Cliche Gone Wrong: Ranma Gets Stuck as a Girl by Zorknot AN:Hi this is Zorknot, your torturer for the span of this fanfic! Every now and again I get the urge to do something evil. So I decided I'd write a fic that actually is supposed to be a cliche...only worse! I had a lot of fun writing this, and who knows, you might enjoy it, but remember: you've been warned. For this session we will be making an old favorite: The Ranma-chan fic! Requirements for cliche: 1.Foreign national applies some technique or artifact to Ranma, making him stuck in his cursed form, as a result of pissing him/her off. 2.Ranma fights numerous battles with foreign national in an attempt to get cure, but in the process the cure is lost. 3.Ranma enters bout of depression but gradually adapts. 4.Ranma begins to embrace her femininity. 5.Ranma accepts her situation and lives happily ever after. Now here’s the cliché...gone very wrong... ~~~~~[BEGIN]~~~~~ Spazzo the Illiterate bounded across the rooftops of Nerima readying his weapons. He had in his possession a meter stick, a crayon, and a stack of post-it notes. He was the Prince of an unknown tribe of barbarians who lived deep inside the unexplored catacombs of Florence, Italy. They called themselves the Orenjishinu. Long ago their great ancestor, Taro the Impure, asked the city officials to dig a series of caves into the ground under the city and allow him to live there. He was granted his wish,despite the extra arm growing out of his back and the pulsating green mole that dominated his forehead. Inexplicably Taro started splitting into different people until there were enough to start having sex and raising families. This is perfectly natural of course, as many cultures start out this way if the ancient texts are to be believed. However it is nonetheless surprising that all this took place underneath one of the most influential cities in Europe. Spazzo was on a mission. He had to search Japan for an artifact of his great ancestor, the Eye of Bob. If he could not find the Eye of Bob in 42 days, he would be forced to watch American television until he lost the will to live. Spazzo, being crosseyed, knew this would take a long and very unpleasant time. The first place Spazzo would check: the Tendo dojo. Why, you may ask? Why look for the Eye of Bob here of all places when all of Japan harbored locations that were more reasonable? Perhaps Spazzo sensed the impure energies emanating from Happosai’s room and was unconsciously drawn to it. Maybe he saw Ranma fall into the koi pond after getting hit by his father and reasoned this would be a good place to check. In the end, one can only wonder. Spazzo landed in front of Ranma and her father the panda and started whapping them both with the meterstick. “Hey watch it, man! Who the hell are ya?” Ranma jumped out of the way high enough to give herself time to analyze her opponent. Spazzo was about a foot shorter that Ranma’s girl side. He had very large ears and eyes much like Happosai’s only they were crossed. A delicate, well manicured hand protruded out of Spazzo’s head, beckoning Ranma with its polished-red fingernails. “...What are you?” Ranma rephrased. Genma faded into the background, disappearing with a barely perceptible pop, the unfortunate victim of a vastly improbable quantum occurrence. “Hey where did Pops go?” Ranma wondered as she unconsciously dodged Spazzo’s ruler attack. Spazzo stopped and said, "Estoy italian desu! Liberate tutame ex inferis! Me necesito anta no neko to properly wash my car!" “That’s it, now you’re goin down!” Ranma kicked Spazzo into the air over the roof of the Tendo home, then before he could start his descent, she jumped into the air and slammed her knee into Spazzo’s face crashing through the ceiling and second floor of the house in the process. “Oh my!” Kasumi exclaimed, as she wondered how to extract the large split wooden plank from her torso. “Now, now, split-plank- san, is that anyway to behave?” Kasumi admonished and the plank slid out of her body with a cowed look in its grain. Kasumi looked in the gaping hole left by the plank. She reached in with her hand, dug around awhile and pulled a long plastic object, dripping with blood. “Oh THAT’s where you’ve been hiding, Dildo-chan!” After a few furtive looks to ensure privacy, Kasumi began servicing herself, healing herself in the process with her potent sex magic. Meanwhile Ranma was having a bit of a problem fighting Spazzo. After crashing through two floors of the house, she punched Spazzo in the face. But once she did that she found she could not remove her fist! It was stuck to the weirdo’s face with a post-it note! Ranma thought for a while about this. Surely the stupid looking freak couldn’t do it again. Ranma punched with her other hand, and this too was attached to Spazzo’s face with a yellow product of the 3-M corporation. The inventor of the post it note came upon the formula for the stickum by accident, while he was trying to develop a new type of adhesive that could be removed easily. He instead found a material that inextricably bonded to whatever it attached to. It is considered one of the many