[Ranma] [fanfic] Pool Of Drowned Ranma

Disclaimer: All Ranma-1/2 characters and plot elements used here are in fact the property of Rumiko Takahashi and her assigns, and are used without their knowledge or permission. This is fan-fiction: an open fan letter in prose. Any similarities between Happosai and G. B. Gardner are strictly legendary.

Two conspirators crept along the darkened upstairs hallway of the Tendo house. Crouching, they eased open the door of one room, then paused to sort out the placement of things and people by the wan light of the nighttime Nerima sky spilling from the window. Then they silently padded over to the sleeping roll where the smaller of the two inhabitants was sleeping. That person's sleep was fitful and restless. Now there was a mumbled shout of "no, won't eat that, YOU CRAZY? ..NO, DON'T... ite...". Even as the shouting faded off, it was answered as the smaller sleeper was slapped with a wooden sign by the larger one.

The smaller creeper sensed that the moment of opportunity was almost gone. "Now", he whispered. The larger one lifted his burden and poured from it onto the smaller sleeper, splashing across his-now-her face and torso. She was up like a shot, flicking on the light and leaping back into a defensive stance.

"What'd you do that for??!"

Happosai blinked and stared at Onna-Ranma, evidently waiting for something. Pantyhose Taro lowered his jar and took a step back from the wetness, avoiding the puddle, resuming his everpresent smirk. The panda rolled over slightly, took in just who was in the room, realized who could kick whose butt, and held up a sign: [quiet please panda is sleeping].

Then Happosai let out a dramatic sigh, said "No, no, it's wrong, it should have happened by now", and shook his head. He turned and looked up, scowling at Taro. "Where did you get that? You didn't test it, did you? You're won't get your name changed that way!" Taro looked away, embarrassed.

The casual way in which she was dismissed from concern angered Onna-Ranma further. "Just what were you trying to do? What was that stuff?" She placed a kick to the little man's backside, a kick which he casually blocked with his hand without turning.

"Oh, just a little Jusenkyo water..."

Onna-Ranma's blood went cold for a moment. "JEEZ, I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU TWO!! WHAT KINDA WATER DID YOU DUMP ON ME THIS TIME??"

"You should be thanking me, m'boy, I was trying to help you get rid of your curse... so you could give her to me!"

"WHAT??!!"

By now, lights were going on in other bedrooms.

"It was supposed to be water from the Spring of Drowned Twins, but Pantyhose here, Mister Pantyhose, had to bungle the job. Now that I look at it, it's obvious that he got that water from an uncursed spring." He sighed. "Go dump it in the koi pond, Pantyhose, maybe we'll get more fish. It sure isn't working here."

By now, heads were poking out into the hallway. "Ranma, shut up, people are trying to sleep!"

"Geez, I'm sorry, Akane, didn't mean to bother you about people trying to lock me in my girl form! You've got a pig to sleep with; I'm sure he'd love to be your fiance if I can't!"

A fed-up Ranma left the room to change into something male. Taro went to go dump the remaining spring water, Happosai went to go sulk somewhere, and the panda went to look for someplace drier and less cursed to sleep.

####

Down in the outer bathroom, Onna-Ranma stepped out of the Jusenkyo-soaked boxers and nervously played a stream of hot faucet water onto herself. "Whew." Ranma-kun slid down against the bathroom wall, very glad to be male again. He reached for a towel to cover himself.

Through the doorway next to him, a small black pig dove in, scooted in the puddled hot water, then shoulder-rolled in it and came up human. "Ranma--"

"Gee, Ryoga, you'd think you live here, ya got here so fast. Whose room did you sleep in tonight?"

"That's not funny, Ranma. You should know better than to go shouting like that, waking up Akane."

"Hey, Ryoga, do ya hafta walk around here naked? Jeez, you'd think you were cursed or somethin'!"

Ryoga took a quick glance around for witnesses. The only one he saw was Taro, who was grinning, obviously arriving to watch the show. "Ranma, you've gone too far this time! This is all your fault!"

Ranma turned and stared blankly at the naked martial artist in his face, and the clothed one now leaning against the furo door. "Why is it always my...." He shrugged and turned to go back to his room. "Whatever."

Ryoga grabbed Ranma by the neck. Ranma spun around and flipped on the cold water faucet, hard, and thumbed a spray past himself.

The spray of cold water caught Ryoga, as planned, conveniently repackaging him from a major threat back into a minor if persistent nuisance. As he shrank, though, it struck the person behind him, namely Taro.

To his credit, Taro did what he could to minimize the damage. It was automatic. This was his body, after all, and he had experience from birth in dealing with issues related to a sudden change in size. He'd tucked into an extremely tight fetal ball by the time the horns had started to sprout. When you moonlight as a fifty-foot monster with tentacles, horns and hooves, though, there's only so much you can do to minimize your sudden requisition of additional parking space. Suddenly the bathroom sink was out in the hallway, the inner chamber doors were shattered and folded, the furo was embedded two feet deep into the outer wall of the house, and, in the silence following the sounds of explosive expansion, the sounds of water gurgling as it receded through the pipes accompanied the distant hiss of water escaping from broken pipes under the house.

Even more devastating,though, was that suddenly his horns were sticking up through the ceiling. That meant that they were suddenly sticking up through the floor of Akane's bedroom. That meant that when, hearing and feeling the explosive expansion, Akane swung her feet back down out of bed in the darkness to go teach Ranma the meaning of peace and quiet and courtesy and harmony, she immediately tripped and went headlong on flooring she'd safely trod a few moments ago. Further enraged, she was back up and moving in a flash, heading downstairs, further convinced that a particular someone was going to pay for ruining her sleep.

At the bathroom, she confronted a nude male Ranma who was grimly trying to free one of Taro's legs and get it through the bathroom doorway, while dodging the wildly whipping eel-head tail, and kicking one leg to shake loose a small black pig which had its teeth sunk into his ankle. He had freed one hooved foot; it hung down from the top of the doorframe, along with an enormous bovine butt. The enormous male hardware also thus presented was, to Akane, more cause for outrage.

"Ranma, you jerk, you didn't have to wreck our bathroom! And stop picking on P-Chan!!"

Blazing with righteous indignation expressed as a battle aura, Akane threw one ki-soaked punch at Ranma. He flew through the wall and out into the yard. Panicked at flying into darkness, he tried to twist himself around, to put his feet under him, but the ride was over too quickly. He went face-first into the water, his head banged hard against the stones with a sharp noise in his ears, there was a sharp pain in as well as on his head, and then the darkness was immediate and final.

"Hmph!" Akane looked at the smashed wall, mentally cataloged its condition as being all Ranma's fault, scooped up her pig, spun on her shapely heel and went up to bed. Maybe that baka would have sense enough to stay out there all night; he deserved it.

Taro waited until the sounds of violence had ceased. Not that he couldn't take it in normal battle in this form, even from Akane, but with his manhood on the line he felt trapped and vulnerable. With the start given him by Ranma, Taro coaxed one leg, then the other, then his rear, through the bathroom door. Now that he had room for it, he ducked his head to free his horns from the ceiling. Then, carefully backing up, he managed to get his giant body out into the family room. Still feeling boxed in, he slunk out of the house to go curl up in the dojo, ignoring everything that wasn't in his path.

####

In the shady deeper darkness at the treeside edge of the koi pond, Happosai took another toke from his pipe and fumed.

It would have gone so well. A split, permanently-female Ranma wouldn't be much more glompable than the part-time girl was now, but the residual chi in her undergarments would be a much more reliable summons for his own energies. There'd be no lengthy tentative touching and guessing whether Ranma had been female long enough for the male spiral to finish winding down, the female spiral to finish forming and conducting energies, no blind-guess gambling on whether the resonances left in the natural fibers of his shorts were holding the echoes of the first and second chakras of a boy or a girl. Any clothing which that female Ranma took off would have all the right energies.

With his magic, he would have guided the formation of that female Ranma so that she was female in thought, not just a boy trapped in a girl-suit. Just a natural girl, with all that incredibly sweet Ranma energy, such a guileless combination of innocence, determination and raw animistic power.

He wouldn't even have to glomp so much, just enough to remind her of the act and provoke her sense of outrage, prompting her into automatically fending him off with the energies which were what he wanted in the first place. Bathing in those female energies called him to renewed life, reminded him of being a man, made his body resonate with his own masculine energies once more.

The boy Ranma would have been rid of the curse that he so publicly despised, and yet his female twin would have been constantly around him, to be in his face with her equal abilities, teaching the boy to transcend his father's venal stupidity of attitude in a way that Akane, damn Soun for ruining her, was too lazy and spoiled to try. Maybe the boy would've eventually dumped Akane in favor of the new girl; now there could've been a union with some powerful babies!

It all would have been so sweet, but Pantyhose had ruined it by cutting corners, bringing untested waters. Now Ranma would be alert to the threat, so, even given some real twin-water, the plan had no real chance of succeeding now. It was all just too sad and tragic.

Some thought was nagging him, something was out of place and needed his attention. He lost himself in the nowness for a moment, letting that nagging thought seek him out for a heart-to-heart talk. It came, he heard, and he had it. He frowned.

Ranma hitting the koi pond with a splash was normal as things went around here, and part of the entertainment. A wet Onna-Ranma not sitting up and mouthing off to her assailant was not. Not even hearing Ranma's breathing was totally off the scale. He put his pipe away and bounded over to Ranma. In the morning twilight, the red ribbon of blood from her head looked black; its source looked faintly dimpled. Her face was in the water and had been since she landed, a good ten minutes or so ago. This was serious.

He jumped over to where Ranma's feet stuck out beyond the pool. He roused up serpent-fire, belled out his aura with energy, then took hold of Ranma's feet and pulled hard. She flew up, over and down, a good ten feet from the pool, then just lay there unmoving, her skin pale and bluish. He listened to her chest; no heartbeat. Her skin was cool to the touch. He began to get angry: this was no way to treat his prize pupil and best hope for a proper heir to his School.

He rolled her over. Good, launching her skyward had kept her face from getting ripped up by the poolside rocks while she had no chi to protect her. Now to work. He jumped up on her chest, pumping her trampoline-style until water started coming out of her open mouth. He rolled her to one side, using his shoulder to continue the pumping, until it seemed like much of the water was gone. Then he rolled her over onto her back again.

He pulled out his pipe, puffed it alight, then cupped the bowl with his hand and raised the stem skyward, holding it that way while an aura built around it. Then he whipped it down to touch her chest; sparks flew. She convulsed, then lay still. He tamped the tobacco down, puffed it some more, then held the stem once more aloft. This time he pulled harder, until he could see a ion cloud of lambent charge collecting around the bone bit.

He reached over with the other hand, gathering a wan golden glow into his cupped palm, then used it to caress her cold cheek and forehead. "Don't leave us now, Ranma. You've got too much to do here. I call you." His eyes flared wide at these last words: something seemed to pass from them to her bared forehead.

