Subject: [FFML] [Ranma] [Revised] Fake Cat
From: Andrew
Date: 4/29/1999, 3:24 PM
To: Anime Fanfiction Mailing List

	Author's Notes: I made a couple of changes, as a sequel popped into my
mind. Enjoy. ---Andrew
*****************************************
	Fake Cat
	A Ranma 1/2 story.
	Akane got up one lazy Sunday afternoon. She looked around the Tendou
Domain, but discovered that she was all alone. She looked around to see a couple
of notes all over the place. There was a ransom note claiming that if they
didn't sell the Tendou Dojo to the Gambling King, Soun and Genma would be
killed. She yawned and decided that problem could wait. Kasumi left a note
saying she was gone over to Dr. Tofu's house. Nabiki left a note saying she was
on a date with a Ryoucilo fellow, whoever he was. She smirked. She then looked
at the notes again. 
	"Now, where did Ranma go?"
	Usually, Ranma left a note. After the last kidnapping where Soun and
Genma had to save everyone else from an evil bi-sexual mistress/genie who
somehow called himself Gary Kleppe, it was standard to write notes if you were
going to be gone more than five minutes. Ranma's note was nowhere to be found.
	"Hmm..." Akane's face glared at the table pondering what to do next.
	"So, Mr. Neko, what do you know today?"
	Akane's eyes widened as she heard Ranma's voice. Her eyes gotten wide as
she heard him speak in a childish voice. She couldn't exactly pinpoint where he
was, but the sounds of a cat scared her. She crept out of the house, and leaped
up on the roof, doing so without making a sound. Finally, she spotted Ranma,
petting a grey cat near a small garden. Akane blinked.
	Since when did we have a garden? She thought to herself. Then she
realized something: Ranma wasn't running away from the cat. In fact, he was
petting it and feeding it lots of fish.
	Since when did we have fish? she thought again.
	"You know, Mr. Neko," said Ranma. "This Neko-ken thing has really been
great for me. I get attention, I know how everyone really feels about and I can
cop a feel when I feel like it. I know how everyone really feels. Shampoo's
blind alligence to Cologne. Ukyou's paranoia. You know I think the only other
person who really likes me is Akane. I can tell everytime she strokes me as a
cat." Ranma starts to stroke the cat's ear. The cat starts to purr.
	Akane starts to get really mad. All of this time, he's been faking it?!
And feeling me at the same time?! she thought to herself.
	"Meow?" the cat asked a question.
	"No, kitty, I'm sure of that. You are such a big fat cat!" Akane groaned
as Ranma said that in such a childish voice. Then he giggled.
	"Meow!" the cat marked Ranma's face by rubbing her nose on his cheeks.
	"So, what do you think of Akane, neko-chan?" playfully said Ranma.
	The cat purred, loudly. Akane smiled.
	"Hmm, interesting. How about Ukyou?"
	The grey cat immediately yowled in sheer disdain. Akane nodded in
agreement.
	"What about Shampoo?"
	The cat purred. Akane blinked. Ranma then looked at his watch. "Uh oh,
Akane was suppose to be back soon. I'd better take you to the neighbor, Mr.
Neko." Ranma picked the grey cat, turned the corner and walked away. Akane
sighed as she slid down the roof and went back into the house.
	
	The next day, Soun and Genma were beratting his children on why they
didn't come sooner to their aid from the Gambling King.
	"Oh, we decided that you weren't good enough to risk our lives to save
you," Nabiki said nonchantantly. Soun was about to respond in his demonic head
mode, when the next-door neighbor's cat leaped through the open window and
landed on Ranma's head.
	"C-c-c-caattt!!!"
	Kasumi gasped, while Ranma suddenly went into his Neko-ken routine.
Akane glared at Ranma, her eyebrows twitched in anger.
	"Liar!"
	"Meow?"
	"You are a liar, Ranma! I saw you yesterday playing with a cat and not
being afraid of him! You don't have a fear of cats!"
	"M-e-eeow?"
	"Is this true?" asked Genma, trembling a bit. "Is it true that you
really don't have Neko-ken?"
	Ranma looks at the family. Everyone looked at him intently, some out of
concern & some out of interest. Then he lowers his head.
	"Yeah, i-i-it's an act." The grey cat leaped from Ranma's head to
Kasumi's lap. She started to pet him.
	"Since when did you get over your Neko-ken, son?" Genma asked, trembling
even more so than usual.
