Soon Li

**Soon Li** is a master of the Elemental Fury Style of the Storm, one of four such styles (the others being Infernos, Quake and Blizzard), the second wife of Soun Tendo, the step mother of Akane, Nabiki and Kasumi, as well as the adopted mother of Shampoo.

## Appearance

Soon Li is a lovely woman, with waist length dark brown hair. She wears a modest Chinese dress covered with several loose hanging ribbons that close observation will reveal are in constant motion, even indoors. On the back of her neck is a birthmark that looks like three solid parallel lines.

## Personality

Soon Li is a caring and brave woman. She shows great care and concern towards her step/adopted daughters, when Ranma ultimately chose to marry Shampoo spend the night quietly comforting Akane. Though usually a laid-back, optimistic, jovial, and humble, Soon Li shows a deceptively cunning and serious side when the situation warrants it. This is best seen in her training of Akane and Shampoo. She was able to immediately understand the heart of why Shampoo experienced such a drastic decrease in skill, and was not only able to help her through it but get both her and Akane to get over their dislike for each other. Soon Li seems to follow the Amazon example of not letting her students know when they are actually being training.

One particular element of note is that Soon Li suffers from Claustrophobia, in particular in regards to caves. This is debilitating to the point that she cannot enter such.

## Curse

When Soon Li gets mad her element is disturbed. It's sort of a protective mechanism, automatically activating when she is in serious danger. Her curse is one of four originating in Korea many thousands of years ago where four individuals appeared with the mastery of the four styles, some of the ideas of which have been stolen and misinterpreted to this very day. The styles mysteriously died out, some claiming the masters went crazy and killed all of their pupils. The only records that survived were those of witnesses observing the techniques of the various styles. At best, over time, we've only managed to emulate these techniques, never truly duplicate them.

Some hundred or so years later a group of four siblings appeared once more with the mastery of these styles. At the time though, the arrogance of a group of warriors caused them to challenge the four to battle. The emotion of the moment isn't what caused the disaster that followed, it was the danger the four were in. The warriors that challenged them were indeed great and powerful, and the four were still new to their abilities. When the battle went on they started to fall to the warriors, and only then did it happen.

Of course, the four were stopped, but the destruction was such that for several thousand years, right up to almost our own time, whenever four appeared with these talents they were immediately destroyed before they could mature. The risk was simply too great. Some think they are demons, especially considering their uncanny knack for reappearing every century or two.

In truth, the four are the avatars of the Earth itself, embodying all life, knowledge and power therein. However, due to a failing in the unification technique, the bond between them has become unstable, causing each to embody only their own preferred mental states, rendering them essentially insane.

## History

Soon Li and her three siblings were raised in a village in Korea, never knowing their parents. They were gradually separate until by the age of 5 they were all placed in different families. She moved with her adoptive family to a small Chinese village and soon after discovered her strange talent for martial arts. She snapped up anything she saw as useful to her skills and soon was able to hold her own against even the villages greatest. This caught the interest of Cologne who came to the village and offered to train Soon Li. Her adoptive parents had already become worried about Soon Li's ability and strange behavior and concluded that the training Cologne offered would be the best they could do for the cuckoo they had found themselves with. They agreed on the condition that Cologne take Soon Li as her own daughter.

Such an honor made her the envy and inspiration of many her fellow warriors. Sadly it also inspired jealousy causing many to avoid her. This loneliness led to a growing lust for something new to build within her. She met Soun just as she had been planning on setting out to search for her sibling, when he came to the village while trying to get away from things after the death of his wife. Akane, Nabiki, and Kasumi seeing how much the two hit it off manipulated them into fighting each other after learning about the kiss of marriage.

Soon Li wasn’t as angry as she let on when she challenged Soun for eating the first prize. Despite the drastic difference in skill Soun ended up winning. Instead of focusing on the fight Soon Li started to worry injuring about a man that just made a mistake allowing Soun get a shot in. Since Soon Li was already planning on leaving she could have just ignored the law, but she obviously liked Soun as that was the only way he could have defeated her. Her friend eventually called her out for her cowardice, but it was ultimately Nabiki who helped her finally admit her feeling for Soun who was building up the courage to do the same to her. It wasn't long, a little over a week, before they finalized the decision to marry.