The field around the upraised pipe was starting to crackle. He brought it down swiftly to strike her gently between the breasts. Lightning flew from his hand, along and around the pipe stem and into her chest, accompanied by a sharp report of local thunder. Again her body convulsed, then audibly exhaled. He grinned, put his pipe away and got very much in her face. One hand wandering her torso, tickling here and there, he started blowing charged air into her lungs until her exhalations got strong. He paused and watched when she moaned, then hopped up onto her belly, rocking his knees into her diaphram in time with her breathing.

She groaned and opened one eye. "Where..."

He hopped down and leaned into her face, waiting until she recognized him. "You died. I fixed that. Lie still, let me finish up."

He stood by her head. He cupped his hands together, gathering a gold-white light into them that seemed to come from the ground, the sky, the neighboring trees, -- everywhere but her and the pond. He brought his hands down against her head. The wound closed, bone flowed back to its rightful place, the mottled black bruising faded, and her cheeks began to look a little less pale. The golden aura faded into her head and was gone, leaving its effects behind. He staggered a little. Then he got in her face again.

"When I blow, you suck it in. You won't like the way it tastes; do it anyway. If you cough it back up, fine, just cough up the rest of the water." He brought out his pipe, puffed it alight, then took a careful drag of its smoke while cupping both hands around the bowl, making the golden bowl glow, making the black stem gleam. He looked down at her; she opened her mouth, waiting. He blew a stream of smoke into her mouth and she breathed it in, then rolled over and started coughing and spitting.

She shuddered. "That was awful."

"Yup... but it works."

She got up onto one elbow and looked at him with clearer eyes, studying him for a moment. "You saved my life."

"I did more than that. I had to do quite a bit of work on you. I don't often get to practice my healing techniques, not without feeling like a sucker for doing it. This is different: can't have you walking around damaged, m'boy. Where would I go for midair refueling?"

"Well, thanks, old man..." She waved a vagrant hand at him and turned away, starting to summon the strength to stand up.

"Thanks just doesn't cut it, Ranma. You'll pay me back in kind. I get free glomps and feels for this, anytime I want. You owe me."

She stood, wobbled, then started walking slowly towards the darkened house. "For how long?"

"For the rest of your life."

She turned around and grimly started heading back to the koi pond.

"Okay, okay, for 24 hours."

Onna-Ranma stood still for a moment, then nodded and turned back towards the house. "I think I can stand that ...barely."

"Great, let's get started... as soon as you change into something warm. You wouldn't want me to catch cold, now, would you?"

She nodded grimly and trudged towards the house.

"Here, you forgot this."

She turned and stared balefully. "Ain't that a little thick? Usually you wanna make me wear a bra that's real skimpy. What's with this one?"

"It's a nursing bra. It's got these trapdoor cups, see?"

"A nursing bra?"

"If I only get 24 hours, I'm gonna make 'em count. And wear something nice!"

####

Ranma stood in the middle of her room, naked and alone, trying to get used to the fact that she had died, that someone had had to make an effort to steal her back from whatever awaited dead people. Her panda-shaped father was making lumbermill noises down in the family room, oblivious to the whole event. The sodden sleeping rolls were pushed over to one corner for now; come the day, they would be sun-dried, maybe washed to get that spring-water flushed out of them. Nothing overt seemed different from what passed for normalcy for her, but the inner awareness, too pronounced to be passed off as Happosai hyperbole, that her life had decisively terminated and then resumed because someone else valued it, was a subtle pressure on her awareness, pushing her up to look down into the context of the normal course of her life-so-far rather than reimmersing herself in it.

She looked down at her body. Logic said that she could still change, despite whatever she'd just gone through, and she wasn't that worried about it. She knew that with the bathroom plumbing in its present state she had no immediate way of testing that. Frankly, she wasn't all that eager to do that anyway. It was hard to pin down why. It wasn't a fear of being male, gods knew, she still defined herself as a guy with a curse, and it wouldn't change anything about her screwed-up life. No, it just wasn't something she felt she should do right now. Maybe the old lech's spells needed time to work.

No, she needed time to work. Something about the way the old creep spoke to her implied something she had to work to grasp. There was no attraction, certainly, rather a steady back-of-the-throat pit-of-the-stomach revulsion, and maybe he could have changed that in her while she was helpless ...while she was dead... it was more a feeling of respect, of perverse but self-consistent honor, a feeling that, unlike everybody else here except maybe Kasumi, he respected her as having a sense of honor, and illuminated his own thereby. Everyone else assumed the worst about her or treated her like a wayward child who would someday master her own life, someday but no time soon. The old creep treated her like she already had that, and maybe provoked it in her.

The old creep had his needs, and that was nasty to contemplate... but it was how he recharged, how he kept his ancient body alive and moving. He'd explained it to her once, something about the magic of opposite genders, of unlike charges attracting, something about a lance and a grail and a vacuum tube. He needed some of that now; he'd looked like he'd burned through some major reserves in bringing her back to life.

No, she had to do this. This wasn't duty foisted on her by her father's actions or settled on her as the hapless object of someone else's fantasy, this was her own honor. The old creep had saved her life, brought her back from real death. Now he wasn't seeking any payment for saving her life other than this, a replenishment of what he'd paid out to save her; she might as well do it right.

Her thoughts continued as she started to pull on the sheer panties from the "Happosai collection" box in the closet, then that nursing bra, then fished through the closet for feminine clothing that wouldn't embarrass her: some slacks and a loose unisex blouse that could hide some of what was likely to happen as the old creep started spelunking her clothing. Neither garment was such that she'd be ashamed to be seen male in them. The underwear was unlikely to still be hers by the time he was done, so it didn't count.

She finished with a sturdy shawl that could be tied loosely like an oversized scarf around her neck, or used as a sling for a small childlike form to ride in, if it came to that, and an old pair of her usual slippers that fit her better as a girl than as a guy.

She'd do this, get through this 24 hours by treating it like a martial arts trial, then have another look at her attitudes towards herself and those around her.

And Akane... Well, she'd have to think about Akane when this was over. This wasn't the first time that Akane had all but killed her. She could walk away from the whole tangle once she turned eighteen, none of the others attracted her that much; but was she likely to survive that long, the way things were going?

The dawn air was still cool as she opened the door. Onna-Ranma stepped off the porch and sighed. She looked up. The sun was just clearing the urban horizon; it was as good a time-marker as any. "All right, 24 hours starts now. All aboard."

"Sweeto!!"

This roused the very large multispecies animal which had been sleeping curled up in the dojo. Taro took one look at Happosai clambering down into Onna-Ranma's blouse, said something unintelligible, cursed in an equally cryptic manner as it realized that it was losing an unrepeatable opportunity to poke fun at the fem-boy because it couldn't really talk, and tried to swing a mammoth fist instead. Happosai met the mammoth fist with his own tiny one, and Taro was slammed against the house in no uncertain terms. It took it a few minutes to recover enough to pry itself loose and let itself out of the yard.

####

Akane had been roused by the single peal of thunder; it felt worrisome, the way it seemed to originate down in the yard. Sleepily moving to her window, she watched with a sinking feeling in her gut as Happosai worked Ranma over, finally rousing the redhead. Somehow she felt guilty about it, like it should have been her out there tending her fiance, or maybe even she shouldn't have been quite so rough.

On the bed her pet pig stirred, noticed her missing from the bed, and walked across the blankets to stand next to her, sleepily nosing her in the thigh. It felt intimate in a way that she wasn't entirely comfortable with, not now. She leaned away from the affectionate pig, cast a last glance through the window at where the pervert still sat waiting for the redhead to return, then pulled together the day's clothes, intending to see if the furo had enough water in it for a sponge bath. Behind her, the pig stared after her moodily, snuffled softly and settled down on the bed again, then changed its mind and went scampering down the hall, looking for a way to get to where it had left its camping gear, intent on boiling whatever water was still in the canteen.

The toilet wouldn't flush and the furo was a lost cause, so Akane carried her clothing down to the laundry room and changed for the day there.

Thinking she could somehow make amends for her part in things, Akane took it into her head to prepare breakfast. A certain panda awoke at the initial sounds of culinary skirmish, took note of this, and quietly let itself out through the front door, seeking someplace where food was food and peril was peril and the two didn't suddenly try to combine in unholy matrimony.

Akane had gotten to the point where the eggs were just firming up in the frying pan when the house shuddered as Yet Another Martial Artist was embedded in its wall. The simmering but innocuous miso soup jumped on the stove; Akane's attempt to catch it and put it back on its burner succeeded only in adding the soup to the eggs. She drew back sharply to look things over and the cooking oil at her elbow joined the nouveau-cuisine, which was by now bubbling briskly and overflowing the edge of the pan, sending tentative feelers of miso-egg down into the flame. Then the oil got there and the miso-eggs were flambe'. She reached blindly into the refrigerator and grabbed what might have been a box of baking soda in a happier time, but was now a container of antique leftovers, a kind of starter culture from her last serious attempt at cooking. When that was added to the mix, it didn't even begin to douse the fire, instead that was when things started to get weird even for Akane. The panful of mighty-morphin' neo-stir-fry miso-eggs-flambe' began to whistle Hindemith. In fugue. On pitch.

Amazingly, this time Akane had sense enough to quit while she was behind. Rather than panicking and adding something else to the mix, she grabbed a pot-holder, seized the frying pan, and carried the burning mass quickly and quietly into the bathroom, where she dumped it into the toilet and flushed it down, or tried anyway. Unfortunately, reality was being uncooperative. Yes, the mass of once-was-food went down, but no, the broken water pipes didn't provide any water to help it on its way or douse it, instead the burning mass slid on a cushion of the slime mold that usually builds up in blackwater piping, while inviting same to hop on board and join the fun as it passed. What finally found release through the breaks in the sewer piping was an all too fragrant and entirely new smell, one that brought every person in the house to full alert with the impression that the aliens had landed.

Onna-Ranma had noticed the leaping kitchen flames out of the corner of her eye and came running with a bucketful of pond water. Soun, incredibly, was awake and actively working at smothering the stove fire with his blanket, and even thought to turn the burners off first... so Onna-Ranma, still with Happosai on board, followed the trail of fumes to where Akane was trying to twist moisture from wet towels over the toilet bowl, and pitched in the bucket of pond water.

That's when the smell really got bad. Whatever the effective power of the magical component of the Jusenkyo-influenced koi pond water might have been, it was immediately overwhelmed and drafted by the combined magical might of the toilet-of-cursed-martial-artists slime mold and the starter culture from Akane's last Excellent Culinary Adventure, which knew for certain just what its business was and set about doing it with renewed zeal. The smell went straight past Horrible, confidently expecting to arrive at Intolerable in a matter of moments and determined to reach Lethal on schedule.

Still tying shut her robe, Kasumi paused to stare into her kitchen. "Oh, my. Father, I think we'll be dining out tonight." With a shouted "Don't mention food!", Nabiki brushed past her, then stopped, turned and ran, holding her hand to her mouth, a desperate look in her eyes.

Akane and Onna-Ranma bodily stopped her, chorusing "Not in the toilet!!" Nabiki's eyes got wider and she turned again and dashed for the yard with Kasumi close behind. By now her eyes were streaming, enough so that she noticed the koi pond only when she tripped on its stones and fell, immediately followed by Kasumi. She narrowly missed decorating Kasumi with her past repasts instead of the pond.