lucky blunders of science. Ranma smirked, She knew how do defeat this technique.... Several minutes later... “Hey Akane! You have GOT to check this out!” Nabiki called from the stairs as she watched the scene while munching on some pork rinds. “What is it, Nabiki?” Akane walked out of her room, absently jumping over the large hole in the floor of the upstairs hallway. “Ranma’s stuck in his girl form.” “Again? Honestly, you’d think he WANTED to be a girl!” “No this is different.” Nabiki pointed to Ranma. Ranma’s four appendages were all attached to Spazzo’s misshapen head with post-it notes. Her butt bounced up and down off the floor as Spazzo nodded repeatedly as if to say yes. The delicate hand on the top of Spazzo’s head waved prettily. “I’m going back to my room,” Akane declared. “I can deal with the fiancées. I can deal with the kidnappings. I can even deal with the curse...I just can’t handle the stupidity.” Just as Akane was about to jump over the gaping hole again, Happosai appeared. “SWEETO!” he exclaimed and launched into a glomp. Akane didn’t blink as she materialized her hammer and splattered Happi’s brains across the wall. “Nabiki!” Akane called out over her shoulder, “Make sure to tell Kasumi to revive Grandfather Happosai while she’s fixing the house!” Nabiki rolled her eyes. It was a good thing her older sister had a lot of stamina... Meanwhile... Ranma was feeling very depressed. She had vastly underestimated her opponent. And now she could see no way out. “Let me go, ya creep!” She yelled, jerking again in a futile attempt to break free of the terrible hold the post-it notes had on her. They had melted into her skin, binding the bones of her hands and feet to the big-eared skull. “Cave canem...is taihen no?” Spazzo said smiling in his dorky cross-eyed fashion as the delicate lady’s hand on his head flipped Ranma the bird. This was terrible. Ranma was a disgrace to the Art. She had allowed her father to cease to exist, she had indirectly injured Kasumi, making her violate herself so that she could heal, and she had angered Akane, causing Happosai to cause even more work for Kasumi. She didn’t deserve to be a Saotome. She didn’t deserve to be a man. She didn’t deserve to live. Suddenly a ghostly form in brown robes appeared on Spazzo shoulder. It looked like Ryoga! “Use the Shi Shi Hokoudan, Ranma.” Bake-Ryoga implored spookily. Then another ghostly form in robes appeared on the other side of Spazzo’s head. “Uncle Ben, is that you?” Ranma asked. “Yessuh,” the smiling elderly black man replied. “Now as you know, my rice is some of the best stuff this side of the Mississippi.” Ranma nodded vigorously. She loved Uncle Ben’s. “Well I just got ta say...what is WRONG with you, boy? Why you so down! Look around you! Look what you got! Sho you may be stuck ta the haid of some circus freak, but you been through worse ain’t ya?” “I s’pose” Ranma agreed. At least she wasn’t in a pit of cats. “Now you ain’t gonna let this get you down no mo right?” “Alright.” “Now hows about given yuh old Uncle Ben that Saotome smile?” Ranma smiled. Ever since Genma had taken Ranma on that training trip Uncle Ben’s smiling face had been a comfort. If it hadn’t been for Uncle Ben’s, Ranma would never have made it. “Thanks, Uncle Ben. I knew I could count on you.” “Sho thing, man, sho thing,” and with that Uncle Ben and Ryoga faded away. “Parvus no agricola desu!” Spazzo exclaimed. Ranma let the remark go with only a small twitch of the eyebrow. Relaxing as best she could she asked Spazzo a question, smirking, “So now watcha gonna do?” “Lo siento nasai! Chimpoku ga molto grande!” Spazzo cried in frustration. He hadn’t really thought that far ahead. You see, the only way to detach the post-it notes was to find the Eye of Bob... Using the muscles in her glutteous maximus, Ranma dragged Spazzo over to the TV remote. Slinging Spazzo on his side, she was able to get her nose to the buttons and turn on the set. “Oh look, Survivor is on!” Ranma exclaimed, “I love that show.” Spazzo began moaning and writhing in agony. Nabiki figured this was a good time to make her entrance. She had a plan on how to solve all the Tendo family’s problems. She had been waiting for a time when Akane wasn’t in love with Ranma, and when Genma was out of the picture. Now that that time had come, she would act. “You know, Ranma, I might be able to get you out of this situation...for the right price.” “Really Nabiki? Hey that’s cool. It’s nice gettin a break and all, but I wouldn’t wanna stay like this forever. What do I gotta pay?” “It’s not going to be that simple.” “It’s not?” “Ever since you’ve gotten here, the fiancées, the martial arts challenges... everything. Poor Kasumi isn’t a machine you know.” As if to prove Nabiki’s point, Kasumi’s squeal of climax reverberated through the house as boards and debris started flying up to fix the holes in roof and second floor. Ranma nodded. “Now I know its not your fault, but we’ve got to do something. We can’t just let this continue. Akane’s tired of it, I know Kasumi’s tired of it, and I am too.” “Akane’s tired of it too?” “Yes. I think today she finally realized