When Shampoo started bullying Akane Soon Li trained her in the basics of the Wind Style. Unfortunately this set up a chain of event that ended up with Shampoo being disowned. Seeing a lot of herself in Shampoo she convinced Cologne to allow her to stay at her house she began training Shampoo in the basics of the Lightning Style both helping her regain her lost skill as well as forming a bond between her and Akane as the two trained together. When Soun decided that it was time to return to Japan since he was only a relative to Cologne through marriage to Soon Li Cologne couldn’t object when he decided to adopt Shampoo as he was technically a member of the tribe.

Now, here she was in Japan, running a restaurant and looking out for four young women. It wasn't exactly how she had expected her life to turn out. She had always expected an adventurous life on the road. She had her fill of that while trying to find Shampoo's cure and was quite satisfied to be in something relatively calm. Well, sort of.

Soon Li returned home just in time to prevent a fight from happening between Ranma, Akane and Shampoo. When Soun informed her about the engagement she convinced everyone to hold it off until the three got a chance to get to know each other better. Soon Li runs the Nekohanten which Akane and Shampoo race every day for the right work at. When Perfume tracked Ranma down Soon Li had Shampoo train him in the Grand Lightning Punch so that he could defeat her.

When Cologne came to Japan searching for Perfume Soon Li was furious at her for the way she treated Shampoo. Even more so when she refused to help free her from the curse placed on her by the Bakeneko. Unfortunately due to the devastation it would unleash she made a vow long ago to never enter a battle with Cologne leaving it up to Akane to make the challenge. All Soon Li could do was give Akane pointers on how best to fight Cologne and comfort her through her fears.

Soon bears a curse that prevented her from using the Friendship Bracelet to free Shampoo of her curse. Soon Li was greatly ignored by Happosai’s antics. Unfortunately since his skill was on par with Cologne’s there was nothing she could really do. Training Shampoo and Ranma in the Art of Focus was a welcoming distraction. She along with everyone else were quick to ship him off to Siberia when he was found after his defeat by Bu Xien.

When Happosai returned Soon mistook the effects of her counterpart from the original universe as her being annoyed by his presence. When nothing she did worked she decided that busying her mind might, though she did eventually go to Tofu for help as well. Seeing how close Shampoo and Ranma were becoming and knowing that he wanted his mother at the wedding Soon Li set about finding Nodoka herself in order to get the two married. She and Kasumi set about finding the Saotome residence in order to surprise Ranma. As she set up the surprise she took everyone on a training trip to the mountains allowing Ranma and Shampoo to master the Art of Focus while Akane and Ryoga learned the Art of Chaos.

Unfortunately not only was Nodoka at the dojo when they returned, but so were Natsume and Kurumi. Soon could only stare at the two embraced Soun claiming that he was their father too stunned to act. As she was about to demand answers it started to rain revealing Ranma’s curse to his mother

Soon’s mind was a thorough mess of emotions as the frantic explanations flew. While she was relieved that Nodoka was convinced not to kill Ranma and Genma there was still Soun’s actions. When Tofu arrived she sent everyone out so she could talk to Soun alone.

In spite of the picture Natsume and Kurumi had Soun desperately pleaded his innocence when she demanded an explanation? Given everything she knew about him Soon was willing to believe him. However that still left the problem of the girls believing he was their father, and who told them he was. Not wanting to just turn the girls away they decided to let them stay.

They were put up in Kasumi’s old room and later when the discussion of dividing up the chores now that Kasumi was leaving Ranma made the mistake of stating that house work and waitressing was girl’s work and in response Soon Li made him take over all of Kasumi’s duties.