Akane turned and blindly ran for the door, followed by Soun. Happosai gasped, reached up out of Onna-Ranma's cleavage, pointed towards the exit and shouted "get us out of here!"

Akane stepped clear of the house, wiped her streaming eyes with her shirtsleeve, and noted two male Ranmas in the koi pond, one wearing Kasumi's robe and nightie, the other in Nabiki's pajamas. With mounting fury, she glared at first one, then the other.

"Ranma, which one is you and what have you done with my sisters?!!" One of the Ranmas reached out a hand for some help in getting up. Akane was having none of that; she batted the hand away and stepped back, only to trip over the sprawled legs of the other Ranma and fall in herself.

Onna-Ranma came over and gave them each a hand up. "Jeez, are you uhh, guys... uhh... all right? I mean, other than looking like me, that is... Careful, your balance is gonna be off, it's easier to fall over. Nabiki, don't pull your pants up so hard, you'll hurt something, I mean it."

Nabiki-kun grimaced. "Thanks, I just found out about that. How do you walk without damaging yourself?"

"You kinda stumble, that's the best way of putting it. Don't walk with your feet together until you get the hang of it. Umm, or something like that." She blushed.

"Oh, my. Our koi pond doesn't usually do this to people. What happened to it?"

Akane-kun hung his head. "It's ..kinda... my fault, well, part of it."

"It's not all your fault, Akane, I mean, not the first part. Happosai had Taro bring him a big jug of Jusenkyo water, he was sposedta bring Spring of Drowned Twins but he brought some uncursed water instead. Happosai tried to use it to split off my girl side--"

"And it would've worked, too!" came from Onna-Ranma's blouse.

Kasumi-kun and Nabiki-kun looked wide-eyed at Onna-Ranma's chest; Akane-kun just looked down, cheeks flaming. A small head popped up from Ranma's cleavage. "I had Taro dump the water in the koi pond to keep it from causing trouble, and that would've been the end of it, except some young lady had to go and kill my star pupil there."

"Oh, my, what young lady?"

"Who do you think might have done it, Kasumi?"

"Oh, dear. Akane, you promised me about your temper."

"Right... so I noticed that Ranma here hit her head and wasn't breathing. I even had to kickstart her heart. I gave her mouth-to-mouth, got her breathing again..."

"Oh... so that's why you're ..where you are?"

"Yup. I saved her life out of the goodness of my heart, so she's gonna be thanking me for the next 24 hours. Strictly voluntary, of course."

Nabiki-kun shivered. So did Kasumi-kun, for that matter, both being idly grateful for being temporarily immune to such charitable contributions. "I always said you had a good heart, Ranma... chan."

"Great chest, too. 'Scuse me, I gotta get back to work. You're gonna have to drain that pool now, you know, it's cursed. Pool of Drowned Ranma." The tiny head disappeared again. The blouse resumed rippling like the skin of a week-dead mouse.

"Okay, this is officially weird. What're the odds?"

"I don't know... I've never been Ranma before."

"Are we stuck this way?"

"We need some hot water."

"You don't know that that'll work."

"Well, we can try..."

"Tofu's clinic won't be open for hours yet."

"Perhaps Ukyo has some hot water to spare; we could go ask her."

"Yeah, we'll need to get something for breakfast anyway, and she can use the business."

Akane-kun grimaced. "I don't want Ukyo to see me as a guy! She might get smart at me, or grab me or something. Or laugh." He shrugged. "We could boil some water from the pond."

Akane-kun froze on being given The Look by both cursed sisters, a look compounded of "not in my kettle" from Kasumi-kun, "not after what I just put into it" from Nabiki-kun, and "not after what it's done to us already" and an overwhelming "just how badly lagged are you anyway" from both of them.

"Well, it was a thought..."

Nabiki-kun, livid, rounded on him then. "And just where do you suggest we should boil it? Thanks to a certain somebody, our kitchen is now a tourist attraction from War Of The Worlds."

Akane-kun folded, fresh tears in his eyes. "I'll just stay here, then. You two go ask Ukyo. Maybe in a few days you can send over a kettle of hot water, just in case it might do some good..."

"Now, now, little ...brother... We all make mistakes. You've just had more than your share recently."

"It's your specialty, Akane, just like Kasumi does the cooking and I do the finance."

"Now, Nabiki, that was unkind."

"You didn't leave your last three meals lying around."

"Go look on the ground outside my bedroom window and tell me that."

"Yes, well, it's still past time somebody said something. Admitted, Ranma attracts trouble, but who's personally responsible for most of the holes in the roof, and the damaged kitchen equipment? And Ranma didn't throw himself into our koi pond; he never does. He didn't kill himself there, either. This curse we've got now isn't his fault, it's hers. Like a lot of things around here."

The conversation between Nabiki-kun and Kasumi-kun faded as they let themselves out through the gate and headed for Ucchan's. Left conspicuously out of the conversation, and left behind, Akane-kun stood, humiliated and ashamed, replaying in his mind Nabiki-kun's capsule assessment of his part in a lot of things he'd rather not have faced.

#####

P-Chan had been safely under the house, lazily tending a small camp-stove which was heating a pan of water. Nearby were puddles left behind after someone, probably Soun, had turned off the main water valve; if they hadn't, judging from the width of the puddles, there would be sprays of water down here and he'd be unable to keep his human form once he gained it.

The water had taken forever to collect using his metal drinking cup, dragging it sideways in his teeth, but now there was enough in the pan that he'd be human once he tipped the pan over onto himself. He'd done just that many times in just this spot. Hiding down here kept his secret, plus it was a listening post for anything said in the bathroom and much that was said in the kitchen. It was his favorite spot on the Tendo property other than wherever Akane was, even though right now the broken drain pipe was leaking a bit more sewer smell than his piggy nose could comfortably handle. Soon the water would be hot enough for him to change, and then he could repay Ranma for upsetting Akane again, and score points with her by being her champion again. And find out why the house above him shook so much a minute or two ago.

That's when the drainpipe started whistling, at first the whuff of displaced stinky air as something slid down, then a tune he didn't recognize and didn't want to, something that started out leftwards of Rite Of Spring and kept going. Then the whatever-it-was started spraying hotly down around him, anointing him with its bouquet even as it triggered his change, just in time to catch a hot wet faceful of it as water was added to the mix upstairs. If he hadn't been human by then he would have passed out from the smell. As it was, he clung to consciousness long enough to grab his clothes and crawl out of there only by mentally reciting his mantra: Ranma this is all your fault. Then he had to pull down a bandanna and tie it as a face mask so he could venture back under there to retrieve his stove and backpack, both of which were now immediately identifiable by smell as having been where Something Of Note had happened.

Ryoga was thus very much a not-happy camper when he finished stowing his campstove in his pack. Rounding the house, he went looking for his nemesis, and found him standing near the koi pond, next to ...herself? They were speaking, so he paused to listen, hoping for clues as to which one needed pounding just now.

"But look at me, Ranma, now my clothes don't even fit!"

Onna-Ranma sighed. "Go ahead and use some of mine, Akane, I promised I'd stay in this form for 24 hours."

"I can't, I don't think I can stand to go back in the house, not until that smell goes away."

"That was your cooking, you know, doesn't that make a difference?"

"Ha ha, Ranma, very funny."

"Maybe if you went in by the roof?"

"I have to do something. These panties are pinching me ...where I didn't use to have anything. That stuff hurts!"

"That's why I wear those Chinese clothes. There should be a set by the window; I was gonna wear 'em this morning. My undershorts, too. Maybe you can just reach in and snag 'em."

"It's worth a try, thanks."

That was enough for Ryoga. Now he was sure which one was Ranma. The other was Akane, changed somehow by Ranma so he'd have company in his cursed form, company which wouldn't be attractive to Ryoga; now his devious plan was unmasked. This was intolerable.

"RANMA, PREPARE TO DIE!"

"Aww, again? I did that already today!"

Onna-Ranma sighed and got into a ready stance, shrugging the burden in her blouse over into a position that didn't restrict her arm movements quite as much. Ryoga started in with a swift kick, and she jumped back, immediately wishing she hadn't, as, even with the bra, the extra load attached to her chest made the move painful.

She noticed Ryoga setting up for some close-in punches. Ordinarily she would have immediately leaped up and out, forcing Ryoga to extend himself, but she couldn't leap with full force with Happosai on board, and she couldn't predict how his shifting load would affect any leap at less power. Hampered by Happosai's omnipresent glomp, Onna-Ranma was forced on the defensive by Ryoga's furious attack.

Just as Ryoga's fist found an opening and darted towards her face, a tiny arm holding a small long-stemmed pipe reached up out of her cleavage and batted the stem of the pipe against the fist. Instantly Ryoga's momentum was summed and reversed and he was sailing across the yard.

His eye caught Akane-kun's open-mouthed stare momentarily, and he realized where he would land and why it would matter. Panic showed in his eyes as the rest of his life passed before his eyes:

1. He would land in the koi pond.

2. In front of Akane.

3. Who would see him change into P-Chan.

4. And would pound him into sausage and meat by-products for sleeping with her.

5. Worse, she wouldn't like him anymore, even when she was a girl again, if that ever happened.

6. And his poor little heart would break into little tiny bacon-bits.

7. And he would be too damaged to properly incinerate his remains (and the surrounding neighborhood) with a perfect Shishi Hokoudan.

In a moment the in-flight movie was over, he tried and failed to fold and lock his legs or his feelings into an upright position, and he touched down in a perfect five-point landing with a resounding splash, eyes closed to savor his last sight of an Akane-of-either-sort who wasn't incandescently furious at him.

He felt wet; this was expected.

Rather than drowning in his own clothing per usual, though, he was feeling rather confined in the upper chest, and much moreso around the hips, even though his waistband felt like it was about to fall off. That latter feeling intensified as he stood up, when, as sometimes happens when pants designed to keep 28-inch hips snugly happy suddenly have 34-inch hips come to visit them, his pants forcibly unsnapped and unzipped. He-now-she reached down quickly with both hands to grab her pants and keep them at work hiding the last-known-address of her manhood, then shivered, groaned, sat back down and folded her arms primly, stunned by the feeling of her elbows slamming against brand-new upholstery, upholstery which hadn't gone through the Bakusai Tenketsu training with the rest of her and was thus quite sensitive.

She opened her eyes slowly, then, resolutely not looking down, she stood up again, one hand tightly clutching the errant waistband. She walked over to Ranma and poked her in the chest. Lightly; Happosai's hand held the pipe aloft, ready to dish out more of the same. "Ranma, this is all your fault!"

"What would you rather turn into, P-Chan?"

Onna-Ryoga glanced over at Akane-kun, who was now wrinkling his nose at the stench; he apparently hadn't caught the clue. Their eyes caught for a moment, then Akane-kun turned away. "He didn't do anything this time, Ryoga. It's your fault you got cursed. And you'd better get a bath somewhere; you stink like our bathroom."

As Akane-kun went over to get the stepladder, Ryoga-chan got her pack and quietly let herself out.

Ten minutes later, Akane-kun got down off the ladder, a bundle of Ranma's clothing in his hands, and looked around.

