook his head.

"No, explanations of how it works would be far above your understanding for right now." he told her. Akane frowned at that. She was sure she's probably be able to understand the principle of how it worked, she was smart.

"Essentially the blade is a beam of superheated plasma energy," he said, giving a much simpler explanation than the technical facts that would have completely stupefied them. "It can literally cut through any substance including metal and rock." Akane reached out to touch the side of blade. Tarin's hand flashed out faster than the eye could see and stopped her.

"I wouldn't do that," he warned. "This blade can melt through lead on contact. Imagine what it could do to bare flesh." Akane's eyes went wide with shock, she had just nearly lost her fingers due to her ignorance. Tarin took the weapon from her hand and deactivated the blade.

"Would I be getting one of those?" Nabiki asked. She really did not want to learn how to sword fight, especially with swords that could cut through anything, but she thought it would be cool to have one anyway.

"When you are ready to begin that part of your training," he told her. "It is a very dangerous weapon so I think you should begin by first practicing with Ranma each morning using bokken." 'Oh geeze, wouldn't Kuno baby find that interesting.', Nabiki thought to herself.

"Alright." she said with a smile directed towards Ranma. If it meant spending quality time with the Saotome boy she would endure just about anything. Of course, she was not interested in suffering immense pain. She would have to do something about Shampoo. She could see the Amazon glaring at her suspiciously. 'Oh shit, does she suspect me?', she wondered.

Later, Nabiki walked up the stairs to her room to turn in for the night. She opened the door to her room and was about to walk inside when a powerful, slender arm reached around and grabbed her around the neck. She was yanked backwards painfully and then she was heavily pressed against the other wall. She did not have to guess who her attacker was, so she was not a bit surprise to see Shampoo's disgustingly cute face glowering at her in the gloom of the dimly lit hallway.

"Ranma belong Shampoo, sneaky girl no try to steal or Shampoo get very angry." the Amazon told her in a hushed tone. Nothing further was needed to be said, Nabiki had an idea of exactly what this girl would and could do if provoked. Fortunately for Nabiki, she was the Goddess of Subtle Manipulation.

"Don't worry, I won't," she said in her most reassuring voice. "He's just going to teach me that's all. Anyways, if he loves you so much you don't have to be so insecure about your standing with him. Don't you trust your iinazuke?" Heh, heh, she tried that line before on a different girl once and it worked perfectly. It would be no different in this case either- almost.

"Shampoo trust airen, she no trust sneaky hentai girl." said the Amazon.

"There you go again, calling me a lesbian." Nabiki said, her eyes narrowing in frustration.

"You like grab girl breasts," said Shampoo with a dangerous twinkle in her eye. "Maybe hentai girl try to seduce Shampoo by chasing airen, no?"

Nabiki turned crimson. Sure, she was bisexual and was not afraid to admit it. It was hard not to be with her reputation with the boys, her only companionship with the girls, and quite a number of them at Furinken often swung in both directions. With the kind of boys that graced the halls of that school she was surprise none of the girls became raving lesbians by their senior years. Ranma had been the only guy in a long time to get that kind of reaction to come out in her, and it was starting to happen again as Shampoo pressed her breasts against Nabiki's. 'She's pretty, uh, pert'., Nabiki realized, then she suddenly discovers that the girl did not wear a bra under her dress. Her breasts were naturally that pert and perfectly formed. It must be due to all the working out the girl does.

"I gotta get to bed, I have school tomorrow, bye!" she said quickly as she pushes past the girl and closes the door behind her. Boy that was close., she said to herself. It is going to be hard for her to keep her cool with those two in the house, and almost as hard to keep her virginity. Not that it was intact anyway. Sometimes in her early development she had gotten back into martial arts for a short time, but then stopped as her business at school began to eat up her free time. She would later discover after a visit to Dr. Tofu that she had broken her own hymen while doing exercises. It was around that time that she discovered the joys of sex toys. She had been introduced to the world of dildos and vibrators by one of her associates, who was bi, and who was also Nabiki's first experience having sex with a girl. She had never done it with a guy yet, but she had certainly experienced the next best thing with what she kept hidden in her room. With that in mind, she threw off her clothes, raced to the bed, and grabbed her toys out of their hiding place. Outside, anyone passing by her bedroom door might be able to hear the slight sound of buzzing the almost audible sound of soft moaning.

*****

"What do you think of the Tendo sisters?" Tarin-sensei asked Ranma as they prepare to lay down for the night. He could sense the unease in his Padawan.

"I don't know, I guess they are alright sensei." he said.

"Akane does not seem to like me much, I think she has a major issue with my curse for some reason, at least that is what I can gather from her." he told his sensei. "Kasumi is very sweet, she's kind, and she can really cook well. Nabiki, I get a weird feeling from her. Today in the dojo I had this feeling like she was sizing me up like a side of beef." Tarin laughed, he had been around more often than he could count and he knew lust when he sensed it.

"Actually, I think she was interested in a different sort of beef." he said, snickering a little.

Ranma laughed and scratched the back of his head nervously. "I guess I have that kind of effect on girls, don't I sensei.," he said. Sometimes it took all the will power he had to keep from deflowering Shampoo sometimes. Often the things she did to motivate him into initiating lovemaking were almost too powerful for him to overcome without employing the Force.

"You're a handsome, strapping young man," Tarin told him. "Some girls are attracted to your type." He wanted to reiterate that and say MOST girls were interested in his type. He could not remember the number of times Ranma had attracted a flock of admirers when he practiced his kata with his shirt off outside. Ranma was like a girl magnet, and most of the girls he attracted were in breeding mode. It made Tarin a little envious of his Padawan for all the attention, but he was happy for the boy. He had a girl, who loves him, as much he loved her. There was the little piece of knowledge about Amazon law he discovered that might aid in satisfying the honor pledge with the Tendo family. But how should he go about bringing the subject up with Ranma and Shampoo. Tarin decided he would sleep on it and think about tomorrow. With that decided the two lay down and pulled the covers up to their chins. Reaching out with the Force, Tarin pulled the switch on the lights and soon they were both sound asleep.

Down the hall most of that night the sound of buzzing could be heard.

**********

Coming up next...

Part 2: Darth Kuno

Ranma and Shampoo go to Furinken for the first time and discover "weird" is too simple a word to describe what happens at the place every morning. Ranma has the inevitable encounter with the Blue Thunder, but Ranma is not prepare something else. Kuno is controlled by the Dark Side.