The writer in question has never gotten back in touch with me, and
had originally sent this to me. This is posted without any changes
by me as i still don't see this on the RAAC, and Mr Thomson did
NOT leave me an e-mail address to contact him back about it. As it
also has one of the best "on meeting the Tendos" scenes i've seen,
here it is:
The Bet - Twin Fates
By Robert Thomson
*****
Disclaimer - Ranma, Jusenkyo and just about everything in
this work of fiction belong to Rumiko Takahashi. I'm not making
any money of this despite the fact I need it, and suing me
would be trying to get blood from a stone.
The idea of the Bet and this particular avatar of Toltiir,
belong to Gregg Sharp to the best of my knowledge. Some
ideas are inspired by the works of Mark Doherty, and are acknowledged
as such.
****
Toltiir looked at the spirit animal before him.
A Polynesian Turtle spirit, it was making a late
entry to the competition.
"A rather large change, but small in comparison
to some of the other entries. A decision regarding
which way to punch someone, with the changes snow-
balling from that."
Toltiir looked into the pool, observing the effects
of the change. "Mmmm... yes. Exponential change to
begin with then it levels out. But there is another
little change here... before he falls into the pool,
isn�t there."
"Not really. He is a top-level martial artist, that
action is well within his capabilities."
"Uh, indeed. By the way, what is your name?"
"My pen name is Shelly, after the poet."
Toltiir stared at the turtle deity. "The poet?"
"Yes, the poet Mary Shelly, wrote Frankenstein?
I thought the name suited."
"Ah, well. Shelly, we may need to have a talk."
****
Ranma Saotome looked around the training ground.
The floor of the mist-shroud valley was covered
in pools of clear water, each with a bamboo pole
sticking up out of it. This Jusenkyo place didn�t
look like much, just a specialised area for balance
practice.
His father, Genma Saotome, was talking to a man
dressed in the uniform of a Chinese Dangerous
Magical Sites Guide. Or rather, the Guide was
talking while Genma ignored him and mouthed empty
pleasantries.
"This place very dangerous, nobody use now. Is more
than one hundred spring here, and every one have own
terrible tragic legend." The Guide was getting more
and more desperate, didn�t these two fools know what
sort of danger they were in?
"That�s very interesting, thank you. Now, Ranma,
follow me." Genma leapt to the top of one of the
poles, where he wobbled for a few seconds before
getting his balance. Ranma followed him a moment
later.
"Oh Sirs! What you doing!" The Guide watched as
Ranma balanced over the Spring of Drowned Orangutan.
With only a nod to each other, the two gi-clad martial
artist launched towards each other in a flurry of kicks
and punches. The Guide watched in dismay, still
desperately trying to convince them of the risks of
the Cursed Pools. "Please Sir, Very bad you fall in
spring!"
The first one to make a mistake was Genma. He left a
gap in his defence, and Ranma exploited it, landing
a kick just below Genma�s ribcage. The older man was
sent tumbling into one of the pools.
Ranma jumped down to the ground and walked over to the
pool. The Guide ran up beside him as he reached.
"Oh dear, Sir fall into Spring of Drowned Panda, very
tragic story of Panda that drown here 2000 years ago,
now who ever fall in Spring..."
At this point, Genma resurfaced from the pool, and lashed
out at his son. Ranma was blinked at the sudden emergence
of a giant panda from the pool, and was so surprised by
this, he failed to block his father�s punch. He went
sailing up into the air in a high parabolic arc.
"... takes body of Giant Panda," Completed the Guide,
watching the falling young man. He looked like he was
going to land in the Spring of Drowned Girl.
Ranma looked downward as he fell. It looked like he was
heading towards one of the pools. One of the pools that
had turned his father into a panda. A pool that could turn
him into some animal. In the grip of panic, adrenaline
flooded Ranma�s body. As he fell, he snapped his arm out
sideways, grabbing hold of the bamboo pole sticking out
of the pool. Then he twisted his whole body, changing
the direction of movement, sending him flying away from
the pool...
... And straight into another one. Ranma landed with a
splash, and disappeared beneath the surface.
The panda and the Guide ran over to the pool. When Ranma
surfaced, the Guide approached him.
"Oh Sir, you very lucky, you miss falling into Spring of
Drowned Girl. But instead you fall in Spring of Drowned
Twins, very tragic story of twins who drowned in spring
long, long time ago, now who ever fall in become twins..."