"Whatcha need?"

"Someplace to change clothes."

"You can change over in that corner. Nobody else will see you, and I've seen it all before, a lot longer than my girl form."

"But you're a girl!"

Onna-Ranma grimaced and gestured. "Just do what you want, Akane. If I say anything more, you'll just turn it into a reason to hit me, I'm real tired of it."

Shamefacedly, Akane-kun hid in the indicated corner to change, while Onna-Ranma turned her back and moodily stared at the pond. By the time she turned around to see how things were going, Akane-kun was gone.

####

Onna-Ranma was getting bored. Encumbered by Happosai, she couldn't practice her arts effectively. Besides, she was getting a bit too hungry to want to do any strenuous exercising. She debated going into the house to see if there were any decent mangas lying around in the family room, something to pass the time until Ucchan's was open for business. She'd have to come up with two breathing masks to do that, though, one for her, one for Happosai; his grasp had been painful when he was persuading her to evacuate the bathroom area. She stood, idly staring at the koi pond.

"What's going on here, Ranchan?"

Onna-Ranma looked up. Ukyo stood with one hand on her battle spatula, surveying the scene, her face a mixture of puzzled bemusement and rising nauseous disgust at the pervasive smell surrounding the house proper.

"Oh, hi, Ucchan. Akane made breakfast."

"That explains the smell; so why is everybody looking like you now? Is this how you're going to solve your fiancee problem?"

"Naw, Akane clobbered me into the koi pond after Taro dumped some uncursed Jusenkyo water into it... and... I died and Happosai had to bring me back to life. So that's how it got my form into it." Even though it was true, it felt weird to be saying that.

Ukyo shivered and moved closer to hug Ranma-honey, shifting into full-sympathy mode. "But you're alive now, and YAAAAAHHHHHHH!!"

When Ukyo glomped Onna-Ranma, Happosai branched out from being just friendly with one bosom to being professionally pleasant with two. Ukyo leaped back and kept backing up, eyes wide, staring at the tiny hand which was sticking up from Onna-Ranma's cleavage and proudly holding her breast-bindings. Suddenly her feet were at the rocks and had nowhere to go. She sat down heavily in the pond.

She-now-he closed his eyes tightly and shook his head. "Don't tell me... yup, I sound like you. This is pathetic." He looked at his hands, then up at Onna-Ranma, who was offering a hand up. He stood up and glared at the extra hand still waving its trophy at her chest. "So what's that doing there?"

"Happosai. He used up a lot of his energy fixing me back up, so for the next 24 hours he's recharging offa me."

"And anybody else who gets near you. Wanna play with me now, old man? Huh? Didn't think so." Ukyo-kun shook his head. He grabbed his binding-cloth from the offering hand. "I'm going back to my restaurant for some hot water; Kasumi should have it ready by now. I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but... Ranchan, I'm going to steer clear of you until your little pervert payback is over. That's disgusting."

Sigh. "Yeah, I know."

"You're hungry, aren't you, sugar... Why don't you come to the restaurant with me, I'll fix you something to eat?"

"Somebody's gotta stay here to warn people not to fall in the pond."

"Well, so far they seem to fall in anyway."

"I can't help it if they won't listen. Very tragic."

"Ouch... okay, Well, I'll see if I can send something over in a bit, okay?"

"I'd love that. Thanks, Ucchan, you're a real pal."

"...I won't say it, not looking like this. I'd end up getting married to myself."

Ukyo-kun left. Onna-Ranma realized that she'd somehow discovered a potent Fiancee-Glomp-Repellent. The only nagging little problem with it was that the cure was undeniably worse than the disease.

####

Nodoka Saotome stood staring unseeing at the paper in her hand. It was a bill from a local store for some bales of bamboo shoots, "panda food", representing a tab run up over the last several months, and, though it was made out to her, the writing was that of her missing husband.

She looked out over the street; her eye caught on a passing panda. Close by, actually. Somehow this area seemed to have attracted pandas; her little friend Ranko Tendo had one as well. Perhaps this beast was even the one that her errant husband had taken to feeding. She didn't mind charity, but her money was strictly budgeted, and this sudden expense would cut deep into her household funds.

"Oh, Dearest, how could you..."

The panda froze momentarily, chilled to the bone as it caught her blank stare out of the corner of its eye. It was very very certain that she was looking straight at it. It resumed lumbering off down the sidewalk, trying hard not to change its pace in its eagerness to get away before she could follow it into some isolated place and put that sword to good use without witnesses. All that went through its mind as a theme to its rising panic was "she knows -- someone must have told her -- she knows..."

Following behind, Nodoka unwrapped and unsheathed her katana. She had a few hours yet, her shopping having been curtailed by having her funds commandeered to feed someone's panda, so she was going to follow this panda at a distance for awhile to see where it called home. If she needed to prod the beast to make it behave, or to keep it moving... that's what the sword was for.

####

It took a good ten minutes for Onna-Ranma to decide that it was a far better idea to head for the food at Ucchan's than to wait here in the hope that it would eventually come to her. Besides, the people who'd visited the koi pond most recently had done so because she was near it, so maybe if she left they'd stop doing that, and if they didn't, well, then, it must not have been her fault after all.

After the unnerving experience of battling Ryoga while breast-feeding, though, she was by no means eager to attract the attentions of any more of the people who usually enlivened her day while thus handicapped. Back alleys and sneak passages were in order, even if it took longer.

####

Once again an alternate-shaped Ryoga was tending a pan of water over a campstove, this time just over the lip of the canal. Not that canal water made such a great bath, but Kasumi and Nabiki had both been charged by Ukyo with keeping anything that fragrant out of the restaurant.

They weren't supposed to treat her this way. Ranma was the villain, everybody knew that, she'd declared often enough and loudly enough that it was all Ranma's fault, why was that bit of political magic now coming undone? It must have something to do with this new cursed form... which meant, of course, that it was all Ranma's fault. Now, if Onna-Ryoga could only get everyone else back into the habit of agreeing with that...

The moment was at hand; the water began to steam. Ryoga seized the pan and dumped its contents over now-himself. He turned off the stove and put it aside while he fussed over swabbing his pack down with canal water, quenched the remaining heat of the stove grille in water and packed it away, then shouldered the pack and set off for the front of Ucchan's, where he was sure he could at least get a meal passed to him once Ukyo got back to staff the grille.

If the place didn't get cleaned out by then, that is... Ryoga recognized the panda presently peering into the closed windows and locked door and knew that he'd have to bodily protect the restaurant if he wanted anything to eat from it.

####

Ukyo-kun let himself into the Tendo yard, grimacing. He'd heard often enough from Ranchan about the old lady with the ladle and her habit of indiscriminately blessing both the street and any passing martial artists; now he'd experienced it first-hand, and it wasn't fun, and what it had done to two okonomiyakis was just plain nasty. The only bright spot was the fact that Shampoo, who'd all but ridden him down with her bicycle, had gotten caught by the ladle too, and nearly gotten her tail caught in the chain as a result. Now maybe that stupid Amazon would pass by while he hid in here. Especially if she couldn't get the soggy 'yakis off her face without hands. Ranchan must've left for the restaurant after all, so he didn't feel quite so bad about finding other uses for them.

No such luck. A pink-and-purple cat hopped up onto the outer wall and stared down into the yard, shortly followed by a diminutive crone.

"Smells like Akane's been cooking again. When will she learn? Or you, for that matter."

Annoyed by the slur on his chances in the Marry-Ranma competition, and realizing that it doubly applied to his current shape, Ukyo-kun just turned away, expression darkening.

"Don't just stand there, Son-In-Law, you know there's a full meal waiting for you at the Nekohanten. You don't have to put up with toxic waste from an inferior suitor, either of them."

Ukyo-kun realized that neither Amazon realized who he was, and played along, hoping for some way to turn that to advantage in the War Of The Fiancees.

"I'll stay here, thanks. This is only temporary." He leaned back against the wall, arms folded, in his best this-is-how-Ranma-acts style.

"So you're going to patiently wait here for the Tendo household to go back to what passes for normal? I think otherwise. You'll thank me for this when you've finished the job Akane started and have no further reason to stay here."

With that, Cologne casually tossed the cat onto Ukyo-kun, expecting Neko-Ken nature to take its course. Ukyo-kun roused to a faceful of feline female crotch. Ukyo-kun pushed the cat away with an open palm and grimaced at Cologne as only a Ranma-lookalike can. "Don't throw your pussy at me, jackass, I don't swing that way."

In the mind of a certain Chinese cat, certain connections were made at blinding speeds.

Item: this Ranma had just been seen coming from the direction of Ucchan's.

Item: there was a notorious cross-dressing ninja with suspect sexual tendencies employed therein.

Item: this Ranma was even wearing a 'yaki-seller's uniform, showing off his cute butt in a most unusual way that was suggestive of cross-dressing.

Item: this Ranma was somehow now immune to her as a cat; he must be deliberately ignoring her.

Item: from what he had just said, this Ranma must be playing around with boys now; maybe he even considered himself engaged to one, since, in Ranma's life, any romance however slight always resulted in another fiancee of one gender or another.

Action: this yaoi behavior must be stopped right now somehow before her Airen stopped caring entirely about her undeniable species-generic female charms. Having a little fun on the side was one thing, but her Amazon womanhood must always be his highest priority. She would have to make sure that that's all he could see, at least until this little phase passed.

Crawling desperately up Ukyo-kun's arm with all the native speed and ferocity to be expected of a frantic housecat, Neko-Shampoo settled into place straddling the temporary boy's face, with the claws of all four paws locked into hair or skin.

Ukyo-kun responded to this demonstration of affection by blindly leaping for the koi pond, determined to drown the cat if that's what it took to make her let go of him.

To Cologne's amazement, when the inevitable splash subsided, what had been one male Ranma and one female cat now emerged as two male Ranmas, one in a 'yaki-seller's uniform, the other skyclad but for the beads and bells in his hair. The two Ranmas started talking. Loudly. In exactly the same voice.

"Don't try that again. I'm not who I look like."

"Who ...who you?"

"Who do think I am, jackass? I'm Ukyo."

"Look like Airen."

"So do you. It's this pool, somebody's messed it up so it acts like one of those cursed pools. I'm starting to understand why Ranchan acts so stressed out all the time."

"No fun look like Airen; no can marry self."

"Yeah, tell me about it, sugar."

Ukyo-kun pulled himself up off Shampoo-kun, shuddered, and started trying to knife the magically-active and slightly tingly water out of his clothing with the edge of a palm. "Yecch... don't see how Ranchan can stand this, this feels horrible." He turned away, heading for the gate.

Shampoo-kun stood up and looked down at himself, getting teary-eyed, not about wet clothing but wet maleness. "No lie. Shampoo suppose to be woman among women; now is weak, useless, silly boy. Maybe come off with hot water?"

"Saotome, I'll kill you for what you've done to Shampoo!"