she didn’t want any part in your love life.” Ranma sighed, “Well, I kinda s’pected it wouldn’t work out. I mean, well, there was a time I thought maybe we had somethin but it just ain’t goin anywhere.” “Yes. Which is why I want you to promise something...on your word as a martial artist.” “Sure anything.” As soon as Ranma said that, she realized she fell into a trap. “You’re not going to be ‘Saotome Ranma’ any more.” “Huh?” “You will become ‘Tendo Ranko’ our adopted sister. I already have the papers made up from when Nodoka came to visit. Herb sent the Chisuiton from China. All you have to is splash yourself and everything will be taken care of. This satisfies the pact our fathers made and gets rid of most of the fiancées.” “Hey wait a minute, I ain’t gonna be a girl!” “You promised, Ranko.” Nabiki smirked. “Now that leaves one last thing. I want you to get engaged to Kuno.” “No way!” “I want you to at least date him a few times. Listen to your older sister, it’s for your own good. Chances are once he’s dated you or you’ve agreed to an engagement, he’ll start to lose interest and leave you alone. But that won’t be until after he’s paid a substantial amount of money to yours truly.” “I ain’t never gonna date Kuno!” Ranma declared. Truth to tell, though, what Nabiki was saying made a twisted sort of sense, if a few dates were all it took to get stick boy off her back... “Well I suppose you’d rather spend the rest of your life attached to this gentleman then?” Ranma took note of her current situation. Short of cutting her arms and legs off, something she’d sooner die than do, there was no apparent way she was going to get out of this... “Yes or no, which is it going to be?” ...and it wasn’t like being a girl was that bad. Now that Ranma thought of it, most of the good times she had had since she got here were in her girl form. Eating ice cream, making friends with Akane, helping Mom cook, beating up Happosai... in fact once or twice she had thought of becoming a girl full time before...Ranma hadn’t really made a decision but her head started nodding anyway. “Great. Just a sec.” Nabiki left to get the necessary items. As Ranma waited for the end of her manhood, she watched TV. There was a commercial on, one of those they usually show late at night that have the blue screen, phone number, and price that ends in nines and fives. “Can’t get away from work?” the announcer boomed in the commercial, “Are you stuck to your desk? Does it seem like you’d have to cut your arms and legs off to get free?” The picture showed a harried businesswoman trying desperately with exaggerated facial expressions to lift herself from her desk, where several post- it notes bound her to the surface. “Then get yourself an Eye of Bob today!” “Hey, wait a minute...” Ranma said. “With only a wave of a hand, or nod of the head, the Eye of Bob can free you of all that messy paperwork!” The commercial continued, cutting to a thirty something balding man. “I used to have to resort to expensive surgery anytime I made a mistake at work, now with the Eye of Bob, I can fuck up anytime I want to!... Did I say fuck?” The commercial cut back to scenes of black marble looking sphere as the announcer started again “Act now and you can receive Johnson’s Extra Arm Remover, a four thousand yen value, absolutely free!” Ranma was amazed. Here was the answer to all her problems and she didn’t have to be a girl or anything! If she could just get to a phone... “But wait,” the announcer cried, “there’s more! If you call within the next thirty minutes, you’ll also receive the Mask of Apathy! Dominate the poker tables! Create vast information empires! Bend the strongest martial artists to your will! All this: the Eye of Bob, Johnson’s Extra Arm Remover, AND the Mask of Apathy can be yours for only ¥2995!” Ranma squirmed toward the kitchen, Spazzo writhing around uselessly like a worm on steroids. She got maybe a foot when she saw a shadow across the floor. Ranma looked up. There stood Nabiki, in her white shorts and cut-sleeve shirt like a goddess passing judgement over the masses. Nabiki smiled. “Do you have anything you’d like to say before I lock your curse?” “Could I get some hot water?” Ranma asked hopefully. Nabiki barked out a laugh before dipping the ladle in the water and splashing it all over Ranma... She can’t remember whether she felt any different the first time she was splashed, everything happened so fast then, now however there an unmistakable pang of loss. This was the last time. She would not seek out the Kaisufu. She had been through that already. Maybe she was just taking the easy way out. Maybe she was running away from her problems. But running away was always one of the Saotome techniques, and she had taken the hard way enough times already. If everyone wanted her to be a girl, fine, she’d be a girl. But even as she decides this, and feels the problems of 16 years of life ease off her shoulders, she can’t help but feel the loss of that whole side of her. For better or for worse, Ranma Saotome slipped away, leaving Ranko Tendo. She was baptized in the waters of the Chisuiton, to be born anew. And