PLAYFAIR
by Scott K. Jamison
(Ranma 1/2 and its characters created by Rumiko Takahashi, no
infringement intended.)
It was late fall, and still dark when Akane awoke. She sleepily
hit the alarm clock, then her eyes snapped open as she sensed something
amiss. She stilled her breath, listening carefully. No, there wasn't
anyone else in her room, or waiting at the door. P-chan wasn't there,
but he hadn't been home last night.
No visible traps either. Time to get up anyways, though the
lingering feeling of wrongness still bothered her. She padded to the
bathroom (pajamas were floppy, Kasumi didn't normally buy a size too big,
must have been on sale) and brushed her teeth, then did a quick wash with
cold water to get rid of the last of the sleepiness. Akane could hear
the faint sounds of Kasumi preparing breakfast downstairs; soon the
smells would wake everyone else. Akane smiled as she returned to her room.
The smile quickly faded as she opened her closet. "What are
Ranma's clothes doing here?" Her entire wardrobe was miss--no, there
were a couple of her dresses to one side, but everything else had been
replaced by the baggy Chinese outfits Ranma favored, and some other men's
clothing. Angrily she yanked out her lingerie drawer. Y-fronts, boxers,
an athletic supporter, but none of her underwear and not a single bra.
"Ohhkay, Ranma, you've finally gone too far with your
'unfeminine' crap. Today you die!"
Akane stormed over to the guest room. Rolling the door aside,
she saw the Saotomes sleeping, Ranma in girl form. Akane strode over to
the closet, and the first thing there was a girl's school uniform.
"RANMA YOU JERK!" she screamed as she hauled up the sleeper and
slapped him awake.
"Ow! Akane, that hurt!"
"Hurt? You pervert, you don't know the meaning of the word!
This is one of the lowest stunts yet, switching our clothes around!" She
pointed to the closet while shaking Ranma. His negligee (!?) was
perilously close to tearing.
"W-who you c-calling a pervert? Those are *my* clothes!"
"AHRRR!!" Akane was about to pound her tormentor a good one when
a paw clamped over her fist.
A giant panda stood beside her, holding a sign. [Is that any way
to treat your fiancee?]
"But Mr. Saotome! He--" she broke off. Genma Saotome was just
now rising from his futon and putting on his glasses. So who?
[Oh, that I ever sired such a stupid son. Akane, apologize
immediately.] The panda wept copiously.
"Daddy? But you don't turn into a panda, he does. And Ranma
turns into a girl and--"
"Hey, I've always been a girl. You're the weird one around here."
"Why you--"*SPLOOSH* A familiar-looking hand was pouring a
teakettle over her head, with painfully hot water.
"Nabiki! Cut that--" Akane suddenly noticed two things. Her
voice had gone down an octave, and suddenly she was taller than her
middle sister. Her eyes fell downwards to her now flatter chest. Akane
dropped Ranma ("ow!") and she patted herself down, fearing exactly what
she found. She'd become a boy!
"YEEEEK!!"
A little bit later, they'd gotten Akane calm enough to listen.
Nabiki started. "Playing the amnesia game again, are we? Okay, this all
began when you were born and Dad was overjoyed to finally get a son. So
he trained you in all that martial arts stuff, and took you on road trips
to toughen you up. 'Make you a real man', I seem to recall."
The panda hung its head.
"Last year, Dad took you to some valley in China, where you two
started fighting and fell into cursed pools. Now Dad turns into a panda,
and you turn into a girl."
"But that was the Saotomes, wasn't it?"
"No, they came here just before you returned from China. Seems
Dad had promised his son would marry his best friend's daughter."
"I wasn't too thrilled about this arranged marriage thing to
begin with, then you turned out to be some sort of freak. But since
Mother died, this is the only place we had to go."
This was all beginning to make some sort of warped sense.
Apparently, Akane thought, she was in one of those parallel worlds Ranma
sometimes babbled about, like the one where he'd fallen into the Spring
of Drowned Elephant. Either that or a really weird dream. Either way,
she was stuck for the moment.
Kasumi reminded everyone that breakfast was ready, so they
trooped off while Akane returned to her, no *his* room to change.
Akane couldn't resist looking in the mirror. The boy looking
back at her was handsome, well-built with strong yet sensitive features.
He looked sort of like her father had in his teens.
"Hmm, I could go for a guy like that." Akane felt a strange
stirring between her legs. "Eww, I'm being turned on by my own body."
She quickly dressed in a red and black outfit, averting her eyes from her
all-too-male lower body.
Her cheeks were still burning when Akane made it down to
breakfast. The others had already finished, but Kasumi had saved some
rice. She had to admit that Ranma did look kind of cute in a girl's uniform.
As they walked to school, Akane watched Ranma walk. It wasn't
girl-Ranma's normal strut, or the bump and grind from the girly-girl act
he sometimes pulled, but more how a "normal" girl would move.
"Why aren't you up on the fence?" asked Ranma.
"But you're--ah, I don't feel like it today."
Up ahead there was a purple and blue blur. Shampoo! She was
going to jump Ranma again, and that pervert would--
*GLOM* "Ni-hao! Shampoo love Akane! Akane dump Ranma, marry
Shampoo, yes?" The Chinese girl rubbed her plush curves against Akane's
body, and the transformed girl felt her loins stiffening again. "Akane
glad see Shampoo. Shampoo can tell."
If all boys are as easily excited as this, it would explain a lot
about why they act like such idiots, thought Akane. She summoned up all
the strength she could muster, and pushed Shampoo away.
"Get your paws off me, you stupid cow! I don't love you! I
don't even like you! I never have! Go home and stop bothering me!"
Shampoo fell to the ground hard, as though she'd forgotten her
training. She looked up at Akane, clearly shocked. "Akane no love
Shampoo? Akane want Shampoo leave? Akane mean!" She burst into tears
and ran off.
Ranma's face didn't seem to know which way to move. "Th-that was
pretty brutal..."
"Well, don't you get mad when she does that? Don't you hate it
when I just stand there stammering, or worse yet, seeming to like it?
Haven't you ever wished I'd just *do* something about that bimbo?"
"Um, yes, but--"
There was the sound of water splashing, and a wet purple streak
came over the fence. Shampoo in cat form! Akane made a feint to her
left and plucked Shampoo out of the air by the scruff of her neck.
Before the cat could react, she punted it in the direction of Shinjuku.
"And stay gone!"
"But you can't do that, Akane!"
"Why not? She deserves it."
"But you're scared to death of cats, ever since your
father--you're not Akane!"
To Be Continued...
SKJAM!
"I like titles"
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