Copycat Ken (AST)

Copycat Ken whose real name is Keiko is a notorious thief and bane of the greater Tokyo area. She is well known for his ability to copy and use the abilities of Martial Artists that she's observed.

## Biography

Ken lost her mother to a group of monster hunters when she went into their headquarters to rescue someone and never came back. He comes back every now and then to scout the place. He hopes to one day get strong enough to go in and rescue his mother. However a couple years ago it grew massive in size. In order to keep herself hidden Ken has trained for years to never revert to her true female form, even if knocked out, as it would endanger her true identity.

Ken arrives in Furinkan and his first opponent and begins to photograph Ranma as he fights various opponents the first one being Sakura. His next target ended up being Ukyo who he attacked while imitating Kasumi. Though he lost he still managed to copy her techniques. Over the next week Ken faces and defeats Kuno, Ryoga, and Takeshi before finally challenging Ranma. Despite Ranma's best efforts he proved no match for the newcomer. All the effort had gained him was some bruised ribs. At this point he felt that he was ready to face Kasumi, but after finding out about all of her suitors he wanted to see what all the fuss was about so approached her as Ranma and kissed her.

A furious Shampoo would quickly accuse him of deceiving Frost, but he denied it, and instead he would challenge Kasumi to a fight, which she accepted. Before Kasumi could respond Ranko stepped up to challenge him, however since his abilities were magic based he refused. Despite Ken's ability to copy both various people's techniques, including Kasumi and Ukyo, Kasumi proved too much for the boy, having too great a mastery of her own techniques for him to match. He switched to Sakura in order to use the Ha Do Ken only to realize that she hadn’t mastered yet so nothing happened. He transformed into Happosai only for things to end up the same as before since Kasumi had already learned hoe to diffuse his point strike techniques.

He finally changed into Ukyo and while he initially gained the upper hand Kasumi began exploiting the water to prevent him from engaging her properly. This allowed her to discover the weakness of his technique. Ken tried to goad Kasumi back onto land by pointing out that this just put them at a stalemate only for Kasumi to user the particle matter control technique to launch spheres of water at him slowly draining away his endurance.

Ken had expected an easy victory here today, not to be outmaneuvered so badly. The humiliation of it was getting to him. It was during this time that he was secretly shot with the same shadoloo psycho serum used on Kasumi at piere’s which amplified his frustration causing him to in a fit of rage attack Shampoo in an attempt to force Kasumi to engage him directly, twisting Shampoo's wrist in the process. Kasumi too would become enraged unnaturally by this and, utilizing the dark ha do, attacked Ken brutally to the point those gathered had to physically intervene to stop her. Luckily while badly beaten Ken was still breathing. Ken woke up in a hospital with several broken bones, a great deal of bruising, and a fairly nasty concussion, and was as shocked as everyone else at his actions.

Ken hid out in his apartment for week after the battle with Kasumi keeping the form of a young red haired girl in case anyone came looking for revenge. His fears seemed to prove well founded when Grenda, Kasumi, Shampoo, Frost, and Herb showed up at his door. He tried to tell them to leave only for them to both quickly realize who he was and that he was in fact a kitsune to some degree. Grenda forced his door open and showed him her true form. With Grenda right in his face, he stopped trying to pretend he someone else. Ken called Kasumi out for being so brutal with him, causing Herb to come to her defense when she started to agree. Learning that they were looking for another kitsune named Lemon who was kidnapped by hunters, he showed them to a building he knew of.

They found the building in question to be very suspicious due to both Ken's history with it, and the many magics around it. Grenda put Shampoo to sleep for her to use her spirit walk ability to scout the place. Shampoo returned quickly, finding Lemon was indeed within along with about fifty people, including someone very spiritually powerful. Herb brought out the potential to ask the Senshi for assistance which Grenda agreed to. Much to everyone’s surprise Ken agreed to help as well, finally seeing this as a chance to avenge his mother. Since he already had pictures of the regular hunters he could easily infiltrate the building if they gave him a distraction. With that they headed back to the San Cheng Huang to plan and prepare for an attack to recover Lemon.

During said meeting Grenda emphasized how they wanted to be quick and non-lethal as their enemy could hold a grudge. Ixion acted as a distracted and when enough men showed up to deal with him, Mercury performed her aqua mist allowing Ken to imitate one of them and sneak in. In the confusion he was able to quickly find Lemon, but before he could free her the boss showed up. He tried to pretend he was one of her men, but it didn’t work. Despite knowing that he was outmatched Ken transformed into Ukyo and attacked. Ken had been studying the martial arts chef since his fight with Kasumi so knew she was still the strongest. Unfortunately her mastery of the Burning Soul was still painfully short. Despite the pain Ken pushed himself to keep going drawing on the hatred he felt for hunters headquarters to ignore the pain.

For just a brief minute, Ken entertained that victory may be possible as the woman was initially caught off guard by his sudden attack. Then she began draining his life force. Ken was quickly forced onto the defensive, and with the woman’s increased physical might combined with her still draining her life force she transformed back to her native state. She began taunting Ken and in defiance she called her a cheating pathetic loser. This touched a nerve and the woman proved to be quite sadistic. Grabbing Ken by the throat and pinning her to the wall she began breaking her bones one by one. By the time the others arrived in the pocket dimension Ken was battered and broken.