The Guide trailed off, and glanced from Ranma to something on
the other side of the pool.
"Hey, what are you looking at?" Said Ranma as he turned around
to see what the Guide was looking at. He ended up looking into
a pair of heart-stoppingly, spine-chillingly, familiar eyes.
The same eyes that he looked into every time he look in a mirror.
"Arrrrrgggghhhhhhh!!!!"
*****
"I�ll get it," Nabiki Tendo jumped up and walked out into the
hall. She opened the door to be confronted with a giant panda
carrying a person with red-hair over it�s shoulder. Beside the
panda stood a young man, dressed in Chinese-style clothing and
carrying an umbrella. The red-head was yelling and pounding the
back of the panda with her fists. The panda remained unresponsive
to this, and stepped inside the door-frame. As it did so, it pulled
a wooden sign with <Hello, is this the home of Soun Tendo> on it
out of nowhere, and held it up so Nabiki could read it.
Nabiki looked at the panda and took a step back in shock. Who
were these strange people? The red-headed person seemed upset
by their situation, and what was a wild panda doing in Nerima?
Where had it got that sign from? She was so surprised by the odd
sight before her that she almost didn�t notice the upset expression
on the face of the young man as he followed the panda inside. He
seemed irritated and embarrassed by the way the panda and the
red-head were acted, and that seemed to relieve some of the confusion
that Nabiki felt. There was at least one person here who knew
what was happening, she thought as she examined him more closely.
He was handsome, with strong masculine features to his face, neatly
kept black hair worn long in the back in a ponytail, and eyes the
same grey colour as storm clouds. He wore a red silk shirt, in a
simple Chinese design, and plain black pants, both immaculate. He
was tall, and had a well defined musculature, meaning in simple terms,
he was a total hunk. Nabiki noted that he seemed younger than he
looked at first glance, but carried an air of maturity about him
that added a few years. All in all, the young man was causing feelings
in Nabiki that she hadn�t felt since the time she managed to con a
tour of the Kuno family vaults. If this was the Ranma Saotome that
daddy had been talking about, there wouldn�t be any more problems
deciding which sister would marry him, because Nabiki was going to
break the legs of her sisters if either of them tried to claim him.
She side-stepped around the advancing panda, and approached the young
man. She smiled in welcome. "Hello, is this your panda, sir?"
He blinked, then nodded in reply, "Ah, well, yes, kind of. I am Ranma
Saotome, may I say how sorry I am in advance for any trouble our
presence may cause."
Polite, well-mannered, and there was a certain resonance in his deep
voice that made Nabiki�s knees weaken. She had to clear her suddenly
dry throat before continuing. "Thank you. May I welcome you to the
Tendo dojo. I am Nabiki Tendo, your new fiancee, and the future mother
of your children."
Damn, where did that come from, it was way too forward, she thought
as Ranma�s eyes widened to about 200% their normal size, before he
facefaulted under the weight of a huge sweat-drop on his head. Now
I�ve scared him. I had better wait awhile before asking him whether
he wants a traditional wedding, or something a little more flash?
****
Soun Tendo stared in shock at Ranma�s chest. After the panda had put
down the red-headed person in the living room, Soun had immediately
began hugging the redhead and wailing happily that Ranma had finally
arrived. When he had noticed the strange softness of the person�s
chest, he pulled back to be confront with two rather large, and
definitely female, breasts. That this point he had stopped wailing
happily, and had begun to consider wailing unhappily.
"Uh, dad, that looks like a girl, not a guy," Akane noted, relieved
at a reprieve from this ridiculous marriage business. Seeing her father
was still in shock, she turned her attention to the young girl.
Red-hair, plaited in a pigtail, bright blue eyes, features which couldn�t
decide whether they were feminine or androgynous. Her clothes were baggy,
but the white Chinese shirt she was wearing was straining against her
considerable bosom. Akane fought back a little wave of jealousy over
this last fact, and smiled at the girl. "Sorry about that, Father gets
a little emotional at times. I�m Akane Tendo, what is your name?"
"I am Ranma Saotome, pleased to meet you Akane," Akane blinked when
she heard the girl�s name. Ranma was a girl? "Nice going Dad, you�ve
engaged one of us to another girl!"
"I assumed that my friend�s Genma�s son was a boy," was all Soun managed
to say before lapsing into silent shock.
