"In Rythmic Gynastic Wrestling, it's forbidden to attack bare-handed." Duncan explained twirling around a club. Ranma glared as she put her hand on her hip, standing tall and gripping a stripped hoop in her hand.
"The match is tomorrow. The only way to master the technique in one night, is to fight for real! Are you ready, Ranma?" He asked.
"HA!! Get ready yourself!" She screamed running toward him.
"Attack from any direction you--"
SLAP
Ranma landed her foot straight across, hitting Duncan face and sending him to the ground.
"Bah. Child's play." She giggled.
"Use the tools! The tools! Are you human or animal!?" Duncan wrapped the ribbon around Ranma's foot and dragged her down. She got back up and scoffed.
"Feh. What a pain."
Sofie sat on the floor watching the two 'boys' in silence.
"Hokay. From the top. Here I come!" Ranma bolted for Duncan and he cracked his ribbon.
WHOCK! CRACK! Their clubs smacked together.
"Wow. You're really good, Ranma." Sofie smiled with her hands crossed.
"Heh heh." Ranma laughed. "I haven't been watching you for a week for noth--"
BWONK.
Ranma gasped in shock as the ball flung by Duncan bounced off his face.
"You don't need to practice at all!" Sofie said, not noticing.
"Oh, yes I do."
Duncan laughed as he twisted the ball on his finger. "Now you go to bed." Ranma said picking up a second ribbon.
"No, I couldn't!"
"Why? Afraid I'll get hurt?" Ranma giggled sweetly.
"That has nothing to o with it!"
"Just go to bed and don't worry." Duncan told Sofie has he rested on Ranma's head and grinded his elbow in his hair. Ranma growled. "I'll teach Ranma everything he needs to know."
"Really?"

Well... Sofie thought as she crawled into bed. ...If he fights like that, he can't lose!

"I just happened to hear..." Duncan told Ranma as they circled the training hall. "... that you promised that if you lose the match... you'll go steady with Courtney." He laughed. "That is," He whipped his ribbon at Ranma gently, skimming her gymnastics uniform and slicing blades of fabric to the floor. "Your relationship with Sofie will be finished. In view of that," Duncan added, "I'll see that you lose!"
"Uh-huh. I though it was weird that you'd coach me..." Ranma let out and angry breath and crossed her arms while she glared at Duncan. That same devious smile that always covers his face returned. "Unfortunately... I'v got no intention of dating Courtney."
"I'LL CRIPPLE YOU BEFORE THE MATCH BEGINS!!" Duncan threatened running at her snapping his weapon.
"JUST YOU TRY IT!!"
WOK BOP KONK WOMP.


"Mmm. I slept like a dog." Sofie yawned as she quietly walked through the Tendo hallway of her house. She stopped to put on her slippers and jogged to the door. Sofie stuck her head out the entrance and gazed at the sunrise as it made small delicate dew drops suddenly fall into the heaps of green blades beneath them. "...Brrr, it's cold." She stopped and sweat drop slowly moved down her cheek...
TOMP TOMP TOMP
Sofie ran to the training hall room and stopped abruptly in the door way at what she saw.
"TAKE THAT! AND THAT! HAD ENOUGH YET? YET?! YET??!"
"NEVER! NEVER! NEVER!" Ranma stomped on Duncan's body holding clubs in one hand and a hoop in another. Duncan lay-- tangled in a ripped ribbon-- on the floor with Ranma's feet trampling him. They both looked terrible-- messy and tired.
"Have you been doing this all night?!" Sofie screamed.
"Huh? Wha--? Morning already?" Ranma asked quietly with small scratches on her face.
"Are you... are you okay..." Sofie looked over Ranma with a worried expression. "... Are you okay for the match?"
"No plobrem. No broplem. Pro noblem. Plo robnem. Blo noprem." Ranma whined and fell to the floor.

"Hey Kasumi, this fish cake is tough." She chewed tiredly.
"Thats a towel."
This... is my replacement!?