	"Hmm...about two days after you pushed me into the pit of cats. And
kitties don't like being teased and treated like that, don't they, Mr. Neko?"
	The cat yowled and scowled at Genma. Genma glanced outside, and a bunch
of cats started to hiss and arch their backs.
	"Oh, my...where did all the cats come from?"
	"Our next door neighbor. He's got 25-30 cats, at last count," said
Kasumi, smiling.
	"Fourty, actually, mostly Mr. Neko's kittens. All grown up and really
mad."
	Genma trembled. "Er, son, why did you keep continuing to make me think
you had ---"
	"To have the Neko-ken? Attention mostly. You never really cared about
me, Pops, unless you were training me to be your little martial arts warrior!
The only time you ever even tried to treat me as your son was when I was in my
Neko-ken mode. But I found that the Neko-ken really allowed me to discredit
myself against my opponents, make them attack me not as furious and smart as
they would otherwise. There was no way I coulda defeated Cologne otherwise. I
mean, it wasn't martial arts kosher. I learned a lot about others when I acted
like a cat. It's sorta like that guy in that play we're readin' in
class...MacDonalds? McElizabeth? Pigbreath?"
	"Hamlet," Akane said.
	"Right Hamlet. He acted insane so that he truly knew how everyone felt
about him, and it would have worked if it wasn't for his stupid indecisiveness,
and that mangy mutt. When I read that play, I realized how much I was like
Hamlet. Pops been shamming me left and right for years now. Soun been having a
relationship with Mom for years now."
	"What?! You dare insinuate---"
	"Mr. Neko told me so. Then, I got pictures." Ranma pulled out a large
vanilla ice-cream cone and ate it. Then he pulled out a vanilla envelope and
tossed it out to Nabiki. The rest of the group went behind Nabiki.
	"Check these out, Nabs."
	Nabiki opened up the envelope and looked at the pictures. One of them
showed Soun cuddling Nodoka while juggling a bunch of fruit. "Oh, my...Father,
it seems that Ranma here is right. I'm impressed, Ranma. You really some good
pictures here. I'll take all of them." She looked at the next picture showing
Soun and Nodoka entering a love hotel.
	"Tendo! You two-timing bastard! I thought I knew you!" shouted Genma as
Nabiki paid Ranma 25,000 yen for the twenty-five picture set. Akane and Kasumi
looked at some of the other pictures. Any assumptions of Soun's piety were
dashed after the third picture, where they were spotted near Bakacon.
	"It was her idea! She started it!" shouted Soun, mainly towards Genma's
general direction.
	Ranma then shouted in a child-like voice, "Kitties, who do you want to
devour, My father or My father-in-law?" The cats jumped through the open window
and pounced on both of them raving and tearing them up.
	"Ranma!" Akane said, trembling. "Why are you letting that cats do this?"
	"Because Mr. Neko believes that such a sheer lack of respect of cats by
humans is inexcusable. Besides, Soun replaced the milk they usually drink with
the powdered variety. Cats hate powdered milk."
	Eventually, the cats stopped clawing and biting. They let go the two old
men and circled around the men except for the grey cat who jumped onto Akane's
shoulder and starts rubbing her face.
	"Does Mr. Neko like me?" giggled Akane.
	"No," smirked Ranma. "He's just marking you as territory. If he really
liked you, he would have rubbed your face with his nose, not his side of the
face." He then turned to his father and Soun and scowled.
	"I think you'd better leave before the cats decide to finish you off.
I'm pretty sure that some of the cats here have rabies."
	"Rabies! Oh, my!"
	"Well, they attacked a couple of Mokonas last night, and I'm sure
they're pretty rabid."
	"That explains the noises I heard last night while I was trying to
sleep," said Nabiki. "I wondered what all that 'puuing' was all about."
	The fathers finally got up and shuffled themselves down to Dr. Tofu's
office. The cats leaped on them and attacked them again after they left the
yard.
	"Do you think those cats will kill them?" asked Kasumi.
	"Nah, the worse thing that will be dead is their pride," Ranma said, "at
least for now."
	Mr. Neko meowed. Kasumi got up and entered the kitchen. The cat followed
her. Akane dusted off the cat hair from her shoulder and turned to Ranma.
	"Ranma, I mean, I wish you could have told us this a long time ago. I
mean..."
	"And miss my opportunities to know that you like me? Surely not,"
grinned Ranma as he gently hugged her. Akane could hear him purr.
******************************************