Shampoo-kun looked up and froze, processing just who the target was and why. Above him, the white-robed Master of Hidden Weapons descended, claws and chains outstretched, glasses perched safely (and uselessly) on his head. Shampoo-kun relexively raised a knee, protecting the newly-acquired tender bits. This block, uncharacteristic of Anything-Goes and thus not planned for, put the knee in position to collide with his attacker's tender bits. Both went down with a splash, bound together by many no-longer-supervised chains. Mousse had a moment of intense physical regret, just before the sensation faded along with the masculine tender bits doing all the regretting.

"Stupid duck-boy, why you no use glasses? No can see you fight Shampoo!"

"I can see you clearly now, and you're not Shampoo. Urk-- and I'm not a duck. What..."

"Pool make us like Airen. Now Airen not marry Shampoo-boy."

"Mousse, do you have anything that will hold water?"

Onna-Mousse looked up at Cologne. "I have a kettle up my sleeve, but I don't think it's hot anymore."

"Fill it with water from that pond and come back with me to the Nekohanten. You two need hot water and I want to study that pond water."

####

"That's it. I'm gonna pound her."

"Now, Akane, she's an old woman. She's just honoring the traditions."

"She gets Ranma every morning with that ladle of hers, seems like, and now she got the three of us in one shot. And then she smiled at us, I'm sure of it. I was a girl again for ten whole minutes, that's all!"

"So? Are you going to kill her too, Akane? For getting us wet? Better go kill the weatherman, there might be clouds tomorrow."

"Let's just go back to Ukyo's for some more hot water. And control your temper, Akane, you promised, remember?"

"Yeah... wait, there's Ranma, this 'yaki's for her."

"We'll meet you at Ukyo's, then."

####

Two animals, one normal by Nerima standards, the other one abnormal by any universal standard, were both expressing their displeasure at the front door of Ucchan's.

The panda knew that there was not only hot water in there, which was nice on occasion but not essential, but food, which involved the panda's personal Prime Directive. The food was obvious, you could smell it, even through the vapors being emitted by Ryoga, and said Ryoga was being doubly annoying by refusing to let him come inside and help himself to some of it, all on account of a petty thing like money. It wasn't as if a panda skin had pockets, and anyway the last time he'd seen his own money was those two weeks when he'd worked for Dr. Tofu until Nabiki stopped remembering to ask him for room-and-board money. Now for some reason Ukyo didn't trust him to pay her back later for goods consumed, and had left instructions to that effect; sheer ingratitude after all he'd done to set her up as the boy's fiancee.

Taro-beast needed hot water and food in that order, because it would take maybe ten times as much food to fill his stomach otherwise. The magic of Jusenkyo somehow expanded anything he'd already eaten in human form to an equivalent amount in his cursed tummy, but it didn't work retroactively. He also was troubled by their petty insistence on his paying for his meals. His dragonskin vest was buried somewhere deep within his larger shape where he couldn't reach it or its pockets, and anyway he was far more accustomed to people just giving him things like food in the hope that maybe then he'd go away. In an open field competition he could take out the macho chick with the big spatula pronto, if she was in there, ditto the stinky boy with the umbrella who was currently in his face, but here he couldn't use his size to advantage without destroying the food and the hot water within.

His patience, never in great supply, was on the point of running out, when Ryoga, also never one for patience in the first place, starting ripping up boulders out of the tiny park down the street and throwing them up in front of Ucchan's front door. When all the available boulders had joined the barricade, Taro made one effort to stick one giant finger through the remaining opening, and got his fingertip slashed open by a bandanna for his troubles. At that point, both animals gave up and grumpily walked off. Taro paused to lift a leg to give the barricade a piece of his mind, but put it down quickly when a flurry of flung bandannas reminded him why he didn't often expose that part of himself.

The spray caught Ryoga, though, and while it wasn't cold enough to trigger the change, it was enough to send him, freshly pissed, back to the canal for some more hurried cold-water washing, so it amounted to almost the same thing.

####

"It hurts, old man, and that wasn't part of the deal."

Onna-Ranma had had enough of feeling like her bosom was at the wrong end of a private gravity well. Seated on some loose trash behind a fence, she fashioned her shawl into a rough sling, undid her blouse and pushed Happosai over into it. He cooperated long enough for both of them to get comfortable, then immediately fastened back onto the exposed breast and resumed his ministrations.

Behind her, a still-male but much-chastened Akane-kun, who had been following at a discreet distance, came up, offering an okonomiyaki which was silently accepted and immediately devoured.

"What is he doing in there?"

"Nursing." Onna-Ranma looked down her exposed cleavage at the creature attached like a particularly ugly barnacle to her breast. "Ya don't actually think you're gonna get something outa there, do ya?"

Happosai broke off to peer up at her. "Nothing but chi, my dear, nothing but chi ...and that's all I need right now. Maybe if I'm good I'll get a return-match when you get in a motherly way."

He poked his head up out of his nice warm nest to stare at Akane-kun with a level gaze of calm contempt. "What say, Akane, want to get Ranma-chan pregnant with that new hardware of yours and then drown her some more? Make an old man proud and happy?"

Hearing no retort, he chuckled, ducked back down and went back to his business.

Akane-kun heard the little suckling noises and reddened, acutely aware that Onna-Ranma was still alive thanks solely to the noisome creature attached to her bosom, and horribly ashamed at having caused all this just by one little show of temper... to say nothing of empathetically cringing from the imagined sensations of that lech nursing at his bosom.

That's when Nodoka stood up, looked around for the noise, and stared at the small swaddled burden.

"Ranko ...who put you in this condition?"

Onna-Ranma lowered her gaze and pointed at Akane-kun, the Keeper of the Mallet Of Self-Righteousness and the Cause Of Her Current Predicament. Nodoka turned and stared at Akane-kun, knowing in a heartbeat whose (borrowed) face she was seeing. Akane-kun stared back with widening eyes.

"Oh, my manly son!"

The naked katana still waved in the uncertain hands of the gifted amateur, attracting attention as nearby deadly threats are wont to do. Said gifted amateur was approaching, arms outstretched, the presence of the katana in one hand momentarily forgotten in this flush of tender motherly pride.

To Akane-kun, however, who was now sure that somehow the katana was going to be put to work in a matter of moments avenging the honor of Nodoka's currently-female "manly son", the katana was not to be ignored. Akane-kun did the only sensible thing possible under the circumstances: he panicked, turned and ran.

Nodoka stopped and shook her head admiringly at the retreating view of her supposed son's back. "Yes, well, I suppose you must be about your manly work, there are other maidens out there yet."

Even Happosai paused and rolled his eyes at that one.

####

Three male Ranmas, one in standard-issue red-and-black, the other two in various ladies' sleepwear, paused on a street corner to confer.

"She's never going to forgive me -- she thinks I got her son pregnant!"

"Now, Akane, we'll just have to explain to her what happened..."

"And how do we do that without getting Ranma killed? She's got that sword of hers, she might use it on Ranma!"

"What's the matter, Akane, you don't like competition in the Let's-Kill-Ranma department?"

"Nabiki!!"

"No, Kasumi, I... I deserve it. This is all my fault."

"Well..."

"Well, it is! He died... I killed him... and I can't get over how empty I'd feel if he'd stayed dead." He shook his head. "I can only hope I haven't lost him already. Not that I'd blame him. And I'm not even a girl now."

"None of us are. Let's get this straightened out as much as we can, get our own shapes back, get our house back in order, and then I'll help you fix things up with Ranma... for a price."

"Thanks, Nabiki..."

"But you'd better mean it about changing your ways. None of us can stand any more of this, and that includes Ranma. Oops, enough of that, here comes company."

Two more Ranma-kuns strolled up, one in a 'yaki-seller's outfit, the other in a silk pantsuit.

"Let me guess... you're Shampoo."

The silk-clad Ranma nodded. "Great-grandmother say find out what make koi pond cursed, where Airen."

Ukyo-kun grimaced. "Don't you have tables to tend at your restaurant?"

"Mousse do that in girl form, not even need glasses. Look like Airen girl, so so cute. You got hot water? Great-grandmother say hurry find out, no have time to get change."

"Okay, c'mon back to Ucchan's, then, if I can get us inside we can all sit down and talk this out."

####

Five temporary Ranma-kuns stood in an impatient semicircle around the front door of Ucchan's watching Onna-Ryoga at work trying to take down the barricade of rocks she had put up in front of the door. With her reduced upper-body musculature, it was nowhere near as easy as it had been to put them on the doorsill in the first place, and these five were in good shape to get physically unpleasant about something like taking fifteen minutes or more to boil some canal water.

"Is the window open?"

"No, I keep it locked from the inside."

"So there's no way in until Ryoga gets her rocks off?"

"Let's go back to the dojo, maybe the smell has gone away."

"Was worse when Shampoo go by."

Ukyo-kun remembered something. "I think I left the back door unlocked. Let's go -- last one there has to lead Ryoga-chan in by the hand through the front window!"

"Ewwwwww!"

There might have been argument just then about the nature of the booby prize, but the starting gun for this particular footrace turned out to be, not the thought of enjoying good clean hot water while avoiding the aromatic Ryoga, but Onna-Ryoga herself, who had gotten frustrated trying to use her umbrella to pry loose the boulders than kept her from the badly-needed hot shower waiting within, and resorted to something more immediate.

"Bakusai Tenketsu!"

Some of the exploding bits of boulder found their way to newly-discovered bits of male anatomy, suddenly educating them all as to why this particular assault on manhood was widely regarded as a Forbidden Technique. Mindful of how many boulders remained unexploded, they ran.

####

The panda hunched over and began erasing itself from sight with the Umisen-Ken, smirking at its cleverness as much as a panda could smirk. After all, what good were Forbidden Techniques if everyone else learned how to use them?

It was the work of a moment and some sharp claws for it to tear the small padlock off the door. It fumbled with the doorknob, then just shouldered the door open in a display of its own best martial artistry.

Inside, it found the ingredients for okonomiyaki ready on a counter. Beneath were utensils and grill supplies. In a back room it found the supply room for Ucchan's. Foodstuffs were everywhere. A shelf held large jars of Ukyo's secret 'yaki sauce. Truly this was a gift from the gods, this wealth of food it had found.

More to the point, it found her stash of saki, and, for the sake of economy of motion, consumed it on the spot. What that might have done to any normal panda is unknown. What it had done to this Jusenkyo panda was to eliminate most second thoughts, inhibitions and pangs of guilt or conscience, along with a good deal of its judgement and balance and most of its capacity for pain. This last was per plan: if the katana-wielding wife were to run it down now, at least it wouldn't feel that lethal blow. Quite as much, anyway.

This made decisions difficult, however. It seized an unopened jar of Ukyo's secret sauce, that which made her 'yakis so delicious as far as it knew, but there were no okonomiyakis to put it on. Easily enough solved: steal the sauce now, and show up periodically to swipe the 'yakis. Besides, no telling when Ukyo might return with her omnipresent weaponry to make life difficult.

With that decision made, and forgetting that the plan made no provision for immediate provisions, the panda let itself out the back door of Ucchan's, still cloaking, and lumbered off down the alley. On hearing a noise and seeing five Ranmas coming around the corner and heading towards it, it upped its speed to a flat-out run, losing its stealth cloaking in the process. Not only did the boy usually violently object to such thievery, this time he had brought spares.

"Hey, isn't that Ranchan's old man?"