"Well at least this stupid engagement isn�t a problem anymore." Akane
said, her relieve increasing.
"Engagement, what engagement?" Asked Ranma.
"You didn�t get told? I�ll explain it to you while I show you around.
Come on, the Dojo is this way. Say, you�re supposed to be studying
kempo, aren�t you..."
The rest of the conservation wasn�t audible in the living room as the
two girls walked away. A few seconds later, Nabiki walked in, dragging
the other Ranma�s comatose body. She looked around the empty room, then
scowled at her father, still frozen in shock. Great, her sisters had
left her to take care of the unconscious men. Where was Kasumi when you
really needed her?
****
At that point in time, Kasumi was in the kitchen, offering a bushel of
bamboo shoots to the giant panda.
The panda was declining in favour of some more tea and another slice of
that delicious looking cake on the bench.
****
(Later)
Akane ran through the living room and into the dojo, screaming at the
top of her voice as she went. Arriving at the dojo, she grabbed her
heaviest dumbbell and started to run back to the bathroom to pound the
pervert with it. Halfway across the living room, however, she spotted a
familiar-unfamiliar face, and came to a complete stop. With a cry of
"Die, pervert!", Akane threw the dumbbell straight into the face of the
dark-haired pervert.
Only after he had collapsed on the floor, dumbbell firmly imbedded in his
face, did she notice Kasumi and her father staring in shock at her, along
with a large bald man wearing a gi, and a very pissed-off looking Nabiki.
Immediately after this came the question; how had the pervert got down
from the bathroom so quickly.
Immediately after that, a voice from behind her said "Look, sorry about
the bathroom, I should have put a sign up or something, OK? No problem,
right?"
Akane slowly turned around to face the same boy she had found in the bathroom
earlier, and whose double she had just thrown a dumbbell at.
"Hey, what happened to Ranma? Ah, why are you all looking at me like that?
Oh, you don�t know about our little problem yet. Ummm, you had better sit
down this is kind of a long story..."
****
"... so after we climbed outta the Pool of Drowned Twins, the two of us got
into a little fight over which one of us was the real Ranma. He punched me
into the Pool of Drowned Girl, which was the one we had avoided falling into
earlier, and then I dropped him into the Pool of Drowned Virtuous Man, which
is the reason he�s the way he is. After he got outta that pool, I knocked him
into one of the Drowned animal pools, and that sort of put a stop to the
fight."
Nabiki looked at her beloved�s twin. Ranma-kun wasn�t anywhere near as
handsome
or manly as her Ranma-sama, but in the wake of Akane�s Dumbbell of Doom attack
he was more coherent.
So Ranma was twins due to an encounter with a magical spring. Interesting, but
not very believable except she had seen Ranma-sama�s brother and father
demonstrate the shape-change properties of the pools.
"So the two of you change back to being one person with hot water?"
Asked Akane, caught between guilt from hitting an innocent man with
a dumbbell, and angry at the man who saw her naked.
"Ah, yes and no. We have to be in physical contact to change back
to one person, and we try to avoid it because our different
personalities give our combined self a very large headache."
"So what does Ranma-sama here turn into?" Nabiki nodded at
the young man resting his head on her lap. She had insisted
on taking care of him while he recovered from Akane�s attack,
and was keeping a cold compress applied to the swelling bump
on his head.
"Ah, what do you mean?" Ranma-kun replied, suddenly nervous.
Nabiki narrowed her eyes, what was he hiding.
"You said he fell into a Pool of Drowned Animal. Well, what
sort of animal is he cursed to change into?"
"Just a normal sort. Just a little, furry animal with tail
and claws and whiskers and that sort of thing,"
"That doesn�t answer my question. What animal does he turn
into?" Nabiki was about to press Ranma-kun further when a
noise from her lap drew her attention back to his brother.
With a groan, Ranma-sama pulled himself upright before he
spoke.
"You will have to excuse my brother, Nabiki. We both have a
very strong phobia of the type of animal I change into,
which is why we stopped fighting after I fell into the pool.
He was too busy running away screaming in terror, and I was
too busy having a nervous breakdown. We try to avoid talk
about it as much as possible. Now, can we change the subject
for a minute. I would like someone to explain how come I am
engaged to Nabiki when I have only just meet her..."