now that Ranko was a girl, she could beat the crap out of Nabiki and not feel bad. Ranko waited patiently for the mail order yakuza wannabe to use the Eye of Bob and free her from...whatever it was she was attached to. Then she made her move. She punched Nabiki in the gut and kneed her in the face, sending a surprised Nabiki staggering backward just enough for Ranma to roundhouse her left cheek and snap kick her right on the rebound. A quick left side kick to the solar plexus and Nabiki was down for the count. Ranko walked up to her. “Unnngh” Nabiki protested. “Aw, c’mon Nabiki.” Ranko said with a smirk that was all her own, “You should know I ain’t gonna allow a sister of mine to get away with not knowin any martial arts.” Before she blacked out, Nabiki had the odd thought that maybe her plan wasn’t as perfect as she had thought. Meanwhile, Spazzo, with great effort managed to grab the Eye of Bob from Nabiki and high tail it out of there before the American shows completely destroyed his will. He had found the Eye of Bob, he could save his father the king from the mountain of post-it notes that had fallen on him, and he’d be a hero. They’d sing his praises for millennia...if they could sing. As it stood, eventually, once the king was free and everyone got back to having sex, Spazzo would fade into oblivion. One thing that would remain however, was the message he wrote in crayon on a post-it note he had attached to Nabiki’s wrist. “Thnx” it said. He was called Spazzo the Illiterate for a reason. EPILOGUE: The Tendos were throwing a huge party to celebrate the defeat of principal Kuno by Ranko , Ukyo, and Akane. Everyone was there, even some people Ranko didn’t particularly care to see, like the Bake Neko and the Gambling King. Everyone was pretty much getting along. There was a microphone set up on stage for Karaoke, and Ukyo had just belted out an ear wrenching song about Okonomiyaki. Ranko had found out that she had a pretty good singing voice. In fact an agent was in the audience and said that Ranko could be the next Megumi Hayashibara. She wasn’t really interested in that sort of thing though, she was still first and foremost a martial artist. Kuno had, as Nabiki predicted, stopped bothering her after a few dates. It had only taken three before he tired of her uncouth nature and lack of etiquette. Strangely enough it felt kind of bad to be ditched so easily like that. There was a party shortly afterwards at Hiroshi’s house and Ranko had a little too much to drink. Her hangover in the morning had been a killer, but Hiroshi gave her one his special remedies and showed her his clay sculptures. Ranko never realized how good a friend Hiroshi was before that. Sometimes she found herself thinking about it at odd moments... At the Tendo party there was one person Ranko hadn’t seen in almost a year. Ryoga had been living with Akari since before the incident with the circus freak. But now he was back here. After determining that this was the Tendo residence and not, in fact, Hokkaido, he explained how Akari threw him out, complaining that he just wasn’t piglike enough for her. He asked about Akane something in the neighborhood of fifteen times, and when he caught hold of an errant bottle of sake that was passed around and drank it with out thinking he finally came out and asked “You love Akane, don’t you? I won’t try to date her if you, you know...” Ranko put her hand up to stop her long time rival, “Of course I love her, Ryoga,” she said, “she’s my sister.” And Ranko explained everything that had happened since Ryoga left. She told him how initially Ukyo and especially Shampoo took the news that she was now a full time girl rather badly. Shampoo had thought she had to kill Ranko now that she was a girl, and she actually tried several times, but her heart wasn’t in it. The last time she made an attempt she burst into tears and Ranko had to try and comfort her, which wasn’t her forte. It turns out however, that if an outsider female causes an Amazon woman to burst into tears, they are automatically members of the sisterhood. Cologne was already busy teaching Ranko some special moves to use against the next threat. Ukyo was a bit difficult to deal with for a while. She wouldn’t talk to Ranko for weeks, until finally she just challenged her to a match. Ranko had forgotten how good Ukyo really was. She rarely showed her true talent. The match was very narrowly won by Ranko, and she half suspected Ukyo just let her win out of respect or something. Ukyo quickly became Ranko’s favorite spar partner and they kept up a healthy rivalry. After hearing all this, Ryoga had to sit down. However in his haste to find a chair, he ended up running through several walls and prefectures. He was probably halfway to Sapporo by the time Ranko looked on the stage and saw the three ghostly robed figures. One was Happosai, who Kasumi never quite got around to reviving, one was Uncle Ben, and finally Genma. They all smiled in approval. Ranko smiled back. Things were going to be just fine. ~~~~~[END]~~~~~ And now, five men in leiderhosen will play Jajauma ni Sasenaide on their accordions! Yay!