"Sure is. What's he been doing in your store?"

"Panda-man only think of tummy, now run, must have take something."

"Hey jackass! What'd you steal from me?"

"We get him, no?"

"We get him yes. Come on!"

Nodoka noticed the panda as it swept back past on the other side of the fence. It must be running towards its master and food; if she kept it in sight, it might lead her to her husband and explanations of her son's very evident manliness. Blade held high for safety, she took off running, hastening toward a gap in the fence where she could intercept the animal. She would find her husband now; she could sense that, could almost sense his nearness.

"Dearest! At last!"

In the midst of running, the drunken panda heard this and was also distracted by the glint of sunlight on a nearby gleaming katana blade; gleaming, as in, unsheathed, naked, sharp and ready to do very unpleasant things to martial artists suspected of being not-so-honorable. The panda stumbled, lost its clawed grip on the jar of 'yaki sauce, lunged to grab it, lost its footing and went sprawling. Stunned, it felt sharp pains where the broken glass was cutting into its belly, and thought to its drunken self that some kind of instant seppuku had begun already and not bothered to notify it in time for it to wrap up its worldly affairs, have one last game of shogi, or maybe swim to Borneo. Teary-eyed at this untimely end to an otherwise exemplary life, and not daring to move as its personal Angel Of Divine Retribution climbed over the fence and stepped down and stood on its back, it lay waiting for the mercy-stroke.

"Uh-oh..."

At the end of the alley, the rear end of a panda lay in a large and spreading pool of reddish liquid. The panda was not moving. At all.

Nodoka spun into view, one foot still on the rump of the prone panda whose bulk hid its still-resident head from view, her katana held ready at bisection height.

"Oh, my, Mr. Saotome..."

"I.. I guess he paid for everything." Ukyo-kun began to turn a bit green.

"We look like Airen, maybe we next? No can fight in this weak male body!"

Five male-looking Ranmas mostly in not-very-manly costume somehow came to a zero-inertia halt seeming inches from this premature-finish-line. This had nothing to do with promises made by wandering martial artists, well, not much maybe, but more immediately it had to do with protecting certain newly-acquired proven-sensitive bits of anatomy from the dire edge of that blade... but it looked suspicious. And they knew it. Especially since there were five of them. So, five male Ranmas backed up slowly, then quickly, then turned and ran, retreating to their individual shelters. Still with one foot on the rump of the frozen panda, Nodoka stared in amazement, the sword forgotten and drooping. "What magic has my son used to mature his babies so quickly?"

Behind the fence sat one female Ranma with aged papoose, slowly shaking her head, beginning to suspect that her currently-fragile grip on reality was hereditary.

After a minute or so of total inaction on the part of the panda, Nodoka turned to prodding the animal with the point of the sword. "Get up, you animal. I want to see who's been keeping you, then we'll see what's to be done with you."

At this, the panda roused. She hadn't killed it yet, now if it could avoid leading her back to the Tendo place there was a chance that she wouldn't discover the boy's other shape; that was the real danger. She had known her groom was a charming scoundrel when she married him; it was the boy whose part-time unmanliness was lethal to disclose.

Its raid on Ucchan's was a bust, literally. That left the Nekohanten as the other known eating place where the Tendos had a tab. Perhaps it could get something to eat on the way past, while leading her away from the area. Or maybe it should lead her out of the area first so it could enjoy its meal whenever it might find one.

With the target settled, it resumed its lumbering pace down the alley and up the street, closely pursued by its unknowing wife, who kept prodding it whenever its pace slackened or its path was getting too blatantly hairpinned.

Onna-Ranma waited for the noise of her parents' passage to subside, then got up and headed for home by way of Ucchan's. However surreal it might be at the Tendo place, it was worse out here.

####

The three Tendo usually-sisters had returned home quite some time ago after a leisurely lunch and some shopping. The house was still too aromatic for use, so they more-or-less took up temporary residence in the dojo, where Soun was already napping. Even with its proximity to the fragrant bathroom corner of the house, it was less upsetting to contemplate than the koi pond.

Over in the front yard, Kasumi-kun had politely negotiated the use of a neighbor's garden hose, and was now happily heating a kettle of water on a small hibachi. Presently Nabiki-kun returned from using the same neighbor's phone to make arrangements for repairs, and then both of them used the first kettleful of hot water to return to their accustomed femininity, and the second to indulge in sponge baths, while Akane-kun with his less-sensitive male nose plied the ladder to fetch clothing through their bedroom windows. The third kettleful was his alone, and then finally all three of them were not only girls again, but smelling like it and dressed like it.

Through all of this, nobody had thought to stand guard at the koi pond. In fact, all the Tendos were avoiding looking at it or thinking about it as much as humanly possible.

####

It had taken Sasuke most of the morning and a great deal of playing tethered-goat to get Midorigame out of his pool and into the Kuno limo. It took still more effort, though much less time, to insinuate him into the Tendo koi pond without inadvertently becoming Gator Chow, so Sasuke was understandably reluctant to stick around to admire his handiwork. Besides, notwithstanding his loyalty to the Kuno siblings (he was their manservant, after all, and he'd done the dirty work of moving the bloody animal from point A to point B) he couldn't help but have some regrets for what was sure to happen. The Tendos had always been somewhat respectful of him.

Still, the project had been long in the making and costly to implement (panda meat was quite expensive, as befitted an endangered species), and not to be derailed over a minor issue of personal feelings. The alligator had been snacking on panda meat for the last month or so, to the point where he preferred it to human (a less endangered but more expensive meat, even for the Kuno clan). Now he was ready to go to war to do away with that nasty part-time panda that kept cluttering up the playing field with more fiancees for darling Ranma-sama... purely in the spirit of the best Kuno sportsmanship, of course, the same kind of sportsmanship that brings military rifles and infrared imaging to deer hunting instead of flint-tipped spears.

Even a shadow warrior had some standards, though, even one who would tolerate working for the Kunos, so Sasuke was eager to be done with the whole business and go back to more straightforward lurking and spying.

Thus it was that Sasuke somehow missed the fact that a 25-foot-long alligator somehow became a five-foot-tall redhead girl. Or perhaps that was because the redhead immediately sunk back into the pool with only her eyes and her bangs showing, occasionally rising to expose her nostrils for a breath. The koi noticed when the redhead started snapping at them as they swam past, but eventually forgot about it after she seized one in her mouth, started choking on it and spat it out, and thereafter pointedly ignored them. Onna-Gator settled down to wait for panda-flesh.

Some hours later, it was a freshly washed and feminized Akane who next encountered Miss Turtle, who was by now getting hungry enough that panda was an option rather than a requirement.

When she noticed that Onna-Midorigame was on all fours and naked, she immediately dismissed the sight with a huffy "not again" and sat down to pointedly ignore everything but her hurriedly-retrieved manga; she'd deal with that cuter-than-thou catgirl when she was good and ready.

The mistaken identity started to get noticed when the nude redhead, instead of climbing up in her lap and purring and licking her face until it fell asleep, proceeded to bite her in the thigh, hard, and then try to use that leverage to drag her back to the pool with it.

When Akane screamed in pain and rage and jumped away, Kasumi had come around from the hibachi with her kettle. She stood watching for a moment. "Oh my, I don't think Ranma-kun likes you anymore, Akane. I did warn you about striking out in anger."

She poured out some of the hot water. The resultant 25-foot alligator started moving towards Akane again, jaws agape. Akane shrieked and headed for the relatively-less-threatening koi pond. Kasumi stood for a moment, eyes wide. "Goodness, Akane, I think you've really gotten onto Ranma's bad side!"

Soun had looked out of the dojo at the first scream. By the time the supposed-Neko-Ranma became a reptile, he was running, shinai in hand. He, Akane and Midorigame reached the pond's edge at roughly the same time. Akane furiously scooped and splashed up great sprays of water at the reptile just as Soun jammed the shinai into the beast's jaws. Midorigame with jaws propped open suddenly became a girl-Ranma-lookalike with a shinai sticking up through its redheaded skull. It shuddered and went limp, its open gaze going glassy.

Akane stared at the sight of something-like-Ranma being something-like-dead yet again, and lost her composure, her balance and her lunch. She-now-he sat in the redecorated pond, sobbing "I'm sorry, Ranma, I'm sorry, please be alive, I'm sorry..." He looked up as a looks-like-Onna-Ranma in a brown gi raised her hand to Kasumi: "Kasumi, dear, could we have some hot water over here?"

"...Who... Dad?"

Kasumi arrived with the kettle. The alive-and-breathing redhead lost a pigtail and gained a mustache and a foot of height. He looked over at Akane-kun, glaring. "Akane?"

"Y-y-y-yes, Dad?"

"Stop killing your fiance. That's an order."

"But... this time it was you!"

"I don't go around turning people into cursed koi ponds, Akane. If this keeps up, all our koi are going to want to marry you. Or Ranma. Or someone." He looked down at the redheaded corpse and sighed. "Kasumi, we need to turn that thing back into an alligator before somebody gets arrested for murder."

"Oh, my... Yes, that could be taken the wrong way."

"Wait until I get my axe, in case it hasn't made up its mind to be dead yet."

Akane-kun stood up and clambered out of the koi pond, tugging on an errant bra-strap, trying to stop the pinching. Male mammaries, though vestigial, could be hurt if the straps were tight enough and torqued the wrong way. "Kasumi, could I--"

"Oh, I'm sorry, Akane-kun, I've only got enough for this alligator, you'll have to wait for the next kettleful. You don't want to have to stare at a dead Ranma for ten minutes, now, do you?"

Akane-kun took one look down at the cursed corpse and promptly bent over and got rid of the leftovers. Wiping his mouth, he staggered away towards the dojo, pointedly avoiding looking back at the dead onna-reptile, trying not to sob too loudly.

Soun arrived with his axe, and Kasumi poured the rest of the hot water onto the corpse, which immediately resumed being an alligator with a shinai through its brain. They watched it for a long moment, but it didn't even twitch. Soun decapitated it anyway to be safe.

Kasumi stood looking down at the corpse. "I suppose I should see about alligator recipes for dinner, father, I don't think this will keep too long."

"You're a good household manager, Kasumi, but I don't think anybody will want to eat that. What if it turns back into Ranma when you cook it?"

"Oh, my, that could be unpleasant... and Ranma might take it the wrong way. He's already been killed once today."

####

Kasumi straightened up when the kettle started emitting the first signs of steam.

Taro casually reached down over the wall, seized the kettle between thumb and forefinger and so took it from the startled Kasumi, and poured its contents down onto his enormous head. He immediately vanished down behind the wall. In a moment the kettle sailed up over the wall to clatter against the dojo. Kasumi shook her head and went to fetch it; some of Happosai's guests were not very polite or proper.

"Akane-kun, I'm afraid it's going to be another ten minutes yet."

As a small team of plumbers arrived in plastic HazMat suits to confer with Nabiki, Kasumi went to fill the kettle again.