After Nodoka met Shampoo and it was decided that they would have the wedding in two weeks she went to Tofu for her test results. It turned out she was pregnant. This shocked Soon Li as she thought she was infertile. She theorized that dealing with Happosai broke down her walls enough for it to be possible. When she returned home she told everyone the good news.

While discussing the details of the wedding she was the one who asked Happosai to preside over the wedding as Soun was overcome with nervousness from the chaos he was about to let loose to do it. Much to everyone’s surprise Happosai was honored to do it, though he immediately showed his true colors.

Cologne pulled rank to train Natsume and Kurumi telling her that she wanted to explore the strange potential the two had. Leaving Soon Li to run the restaurant with just Perfume.

After calling Kasumi to take over for a little while she went to check up on Akane and Shampoo who told her that they wanted to distract Happosai. It was here that she learned of the heated rivalry that had developed between them.

Knowing that Happosai not taking the situation seriously could lead to disaster she confronted him. Happosai remained completely undisturbed by Natsume, Kurumi, Akane, and Shampoo fighting each other, but he did agree if she made Ranma-chan wear a bra. Though he was humoring her he fully agreed upon seeing Natsume and Kurumi’s training for himself.

Ranma agreed though she had to order him to do it as part of his house duties. Soon Li was already aware of the growing relationship between Nabiki and Perfume so was quick to provide advice when Nabiki came to her. She also convinced Nabiki to invite Natsume and Kurumi to Kasumi’s bachelorette party after seeing how upset the younger sister was.

During the battle Soun and Soon Li decided it best to remain neutral as much as possible as she acted as the referee. After a devastating battle Soon declared Akane and Shampoo the victors.

When the family woke up to find Shampoo and Akane gone and Perfume fallen into some kind of deep hibernation. After determining that later was ok they set about searching for the former. Unfortunately a few hours later Genma, Soun, Nabiki, Kasumi, Ryoga, Natsumi, and Kurumi ended up passing out, and the only ones left awake were Soon Li, Ukyo, Tofu, Ranma, Nodoka and Mousse.

When Shampoo and Akane reappeared in their room along with the Original Ranma, after finding the Bracelets of Friendship in their room Mousse Bracelets theorized that he was from another dimension. As that was their best guest they let the three rest so that they could figure things out. When the original Ranma woke up what remained of the conscious occupants of the Tendo home gathered together in the common room.

Knowing that there was no point in lying with Soon Li there the Original Ranma explained how he tried to rescue the Original Akane and Shampoo only to ended transporting these ones to his universe and how he believed they in fact were the originals. Throughout his explanation Mousse and his counterpart looked ready to rip the dimensionally displaced boy apart.

Nodoka was quick to calm things down before they could escalate Soon Li also put her two cents in. While she didn’t believe that Akane and Shampoo were from his world, she pointed out that he at least believed it before he could argue. That didn’t explain why he was there. Ranma explained the explosion of light he saw and Mousse theorized that the overuse of the bracelets caused them to malfunction. With nothing else to do Nadoka felt it was best to wait for the others to wake to see if they had been merged with their counterpart. She and Soon left to go check up on the others.

When Shampoo woke up Soon was there to explain what was going on to her. The Original Ranma was quick to rush out upon learning that the others were waking up as well. This left Soon, Shampoo and Ranma alone, Soon then left the two to their own devices to go check up on Soun. She quickly realized she never told him about Nabiki and Perfume’s relationship when he fainted upon seeing the two in bed together.

The Soon Li of the original universe merged with Soon Li so that she could bring Shampoo and Akane to the original universe though she was only able to get Shampoo. Akane and Ranma later found her passed out at the bridge and used the bracelets to go save Shampoo.

## Ability

Soon Li is a martial arts prodigy considered the best warrior in Joketsuzoku next to Cologne, although even this is debatable. It was this skill that caused Cologne to adopt her in the first place. Though much of her natural talent is due to her curse. She is a master of the Storm Style, a mysterious ancient style she was able to master from just the few hints given in the scrolls shown to her.