I was looking around my hard drive, trying to find something to improve my
mood when I found this.  I figured I might as well send it out.  You can all
tell me what I did wrong then.

SlayerNext@AwOL.com
Presently channeling the ki of Ryoga.

                     Self-Insertion Redefined, Part 2
                          Oh No, This Is Real!

	I like sleep.  Sleep is my friend.  When I'm asleep, I don't want to do
anything else except sleep, so when I hear sounds of people moving around and
talking I just ignore it.  All except for this one portion of my brain (the
annoying part that won't let me sleep) that starts to wonder why I'm hearing
people.  After all, I live alone.  This thought pattern starts to creep into
the rest of my mind.
	As I slowly, and reluctantly, wake, memories start coming back to me.
Memories of a panda bear, a tea kettle, a girl... a really crazy dream, in
other words.  I start to chuckle at the absurdity of it.  Still though, it
doesn't answer the question about the voices.  A change in lighting prompts me
to crack an eyelid.  Looking out, I see... a panda bear... looking... at...
me.  <Blink>  *Panda.*  <Blink>  <Blink, blink>  <Blink>
	*Oh, I get it!  I'm still dreaming!  I knew there had to be a reasonable
explanation for this.  Wait a minute, if I'm dreaming, shouldn't I be asleep?*
The last thought puzzles me for a moment, but I shrug and decide to solve it
in the simplest manner available.  I go back to sleep.  I like sleep.  Sleep
is my friend.
	Someone, maybe the panda, tries shaking me awake, but I refuse to wake up.  A
large shove, and I settle back into the floating sensation of sleep.  *Ahhhh.*
The sudden increase of light.  *Huh?*  The rush of cool air.  *That's not
right.*  The splash of..."AAAAHHHHH!!!!  That's cold!"
	I find that a sudden splash of cold water is an effective way of waking
someone up.  In my case however, it seems to have a few other effects as well.
The sudden tight fit of my top, the sudden LACK of a tight fit in my shorts,
the fact that my scream is a couple of octaves higher than it should be, I
KNOW something is wrong.  After shaking my head to get the water out of my
eyes, I look down at my body and see ... someone else's.  Last night's dreams
don't feel all that dreamy any more.
	I look up and there is a house.  A Japanese house.  Complete with Japanese
people.  I can see Soun sitting at the table reading the newspaper, Kasumi
setting food on the table, Nabiki still in her pj's with her toothbrush in her
mouth, and Genma as a panda looking down at me from a window.  My jaw starts
to work soundlessly, my vocal cords not knowing to make the needed sound,
because my brain just popped a clutch.  After a couple of moments, Kasumi
stops setting the table and looks at me.
	"Ranma, isn't it cold sitting in the pond like that?"  That's enough to get
me to notice my shivering.  I somehow over come my shock and slowly climb out
of the pond.  I look around, not quite sure what to do when I see Akane
walking out of the house towards me with a steaming kettle, a towel, and an
annoyed look on her face.
	"Honestly Ranma, don't you ever get tired of this?"
	"Ahhh..." I reply with wit.  She cuts off any further reply by dumping hot
water on me.  The water feels good, but my clothes, what little I'm wearing,
are soaked and freezing from the dunk in the pond.  But you think this is
going to put Genma off?  Noooo.
	"Come on boy!" he cries as he does a flying kick off of the porch.  I grab
Akane and duck, barely dodging the attack.
	"What are you, crazy?  I'm half naked and freezing here!  At least let me get
some clothes on!"
	Genma turns around, standing back up from his missed attack, and faces me,
pushing his glasses up while making a 'harumf'ing sound.  "A true martial
artist is prepared to fight at any time and in any condition.  He is not put
off my mere physical discomfort."  He speech is enough to remind me where I am
and who I am.  I decide to respond in character.
	"Well tell me Pop, does a true martial artist use any and all available
resources in a fight?"
	"Why yes, he does.  A true martial artist..."  The rest of his speech is
interrupted by my bouncing Akane's teapot off of his face.  Hey, I was aiming
for the side of his head, but he turned his head at the last second.  Shame he
didn't fall into the pond.  As Akane goes to check on Genma, I turn back to
the house to see if I can't find Ranma's room and something to wear.  I don't
make it off of the porch before trouble finds me again.  I'll give you a hint,
it's two feet tall, older than Moses, and just hit me with a bucket of cold
water.
	"Ranma, let me warm you by rubbing your breasts!"  The old pervert is on me
and squeezing before I can react.  Now I'm not comfortable with the idea of
having breasts, and to have some freak groping me...?  You may think that my
reaction was a bit extreme, booting him though the outer stone wall like I
did.  If you do, then I encourage you to get groped by a fossilized pervert.
It will change you whole world view.
	The next sound to get my attention is a semi-regular clicking.  I turn to
look towards its source and see Nabiki taking pictures of me.  It only takes
me a second to realize why.  Being a girl at the moment, I've got my own,
private twin peaks, I'm wearing only a T-shirt, and that shirt is almost
transparent because of the recent soakings.  I don't know how Ranma would
handle this situation, but I know how I'm going to.
	"Nabiki," I say, holding out my hand, "give me the camera please."
	She lowers the camera from her eye and looks at me.  "Why?"
	"Just give me the camera please."  She takes one more picture of me, side on
to her like I am I must present too tempting of a target, then hands the
camera over to me.  I open the back of it up and rip out all of the film.
	"Hey, do you realize how much you just cost me?" she asks as I close the
camera and toss it back to her.  In response I grab her by her collar and pull
her eye to eye with me.
	"Nabiki, I'm in a really, really bad mood at the moment.  So bad that I might
just break my rule about not hitting girls.  So how about we chalk that roll
up to the hazards of the trade, OK?"  I punctuate my last sentence with a
twisting of her collar, tighten it around her throat.
	I must be acting more out of character that I thought, I've actually scared
her.  Slowly at first, then more vigorously, she nods at me.  I let her go and
turn, looking around the room.  Soun, Genma, Akane, and Kasumi are all staring
at me.  Soun is the first to speak.
	"Ranma, are you feeling OK?  You don't seem to be yourself this morning."
	I sigh at the unrealized truth of his statement.  "No Mr. Tendo, I'm not
feeling like myself at all.  If you'll excuse me, I'm going to get some hot
water now."  As I walk out of the room, I realize this is going to be a very,
very long day.
	