####

At the Nekohanten, the panda had, by its reckoning, found fresh trouble in the form of a redheaded waitress. Why the boy would be serving tables here in cursed form when there was no Phoenix Pill to be had was a wonder, but if Nodoka noticed her and tied her to Mister Panda, her presence could be enough to bring the whole subterfuge down. There could be no leisurely dining here, this would have to be strictly drive-through. Especially with Nodoka tagging along and whacking it with a sheathed sword to try to drive it back out of the restaurant.

Fortunately, the panda found a likely diner who probably wouldn't mind sharing a meal, or at least one who was fair game for involuntarily contributing one: one Pantyhose Taro. The boy owed him one for his missing breakfast, after all. Even better, the boy had just had his dinner served; there were two full bowls of noodles before him. Surely he wouldn't mind sharing one. The panda hooked two sets of claws onto the rim of the bowl and pulled.

With Taro glaring and grasping at the bowl in question, the panda was just beginning to rethink its strategy, when the bowl slipped from Taro's grasp, upended and decorated the panda with hot ramen and broth. Immediately a naked Genma seized a nearby pitcher of water and recloaked himself in pandahood, hoping Nodoka wouldn't notice the momentary lapse in furriness.

Fortunately, Nodoka immediately had other things on her mind, namely the enormous Taro-beast now crowding her back out through the suddenly-shattered front facade of the restaurant. As the diners behind it scrambled to escape from their upended tables at the rear end, she was at the front end being stared down by an extremely irate bovine face, the owner of which was firmly convinced that she had herded the panda over to its table just to ruin its meal. It was just reaching out an enormous hand to her when she turned and headed for home at a fast but dignified clip, now convinced that, bad as it was to be stuck with the bill for a panda's bamboo shoots, she couldn't afford to be friendly with a beast that size if it meant she'd end up paying to feed it.

Behind her, the Taro-beast grumbled inarticulately to itself as it watched the panda, the other bowl of ramen in its paws, head the other way and duck into a low entryway. It needed hot water before dinner anyway.

####

The plumbers were gathered over against the corner of the house closest to the bathroom, hunched or crouched, watching as one of their number did righteous battle with something that extruded two protoplasmic arms whenever one was cut off. Behind them, one of their number was giving first aid to another whose HazMat suit had been partially ripped from his chest and whose discarded boots were still dissolving. Prismatic gleams of light flickered across the caustic substance which coated them.

The kettle began to steam. Kasumi stood up from where she was swabbing cups and plates, but a very large hand got there first. The Taro-beast poured the kettle's contents over its head and vanished behind the compound wall. A moment later, the kettle sailed into the yard again, clattering loudly against the dojo.

"Another ten minutes, Akane-kun!"

####

Mousse-chan was in no mood for troublemakers, so, when the ever-smirking Pantyhose Taro strolled up, peered into the dusty hole which was now the main entrance to the Nekohanten, and haughtily demanded two replacement bowls of ramen for the two that he'd been unable to enjoy at the restaurant before, she took one look at his smug face, mentally calculated just how much of him was still outside the place, and nailed him in the face with a pitcherful of iced tea. Besides, she thought as she watched the beast lumber away for hot water, she was going to be saddled with the job of making temporary repairs on the front wall of the place after the diners went home.

####

The plumbers had suited up Soun with as much HazMat gear as they could spare. It looked damned silly on top of his full suit of armor, but no one was in any mood to giggle. They had three men down, one with light wounds, and five who, thanks to someone leaving a dead alligator lying around to trip over, were now cute identical red-headed teenage girls who no longer thought about much of anything except what the hell they were going to tell their wives. They'd already called in the last three reinforcements, and they were still losing the battle with that... whatever it was. Next time Nabiki Tendo called for plumber service, they'd be sure to negotiate combat pay clauses.

All of them watched nervously as Soun crawled laboriously under the house, the head of his naginata gaily decorated with paper spirit wards, and began to hack away at the thing that might yet escape into the greater Tokyo sewer system to spawn, after which no one would dare sit or squat over a toilet again. The path of a martial artist was fraught with peril.

Soun and the plumbers were not the only ones who thought they might be in peril. The kettle was just starting to emit the faintest wisp of vapor when a large hand descended, seized it between thumb and forefinger and rose, leaving a startled Kasumi gaping. The Taro-beast poured the water on its head, then stood there unshrunk for a moment, said something exceedingly nasty in Beast, backhanded off all the major branches of an innocent cherry tree in retaliation against reality, dropped the empty kettle at Kasumi's feet, leaned over and, folding its arms on the top of the compound wall, glared down at the pitiful hibachi while its tentacles fidgeted. It glowered at Kasumi, who glanced up into its enormous nightmare face, nervously picked up the kettle and got up to fill it from the garden hose.

"A-Another twenty minutes, Akane-kun!"

####

The plumbers were just pulling Soun out from under the house feet-first, spraying him from both sides as he emerged with a mix of antiseptic and fungicide and, just to be safe, Tidi-Bowl and holy water, when the kettle sailed over the compound wall again to clatter against the dojo. Kasumi shuddered, wiped her brow, and got up to fill it again. Over on the other side of the wall, a reanthropomorphicized Taro strode purposefully down the street, intent on getting his meal of ramen, dammit.

He almost made it. He would have, except the day was warm and cloudless, and the streets were likely to be dusty in the afternoons, and the neighborhood was a settled one with its share of elderly women, and Ibuki-san wasn't the only one with a ladle.

####

Kasumi just sat back by her hibachi and watched. As the kettle started to emit vapor, a giant hand reached down over the compound wall, only to be batted away by five teenage redhead girls wearing torn-up HazMat gear and oversized coveralls, armed with various sharp pointy bits of medieval martial weaponry and an electric cattle prod which last saw use keeping pit bulls away from the plumbing. One of the girls grabbed the kettle, the five of them bunched their heads together, and all of them resumed being men. The kettle clattered against the nozzle of the garden hose, momentarily sending cold spray all around.

Kasumi-kun wearily shrugged, tugged his peasant dress into the new alignment, and went to refill it.

Akane-kun just sat on the dojo steps, hugging his knees, and watched and leaked tears.

####

Happosai poked his head up out of the improvised sling. "Ranma, m'boy, how do you feel about having me doing this to you?"

"Truthfully? I embarrasses the hell outa me, and bugs me about as much... but it's paying back a debt, so I'm just thinking of it as something I have to do out of personal honor." She shrugged. "I just kinda ignore it."

"Fehh... that's no good. If you don't get mad at me or ashamed or afraid or aroused, if you're not reacting to what I'm doing to your female form... then all I get from you is the male energies of your mind. I can't use that." Happosai nimbly leaped down out of the sling and stood facing Onna-Ranma. "Well, m'boy, you're off the hook. You paid me back better than I expected; you can go change if you want. Now I think I'll see what I can get from all your girl lookalikes while they last."

"Whaaa... while they last?"

"Well, yeah, that pool isn't a Jusenkyo spring, it's just got some Jusenkyo water to help it along. I expect the curses will wear off in a few days... so I'd better get moving before they go back to normal. Where'd that pig-boy of yours go? He's so proud of how tough he is, I bet he'll be fun to grope in a girly sort of way. He might not even fade! Heehee!"

A stunned Onna-Ranma pointed vaguely in the direction of out-there, and Happosai was off like a shot, evidently recovered from his labors.

Actually, he only traveled about fifty feet before he was snagged out of the air like a wrinkled fly ball by a very large infielder named Taro, presently in his explosion-in-an-action-figure-factory shape. The conversation which followed was brief and to the point.

"Mruooomphmhermnaaahhhm!"

"No way. You botched the deal, you brought me the wrong water. If you want your name changed so bad, change it yourself."

"MRUMVoooGHEEEVAAAAAHHHHHHH!!"

"You can try, Pantyhose, you can try!"

At that point Happosai twisted free of Taro's grasp and used three different painful points on Taro's giant anatomy as jumping points up to a springboard-jump off his bovine snout, to resume his airborne mission to boldly seek out new Onna-Ranmas in need of expert cuddling, coincidentally sending Taro backward over the compound wall into the yard to land on his head with his horns locked in the soil.

Taro cracked open one giant eyeball in time to see Onna-Ranma raising Kasumi's kettle over her head, preparing at long last to use a share of it to assume the male form. Even upside-down, he managed to seize the kettle and pour it onto his own face, denying Ranma the change and assuming a shape which could bully with words. He tossed the empty kettle back at the still-female Ranma, who caught it glumly and handed it off to Kasumi-kun, who went back to his spigot and hibachi, calling out to the dojo, "another ten minutes yet, Akane-kun!"

"Well, if it isn't the poster-boy for breastfeeding. The old man give ya a thrill?"

"Back off, cowboy, I don't need this."

"What if I don't feel like backing off? Thanks to you my name didn't get changed."

"It was your dumb mistake, not mine. Now -- back -- OFF!"

"Hey, if it's a fight you want, I can give you one you'll never forget!"

Taro went over to the koi pond, knelt down and stuck his head in the water, mentally ready to take to the skies and play dive-bomber. Then, rather than exploding out of the water, he slowly slid in the rest of the way. He had been trying to go in the direction of Big and Bad; Nature, Murphy and Jusenkyo had other ideas, and gently migrated him in the direction of Petite, Pert and Cute. Taro hated Cute, especially as applied to... herself. Onna-Taro rolled over and sat up in the water and glumly surveyed her new accoutrements. She was sure that those big bumps were going to stretch her dragonskin vest all out of shape.

"Arrggh, I forgot about the pond. I'm never gonna live this down, this is worse than my name."

"What was that, fem-boy?"

"Who you calling a fem-boy, fem-boy?"

"Who you calling a fem-boy, fem-boy?"

"You, fem-boy, that's who!"

"Yeah, fem-boy?"

"Arrrgh, I can't even hold a decent conversation now!"

"Like you ever could. Wanna hand up, or ya wanna sit there and cry awhile?"

"Who's crying, fem-boy?"

"Didn't we settle that, Pantyhose fem-boy?"

"Fem... I'll kill you!"

"Not unless you're a magical girl now, fem-boy."

"I can still take you out!"

In nothing flat, Onna-Ranma was through Onna-Taro's defenses and pushing her up against the wall, her other fist cocked and ready. "You don't get it, do you? You ain't big-muscle anymore. You've got two shapes, punk guy and cute girl. You're used to turning all bad-and-ugly in cold water, and you've lost that... so until you can get your girl shape into shape, maybe you shouldn't be trying to piss off people you might need as friends."

"Friends like you? Fehhh."

"Without friends like me, you'd have no friends at all. Nobody else can stand your mouth."

"So? I don't need friends, I can take what I... umm, yeah..."

Onna-Ranma let her down and turned away. "C'mon, let's see about getting some hot water. When things settle down, I'll help you train that body if ya want, so you can defend yourself when it rains."

"This sucks. Maybe I'll just go hide somewhere."

"It won't work, man. Nobody's gonna let you just walk away, you hafta be able to defend yourself when you look like this, everybody goes nuts over it, even you did."

"Naww, I just liked to pick on you cuz it got under your skin."

"And you think you won't get just as much from everyone else? Get used to it, and learn to fight back, that's all I can say."

"You don't think it'll wear off?"

"The old pervert said something about the pond stuff fading, so ya might get yer old shape back, but ya can't count on it, I dunno if it applies to people that're already cursed."