"A substitute?" Courtney asked as Sofie stood before her in the locker rooms.
"Yes. I injured myself." Sofie explained. "This girl will take my place." Ranma steadily walked over to Courtney and Sofie.
"So. The pigtail girl. We have met before, have we not?" Courtney smiled. "May the best girl win." Courtney held out her hand to tired Ranma, but Sofie stopped her by grabbing Courtney wrist and turning it over. "My, my. How did these tacks get between my fingers?" Sofie sighed and took Ranma to the dressing room.

"You're sure this is St. Bacchus School for Girls?"
"Absolutely no doubt?"
"Ab-absolutely!" Duncan heard girls talking to their fiends as he approached the school.
"Who is that guy?" One girl whispered staring at him.
"I came without getting lost! To think that I, with the world's worst sense of direction... have come straight to this place!" Duncan told himself, sternly. That is the power of love! Oh Sofia...
"But this is no time for emotions! I must find a way to disrupt Ranma's match!" He shouted clutching his hand as tears dropped into his palm.
SPLASH!
"Hey! What if somebody's down there?" One girl yelled to another as she dumped cold buckets of bath water out the window to the sidewalk below.
"It's okay. There's only a pig."

"Look!" To more female high schoolers, carrying bags of pants and flowers smiled with delight as their eyes met a small black pig covered it water staring above. "It's a little pig!"
"Aaw! It's so cute!"
"My turn to hold him!"
Suddenly the animal was snagged by it's bandana out of the the girl's hands.
"Courtney!" One of the girl's gasped.
"This pig... will help me greatly."


Bright lights filled the arena as excited shouts and feeling floated throughout the room. Different signs were held by students and guests, they either read; "Courtney #1" or something else like; "Rythmatic Gymnastics".
"Well, well, elder brother." Courtney smiled him blandly as she walked down the arena steps covered in a dark robe.
"Greetings, younger sister." Kuno replied.
"It's Courtney's big brother!"
"He's so fine!"
"Did you hear that?"
"Ignorance is bliss." The people behind them chatted.

The match was soon ready to begin. A female referee, wearing a suit and bow-tie stepped into the ring holding her microphone.
"In this corner-- from St. Bacchus School for Girls-- Courtneeeeeeeeeey Kuuuuuuuuuno!"
Cheers rose from the crowd as they chanted her name over and over. "And in this corner--" She paused and walked to another red-haired-pony-tailed girl entering the ring. "Excuse me, your name is...?"
"Ranma Soatome." She answered.
"Say. Should you use your real name?" Sofie asked tugging at a towel around her shoulders.
"It's okay, It's okay."
"From Furinkan High School-- RAAAAANMA SAOTOMEEEEE!"

Courtney turned around and grimanced; staring at the girl with an ugly frown.
"Ranma Soatome...?"
He brother gasped as well. "The girl with the pig-tails?"
The crowd got restless and began to whisper.
"She said she's Ranma Saotome!"
"Ranma!?"
Sofie sweated as she stared at the audiance. Did they know...
"This girl's name is..."
"Ranma Soatome?"
"How strange that the same name given to a girl... can be so disgusting!" Courtney growled.
"At last! I'v learned her name! I must write it down before I forget!" Kuno cried in the stands.
The crowd still chatted with worry and question.
"I'v heard it happening before, same first name; same last name."
"But... doesn't she kind of look like Ranma?"
"Well... strangers can lok alike you know."

"See?" Ramna proved to Sofie outside of the ring. Sofie was still not convinced but stayed silent.
"Champions to the center!" Called the referee raising her hands high above her head. "Now--" She took Ranma and Courtney's wrists and put them closer. "--Shake hands."
"LOOK! Over there!" Ranma and the referee turned their heads to the unknown commotion, but saw nothing.
KLINK! Ranma took her head back to her wrists, which now were rapped in separate shackles.
"Wha--?"
"Carelessness is your enemy." Courtney laughed.
"P-chan!" Sofie cried sticking her head in the ring. Ranma lifted her hand and saw the small pig attached to the other end of the chain.
"Duncan, you little-- you just live to louse me up, don't you?"
Duncan only let out angry pig-like shouts and squeals as he nibbled Ranma's arm.