****
Right, this is intended as a Ranma-gets-Nabiki piece, and
maybe a Ranma-gets-Shampoo piece thanks to the magic of
Jusenkyo. Ranma-kun/chan is the Ranma with the girl curse,
and is pretty similar to the manga Ranma. Ranma-sama is the
one that fell into Virtuous Man, and is seriously attracted
to Nabiki, who returns the attraction (opposites attract).
Genma registers Ranma-kun/chan as a girl as part of a concerted
plan to provide Nodoka with both a manly son, and a womanly
daughter. The only person who thinks this is a good idea is
Genma.
Kuno reacts as normal to Ranma-chan, but has to accept it when
Ranma-sama claims that as her brother, he gets to decide who
she can date. Virtuous Ranma does not take Kuno�s attitude to
women well.
(Scene) Ranma-sama : "You have continued to press your suit after
being firmly rejected by the women you seek to date; You have done so
in such a way as to be a prime nuisance, and in such a way as to stop
them from dating as they choose to; You have failed to respect the
wishes and desires of both the women and their families; You have
repeatedly attempted to assault the women, and have deceived the
populous of this school into assaulting them as well; You have
spied on them, and purchased pictures of them to leer at in your
perversion; and to compound all this you have continued in your
deluded belief that the women actually love and desire you, when
the vast bulk of evidence negates this. Plus, you have forced me
to talk like a complete idiot in order to explain this all to you.
You are an enemy of women, and I shall teach you true honour and
virtue!"
Kuno : "Ah, well, ummm, when you put it THAT way..."
Ryouga - Turns up, is very upset at having to kill two Ranma�s
instead of one. Got knocked into Pool of Drowned Griffin Hatchling
by Ranma-chan while she was running in fear from Ranma-sama.
Ranma-sama tries talking to the Lost boy, Ranma-kun response
in the classical manga way (ie fights Ryouga). Will probably
end up with Akane, but still worries about her finding out
about her little Griff-chan.
Shampoo - Turns up hunting the red-haired girl who defeated her
at the Amazon tournament. Story line will follow manga closely,
until Ranma-kun knocks her out. Because of Ranma-sama�s inherent
honesty (Truthfulness is a virtue), when he realise that Shampoo
can�t both kill AND marry his brother, he blabs about the curse.
Shampoo is her usually affectionate self, and because she is one
of the few people who treats Ranma-kun as being a guy, he goes
head-over-heels for her. They remain in Japan for a while, and
Shampoo starts school. Some initial confusion because of Twins
(Scene) Shampoo : "Stupid mercenary girl, always hang all over
Airen. Maybe Shampoo wash man out of hair?"
No Mousse - he went to Jusenkyo to train to face Shampoo�s groom,
and fell into Pool of Drowned Carp(???) trapping him. He�s still
there, as the Guide�s daughter feeds him regularly.
Ranma-sama�s curse? I think I put enough clues in the main-body
for you to guess. Ranma-sama blanks out when he changes, and starts
acting the animal of the kind. I can�t claim the idea for this curse,
it belongs to Mark Doherty. Read his work here
http://www.tass.org/~mdoherty/index.html.
Kasumi - Ranma-sama fell into Virtuous MAN, so he comes across as
being more mature than Ranma-kun. When Soun offers the Ranmas� a
choice of his daughter, Kasumi volunteers to marry the mature
Ranma-sama. As she is also Soun�s favourite choice, Ranma-sama
and Nabiki have get her out of the running. The nicest way to
do that? Marry her off to Doctor Tofu! Hijinks ensue.
(Scene) Ranma-sama : "Right, I�m sick of all these love potions
and tricks. Time for the direct approach. Kasumi, Doctor Tofu is
madly, passionately in love with you. I am not. He is so in love
with you that his brain turns to mush whenever you are around,
which is why he acts the way he does when you see him. The rest
of the time he is one of the most mature and professional people
I known. He wants to marry you, but can�t do ask himself, because
of the very sight of you reduces him to a vegetable. What do you say?"
Kasumi : "Oh my"
Things continue this way. Visits from Cologne and Nodoka. Fights
with the Golden Pair, Pantyhose Tarou, Kodachi Kuno, and the rest.
Nabiki and Ranma-sama get closer, Shampoo and Ranma-kun get closer.
Akane vs Ukyo for the heart of Ryouga, and Akane dealing with
Griff-chan�s annual moult. Tatewaki Kuno gets pounded again and
again and again and again.