	When I return from the bathroom, Kasumi is just starting to serve breakfast,
and breakfast is, let's just say, different.  I'm not talking in Ranma sense,
I'm talking in me sense.  I normally have cold pizza and warm beer, the
breakfast of ex-champions.  The rice and miso soup I recognize, but the
pickled fruit (apricot, I think) and some sort of smelly, stringy bean paste
(it does taste better than it smells, it would have to) are bizarre by
comparison.  How they eat is also different.  I know a little bit about
chopstick etiquette, but I'm still watching everyone else, trying not to
embarrass myself.
	It's while looking around that I notice that I'm not the only one looking.
Nabiki's been watching me the whole meal, with a thoughtful expression on her
face.  Forget Cologne, forget Tarou, forget Kirin, in my opinion Nabiki
thinking is the most dangerous event in this universe.  The idea of it would
give me nightmares, if I wasn't already living one.
	Oh, and since there's food on the table, what do you think Genma's up to?
I'll give you three guesses, and the first two don't count.  For the price of
some food, however, I gain wisdom.  I have Ranma's speed it seems, but not his
skill.  I'm loosing food to Genma, left and right.  Yes, I'm faster than
Genma, but he faints, first one way, than another, so that despite my superior
speed, he keeps snagging my food.  Unfortunately in addition to his speed,
I've also got Ranma's stomach, and it wants to be filled.  Now.  Time to
invoke an old saying of mine.  If you can't win fairly, cheat.
	I look over his shoulder and let an expression of raw fear fill my face.
"Mom?" I ask in a weak voice.  The results will put me on Kasumi's bad side,
almost certainly.  Genma is in such a hurry to dive into the pond, he leaves
skid marks on her nice, clean floor.  *Ooo, bare feet too.  That's gotta
hurt.*  I consider why he didn't grab me on the way past.  Either he was
planning on using me as a distraction or, in his panic, the thought simply
didn't cross his mind.  Probably the latter.
	A large splash comes from outside as I quickly collect all of Genma's food
and add it to my own.  Looking up, I see everyone staring at me.  Again.
	"What?" I ask witfully.  Judging from their expression, I don't believe
either Kasumi or Soun were aware of my little trick.  I had the back of my
head to Akane, so she couldn't see anything, but Nabiki...  She remains
silent, so I go back to eating, but glancing up every now and again, I see
she's watching me even more.