After the woman tossed aside Ken to confront their group, particularly Jupiter, Kasumi and Shampoo circled around to tend to Ken. Ken tried to pretend that it wasn’t that bad in order to get Kasumi to focus on the woman who turned out to be a Dark Kingdom Youma. Kasumi wasn’t having it and told her to be quite while she healed her. Once she was stabilized Ken once again told Kasumi to focus on the youma. They ended up being rescued by Ixion as the youma proved to be just strong enough to allow him to deal with her.

Ken lost her shapeshifting ability as a result of her beating. She took this remarkably well however as it has long been her goal to destroy that place, and that it is now gone seems to have given her satisfaction. Ken was allowed to rest in the pocket dimension.

Within the Karaoke bar area, Ken was sitting on one of the seats looking out the front. With the facility still yet to open officially, she practically had the place to herself, and was using the time to think. Specifically about her injuries as she struggled to simply raise her hand. Noticing Lemon hesitantly entering the bar she told her to come in already. Lemon started to thank her only to be cut off; Ken didn’t do it for her so she didn’t need her thanks or pity. Seeing Lemon deflate Ken eased up a little telling her to buy her a drink.

The two made small talk with Ken asking her why she was there, upon being told that she tasked to serve Kasumi as punishment for her actions she told her that she’d be fine as Kasumi was a softy. They were interrupted by the arrival of Grenda who was with another woman that Ken immediately guessed was yet another Kitsune. Lemon immediately darted away upon seeing the woman. Grenda introduced the woman saying that her name was Yui and she was from the Japanese Kitsune clan. Much to Ken’s surprised Yui asked her if her original name was Keiko. It turned out that she was to who who Ken’s mother rescued before her death. Sadly all Chika was able to get out was Ken’s name and since they weren’t in Tokyo at the time she ended up looking for Ken in the wrong place.

Ken noticed Lemon darting quietly to the hallway that led to the private karaoke rooms. The reason for this became plain as Kasumi and Shampoo soon after appeared at the entryway. Grenda also took note of them and beckoned them over. Grenda introduced them to Yui and got them up to speed. Yui assured Ken that her condition wouldn’t be held against her as there were many in the village with thinner blood then her who could never transform. Kasumi asked if there was a way to restore it, but Yui wasn’t hopeful. On the bright side there were the ki based skills that Ken had acquired. When Ken told her that she never used them without shapeshifting, Yui told her to apply herself to adapting them to her normal form. She even offered to introduce her to the villages many trainers.

As a moment of silence passed, Kasumi cast a glance at Lemon who was still being poorly covert. She then asked if the Japanese kitsune village had the same policy of changing the sex of their members for breeding purposes as the Fox clan. Yui told her they did, but even if they didn’t Lemon was persona non grata amongst the clans so taking her was impossible. She told Kasumi that she could always send her back to the musk, but that wasn’t something Kasumi wanted to do. Ken was shocked at how cold Yui was being realizing that Lemon must have really screwed up.

They decided to wait until Ken gets better before leaving, at least until she can move without the aid of a golem. Kasumi offered to ask Ukyo for help, or more precisely ask Ranma to ask her as well as them a place to stay. Shampoo opted not to follow Kasumi when she left and instead went to talk with the hiding Lemon. Seeing this Ken felt it wasn’t any of her business.

## Appearance

Ken is a young man who wears a orange bandana and red shirt. Her true form is that of a young red headed woman.

## Personality

He is a selfish, malicious soul who uses his mastery of Copy Martial Arts to humiliate martial artists by beating them in combat, as well as sullying their reputations for amusement. He also apparently uses the identities he copies to commit acts of burglary, and had become quite well-known as a thief throughout Tokyo. When he decides to spread his spree to Nerima, he ultimately meets his match in battle against Kasumi Tendo.

## Abilities

Ken is actually part Kitsune though it is unknown how far back his ancestry is. He is able to a kerchief made of kitsune fur as a focus, though other that copying appearances Ken doesn’t show any kitsune abilities or even any talents unique to himself. He is, however, able to copy techniques of those who he has observed being able to copy Kasumi's "Dragon Fang Strike" as well as copy the "Ha Do Ken" and "Burning Soul" while in the guises of Sakura and Ukyo, respectively. The major weakness of this technique is that since it is magical in nature not based on Ken’s skill this is why he refused to fight Ranko. Her anti-magic field meant that he couldn’t copy her form, and he can only copy techniques while in a person's form. In a sense, Ken copies them too well.

Since he doesn't really understand the technique's basis he can't use them in his natural form, or anyone else's for that matter. This means that although he can copy Kasumi’s techniques while in her form, or Ukyo's while in her form, he can't copy Ukyo's while in Kasumi’s form, or vise-versa. Furthermore he also inherits the flaws of whoever he turns into, which unlike the original he isn’t able to overcome, because he lacks a fundamental understanding of their technique. This causes him to use the techniques he copies very mechanically.

Ken is aware of this deficiency and has been trying to correct it by using a sort of hybrid transformation, but he had yet to stabilize the magic. So can’t use it under combat conditions. After the brutal beating she received from the Rouge Youma Ken’s mana system completely collapsed. While this would mean certain death for a full blood kitsune as Ken is is mostly human, and had only a minor mana system to start with. Her ki system is damaged, but recoverable, and that is the important one for her continued life. Still, without her mana system, she'll never be able to shapeshift again.