####

Nabiki-kun arrived home from his quick visit to survey the Nekohanten's new ventilation, quite thoroughly convinced that the little old ladies with the ladles were practitioners of some obscure water-based martial art, and probably coordinated by cel-phone. Three times! That was adding insult to injury to... something else.

The aroma had been all but banished from the house, thanks to the expert work of the plumbers and whoever had also provided them with the HazMat suits. Only in the bathroom and under the house was the smell still noticeable. The family moved back indoors.

While Nabiki-kun finished the transaction with the departing plumbers, listening carefully to the muffled voices from their HazMat suits, on those who still had them, Akane-kun was being a loud nuisance, repeatedly asking, "It's fixed? Can I change now?"

Nabiki-kun grimaced and pointed towards the kitchen, then turned back to the plumbers, having traded his place in the hot-water line for some relative quiet.

***

Kasumi had just finished pouring hot water on her own head when the two redheads showed up in the kitchen. Kasumi took one scowling look at the female Ranma wearing the dragonskin vest, turned to the one wearing the shawl, smiled and said, "Ranma-kun, would you care for some hot water?" and poured enough for a change. As Ranma stretched into his male muscles for the first time in nearly a day, Kasumi then stared at the other girl whose hand was still outstretched towards the kettle, holding the kettle well back.

Onna-Taro met Kasumi's gaze. "So I don't get any, huh?"

"You do; but this time you have to ask politely."

"Awright, I'm asking. Please. Jeez."

Poit! "Very well, but I expect better of you next time..." The last of the kettleful went to restoring Taro to manliness. He immediately stretched and cracked his knuckles. "Saotome..."

"..and no fighting in the house, unless you like cold baths in the koi pond."

"Umm, no... that won't be necessary..."

Akane-kun ran in, eyes alight. "My turn, Kasumi?"

"Another ten minutes, Akane-kun."

Kasumi refilled the kettle and set it back on the flame while Akane-kun settled into a good stiff pout.

Nabiki-kun walked in and pointed at the kettle. "I'm first in line on that." He turned to Ranma. "Don't get too happy yet, Saotome. The plumbers have done all they're going to do..."

"So the bathroom and plumbing are all fixed now, right?"

"All but the sewer pipe underneath. The plumbers won't touch that without combat pay; that stuff tried to crawl out and bite 'em while they were fixing the toilet, and it got worse from there. They think it's dead now, at least Daddy does, but that leaves the pipe. You two guys broke it, you're martial artists, you have to fix it."

"Whaaat? He squirted me!!"

"Just c'mon, man, let's go." He dumped half a cup of cold water over his head, holding out the rest for Taro to do the same.

"Why?"

"It's real tight under the house, it's a lot easier to move around if you're smaller."

Taro sighed and resumed being cute and female, while Onna-Ranma took the bucket of supplies Nabiki-kun was holding.

"Just how're we supposed to fix that pipe? We don't have any of the right tools and there's no replacement pipe."

"That's been taken care of. Look, you use this stuff to scrub off as much crud as you can from the original pipe, then you patch it with this. Don't get the glue on you, it'll burn your skin."

"This isn't exactly how it's supposed to be done, is it?"

"The right people have already been persuaded not to notice. Do you want to pay for having it done right, Ranma? Besides, around Nerima they kinda ignore that sort of thing, they figure it's just going to get broken again before long. Clean off the pipe, glue on the patch, fill in the little holes with this gunk and you're done. Don't make more work for yourself."

####

Onna-Ranma inhaled sharply at the sheer pungency of the stench and pinched her nose to make it less sensitive. Even after most of a day, with a decent breeze to dissipate it, it was hard to take. Behind her, Onna-Taro sneezed and gagged. "What... what made that smell? I don't think I could handle it in my old shape."

"Your old shape wouldn't fit under here anyway. And it's Akane's cooking."

"And you live here... you're worse off than I thought."

"Heh, sometimes she makes it especially for me, thinks she's doing me a favor, if ya can believe that."

"Why don't you just leave?"

"I told ya, you can't get away with that looking like this, it just doesn't work. Besides, this is the only real home I can remember, and at least she ain't too put off by my curse; maybe you can relate to that."

"You mean my name?"

"Yeah."

"You might be right. But you can still leave."

"You have any idea how often I get chased around by -- damn! Stop it! That hurts!" That, on being slapped in the chest by the flat of a bokken. Onna-Ranma scooted further under the house. Onna-Taro was next. "Hey!"

One would think that being huddled under the floorboards of a house, enveloped in a ghastly smog and encumbered with hardware cloth and epoxy in the pursuit of honest work would constitute sanctuary of some sort. Especially when you were twins. Not to the Kunos, though. Especially when you were twins.

"My fiery goddess! Come to me!" That, while, identity pseudoconfirmed by bokken-probe, Onna-Taro was now being jabbed with a bouquet of roses. Even though the roses were red, the thorns hurt just as much, even through the vest.

"Umm... I can't, I'm stuck here." Onna-Taro needed more practice in the verbal fencing required for dealing with Tatewaki Kuno. Behind her, Onna-Ranma grimaced; that kind of an opening could only make things worse.

"Then I shall pry you loose and thus rescue you... what, now there are two of you!" This, on jabbing Taro repeatedly with the tip of the bokken, largely in the chest, until she fell flat. Immediately, Onna-Ranma was driven to fending off another bouquet of roses plucked from thin air. "I must have you both!"

"Not until you've released my Ranma-sama!" That, accompanied by the bullwhip crack of a metallized ribbon wielded by Kodachi, smacking against... well, you know. "And what have you harridans done with my turtle?"

Upstairs in the bathroom, someone chose that moment to flush the toilet. Over the usual sounds of swirling plunging waters and the unusual sound of fluids hissing and spurting from the gaps in the pipe, a voice, perhaps Nabiki's, floated down. "Oops, sorry, I forgot!" Two redheads glowered in sympathy at each other. This time they were lucky, though; the streams of magically-enhanced blackwater largely missed them, in favor of...

"Phfaugh! What is this vile stench! What have I done to you, my goddesses, to suffer such?" Then he thought, and then leered. "Or might this be a subtle invitation to adjourn to the bath with the two of you?"

"You impudent peasants! Wash this foulness off me at once!"

An upraised eyebrow from one redhead, a smirking nod from the other, and then two Kunos were hustled out from under the house, escorted around the corner and deposited none too gently in the koi pond. As expected, they immediately lost interest in harrassing the two reluctant plumbers as soon as their eyes lit on each other.

"Get - off! Get - off! Get - ooog!"

That last was Onna-Ryoga, who was staggering over, having just discovered that repeatedly punching someone affixed to the tender parts of one's chest, if that someone was as nimble as Happosai, could be risky. It didn't help that, while she was tenderly cupping one injured part, the old gnome was now not-so-tenderly cupping the other one and giving her what on other faces might have been an affectionate smile but on this one looked more like a deaths-head with wrinkles. She sidled up to the nearby female redheads, hoping to get the parasite to leap to a fresher host. When that didn't work, she abandoned caution and started running full-force-frontal into anything nearby and big, ignoring the conversation in the pond.

"You again! What have you done with my brother, you vile trollop?"

"Saotome, I have discovered you! Your evil stops now!"

After all, if they were too self-involved to discover the truth about Ranma's variations in shape through all these months, why should they deign to notice their own?

"My evil? You witch, I'll deal with you as I should have done long since, you and your pet!"

"My pet? Vile sorceror, I'll destroy you, and your panda too!"

This was, of course, when the panda arrived, having finally made sure it had ditched Nodoka, only to be set upon by several of its son. It was completely and thoroughly fed up with all the pseudo-Ranmas, annoyed no end at not knowing who any particular one of them was, and besides, it was peckish from having missed two meals in a row. When the female Ranma with the gnome attached rammed into it, it belly-rammed her right back, sending her sprawling. When a male Ranma threatened it with a ribbon and a female one threatened it with a wooden sword, it roared, drew itself up to its full height, spread its upper limbs wide and clobbered the two together. The noise of their skulls colliding was meaty, definite and satisfying.

Akane-chan, still steaming from her return to femininity, rounded the corner from the dojo and immediately saw a fit target for all her recent frustrations. She had no idea who the two Ranmas presently falling limply from its forelimbs might be, and she didn't care. If that jerk hadn't taken his son to Jusenkyo, if he hadn't suckered all those people into multiple engagements, if he hadn't signed her up to marry his son before she was even born --"

"This is all your fault! Panda no baka!"

Akane shoved the panda hard and jumped back far enough to avoid the great splash. For once, she was sure she was doing the right thing in being forceful and violent, and she was damn well going to enjoy the sensation of certainty. That damn panda was going to find out what everybody else had been putting up with.

The panda sat up in the pond, holding up a sign: [And that's supposed to do exactly what?]

Akane stared and sat down heavily onto Ryoga's wet backpack. She didn't notice the wet Happosai who emerged behind her and looked at her thoughtfully for a moment before shaking his head. She didn't think to look for where Onna-Ryoga might've gone, she was too preoccupied with her turbulent feelings.

On the one hand, this was a grave disappointment, that panda needed to be cursed to look like Onna-Ranma for awhile, needed to deal with all the people he had set loose on Ranma in the first place. On the other hand, if the panda didn't change, that meant...

Akane sat pouring handful after handful of cold pond water onto her still-female head, giggling hysterically. Behind her, a small black pig was doing its living best to escape from its clothing and her presence undetected, something hard to do considering the sheer weight of the backpack it was suddenly buried beneath. The panda shrugged at the mystery, then put its sign away, got its ponderous bulk up out of the pond, and stumbled off in search of something far more important, food, accompanied by the sodden gnome.

Meanwhile, having finally finished with the patch, Onna-Ranma and Onna-Taro were now commiserating in the bathroom as they cleaned off the too-affectionate slime mold.

"I told ya to be careful of letting anything hit ya in the boobs. You wouldn't think it, but it hurts. He can do some real damage with that bokken of his if you're not careful."

Two buckets poured cold water down onto two equally-shapely redheaded female forms. Soaping began.

"Yeah, yeah... what pisses me off is the way he got the idea that I wanted to be his girlfriend just 'cause he brought flowers. Talk about lame..."

"You see what I mean about my curse... what it does to you isn't nothing compared to what everybody else does to you because of it."

Two buckets poured hot water down onto two forms which ceased to be identical and became male. They looked at each other and themselves. Akane's cooking was maliciously persistent; another round of scrubbing was needed.

"I never thought I'd say it, but I can see your point, and you're right. Wish I had my old curse back, they wouldn't dare pull that kinda thing on me then."

"Well, look on the bright side... nothing else can go wrong, can it?"

Two buckets poured cold water down onto two human male forms.

Onna-Ranma looked at the furry flank of the enormous multispecies shape suddenly overflowing the bathroom in all directions and forcing her out the door. She backed slowly away, heedless of her nudity, shaking her head and looking around wide-eyed for any witnesses, suddenly sure that backup would arrive momentarily and it wouldn't be on her side.

"No, no, no, no... not again..."

C&C welcome: siaru@stormbringer.org