	One apparent difference between Ranma and I is that I like to think ahead,
and since I'm walking (I seem to think better when walking, don't ask me why)
now would seem to be the perfect time.  Only I can't, not much.  I've got to
pay attention to my balance (I'm up on the fence like Ranma normally is), I'm
watching Akane (She knows where the school is, I don't), and keeping an eye on
my surroundings (ambush by Ryoga, Shampoo, and/or <shudder> water lady).  The
balance part, at least, seems easy enough.  I'm following slightly behind
Akane so as to watch her better, but also she seems to be trying to keep an
eye on me.  With the way I've been acting this morning I'm not surprised.
It's not normal for Ranma to threaten Nabiki like that.  Not normal for me
either, but then, I'm not normally Ranma.
	Nabiki is my biggest worry at the moment.  I've always considered her to be
potentially the most dangerous of the sisters.  If she tries to get back at me
for this morning, it will be slow and subtle, and I won't know that her
revenge has been carried out until after it's too late for me to do anything
about it.  And there won't be any trails leading back to her either.  She's
also the one most likely to realize what wrong with me, or rather what's wrong
with Ranma.  If I'm going to fool her, I need better information about Ranma
than the tapes.  I look down at Akane again.
	I've considered just telling everyone, but something's always stopped me.  My
paranoia I guess.  After all, if they discover that I'm not Ranma, they're
first goal will be to get Ranma's spirit back into his body.  Maybe they'll be
just as interested as getting my spirit back into my body too, but then again,
maybe not.  And when it comes to the fate of my spirit, I certainly have more
to lose then they do.  *If I can get Akane on my side, however...*  I jump
down off of the fence, landing next to Akane.  She glances over at me briefly,
but keeps walking.  *Time to put up or shut up.*
	"Akane."  She turns enough to look at me out of the corner of her eye, but
doesn't say anything.  "Akane, there something we need to talk about."  That
gets her attention.  She comes to a complete stop and turns straight on to me.
	"Does it have anything to do with the strange way you've been acting today?"
	"Everything."  I pause to organize my thoughts, feeling like I've got a
blockage in my throat.  "It's like this, you see," I start.  For some reason,
I find it difficult to speak.  *What's wrong with me?  Why can't I say this?*
	"It's like what?" Akane prompted me.
	"It's like, well, it's-it's hard to explain," I stutter out.  *Come on man,
say it!*  <Ring, ring.>  I take a deep breath and start to speak.  "Akane,
I'm," I start, and then I'm interrupted by a little voice in my head telling
me I just missed important.  I think back and realize what it was that I
missed.  *Ring, ring?!  Sham-*<WHAM!>
	"Nihao Ranma!  You take Shampoo on date later, yes?"
	*-pooooo.o.o.o.....*  The Amazon disaster area had arrived, choosing to use
my face as her brake/landing area.  Akane, surprise surprise, takes this the
wrong way.
	"So, is this what you wanted to tell me?!  Well fine!  Go on your date with
Shampoo!  See if I care!" Akane screams before storming off.  Well, I'm
assuming that Akane's storming off.  I can't tell, somebody has a bicycle tire
in my face.  I'm able to make a few strangled noises that seem to convey my
fondest wish, because the offending tire is removed.  Not from my head, mind
you, just rotated on my nose enough so that I can see.  Specifically I can see
Shampoo looking down at me from the seat of her bike.
	"Shampoo have to make important deliver now, but be waiting for you after
school, OK?"  She cocks her had and smiles at me 
	I respond simply, "Get off my head you slut!"  OK, maybe that's not exactly
what I said.  What I said came out more like "Gquf olf muey heald wouf slat."
I do have a bicycle tire in my face, after all.  She must take this as a "Yes,
see you then" because she smiles as she pedals away, smoking the tires on me
and adding insult to injury in the process.
	After writhing in pain on the ground for a moment or two, I stand back up and
look around.  No sign of Shampoo (lucky for her), and no sign of Akane either.
Cursing, I start to head for school, and stop as soon as I start.  Looking
around again, I realize I have no clue as to where I am.  I was so busy
watching for ambush, I forgot to watch where I was going!  *Great, just great!
What ELSE could go wrong?*
	The 'spack' of the first raindrop hitting the ground answers me clearly.  *I
had to ask.  I'm going to have to reconsider my disbelief in divine beings.  I
don't know of anything else that could do this, and SOMEBODY sure has it in
for me.*  As the rain volume increases, the 'change' takes place.  Looking
down at my misgendered body, I let out a long sigh and start walking in what I
guess to be the right direction.  I wander for a few blocks as the sudden
shower slacks off, trying to puzzle my way to the school.  Instead, I puzzle
my way to Akane, as she steps out of what I take to be Dr. Tofu's office.  In
our common surprise, we stare at each other for a moment, then she holds out a
warm kettle for me.
	"Here, I thought you could use this," she says.  I look at her as I accept
the kettle.  "What?" she finally asks.
	"I thought that you were mad at me."  She doesn't answer me, just looks down
at the pavement.  After a moment or two of this, I break the uncomfortable
silence.  "We better get moving, we're going to be late for school."