Ranma was hungry. Starving, in point of fact. There was food in front of him. Hot food. Delicious food. He had many problems in his life, but this should be one of the easier ones to solve under these conditions. Trouble was - as his father learned when he tried to sneak a hand towards the plate - the second they tried a certain old monkey was ready and waiting to smack the backs of their hands and in the process leave a few fingers numb for a couple minutes.
So Ranma cast another look back towards the tent. Where was she already? It had been about ten seconds since he’d sat down, what was keeping the girl?! Ugh. Shampoo. Ranma truly didn’t know what to make of that girl. She was pretty. Kinda cute. But she was so… Demanding. Sort of attitude where it seemed like she expected to snap her fingers and make him jump.
Just another complication in his life of late. First the girl form. Then the “enhanced” girl form which made actually doing martial arts nearly impossible. He didn’t need this. All he ever really wanted to do was practise martial arts, and -
And finally, she emerged from the tent. While most boys would be staring at her with a hungry look in their eyes, Ranma did much the same. But for different reasons and for different ends. Most boys would be staring long and hard at her curves as she walked along and sat down next to them, then felt their heart skip a beat upon contact with her shoulder. Ranma did not do these things, consciously or otherwise. Instead he stared at the approaching beauty with disdain for her slow speed, and rolled his eyes when she sat down and brushed her shoulder against his. Oh, he was perfectly aware of the fact that he was in the presence of a stunningly gorgeous beauty. He just didn’t particularly care one way or the other. He was, indeed, aroused by the sex appeal radiating from her, but… Well, Ranma had never particularly cared for sexual matters in the same manner as his peers. Then again, that was hardly a fair comparison to make. If we were judging his old classmates as his peers then comparing Ranma to them was like comparing an amoeba to a blue whale.
Of course, if someone were to tell Shampoo that a boy like Ranma had his libido on such a tight leash she would have stared really hard at that person, pressed her breasts together and confirmed that the person was <i>really sure</i> about that. But no. Really. Ranma may not seem the sort, and he wasn’t even aware of it himself, but he was a bit of a romantic at heart.
“Shampoo decided,” she said, just as Ranma flicked a piece of vegetable into his eagerly waiting mouth. “You need taught how to move new body. It different from before.”
An offer for sex would make him stammer and blush. An offer for a date would have him rolling his eyes and stating that he had training to do. An offer for training, on the other hand? Even Ranma could tell she had ulterior motives of some sort, but Shampoo had actually hit upon the single most likely way to eventually get some pigtailed nookie.
“This sounds reasonable,” the withered old crone said with a creepy smile that would haunt Ranma’s nightmares forevermore. “Genma and I shall supervise, of course.”
“Naturally,” his idiot of a father concurred, nodding in sage agreement. “It is a martial artist’s trial and duty to overcome whatever obstacles arrive at their doorstep.”
“Including transforming into a panda?” Ranma asked, casually deflecting an attempt to steal some of his food.
“One might say <i>especially</i> transforming into a panda!” Genma smugly retorted. Ranma again rolled his eyes while Shampoo giggled cutely next to him. “This reminds me. I have an old friend that we may be able to turn to for additional assistance.”
“By ‘old friend’, you wouldn’t happen to mean ‘someone I’ve conned and pissed off’, would you?” Ranma asked, fully aware of how often the idiot got the meaning mixed up.
“Not at all! Why would you make such a suggestion?” Genma harrumphed. “It’s true; he used to be my training partner. He practises the other school of Anything Goes. He even has a training hall, and might even have the space to let us stay a short while.”
In Genma Saotome’s terminology, a short while could mean “Until I annoy them to the point of chasing us out,” or “Years. Literally years.” Something about this didn’t quite pass the smell test. Something about this was setting Ranma’s back right up. And he didn’t like it one little bit.
Still. An actual training hall might be nice for once, depending on the condition of the place. No training outdoors or any of that nonsense, which was something he could especially say he wanted to avoid given that whole pesky girl form thing. Easier to avoid cold water inside a building than out.
“We should be there in a couple of days,” Genma said quite happily. “I’ll send them a postcard tomorrow to let them know to expect us. Now, as for this training you’ll be doing tomorrow!”
<hr>
Look at her standing there with such a grouchy expression on her damp, cold face. The pigtailed girl shivered, and Shampoo felt - Well, she didn’t feel any sort of satisfaction at all, strangely enough. The sexy little pest had been the reason for her life being uprooted and being dragged away from her home and friends. She expected some sort of satisfaction from dumping ice cold water all over him. Her. Tough to keep pronouns straight around someone like Ranma.
She glanced behind her and looked at her great-grandmother, who was watching in silent interest. Annoying, but not entirely unexpected. This was probably the best opportunity Shampoo would ever get to properly show the outsider boy/girl their proper place in the world and she intended to take full advantage of it. On reflection, she realised that True Power would not necessarily always be an immediate effect. Sometimes it would take time, patience and work to get what you wanted. Therefore, she would be patient. She would wear away at Ranma’s defenses. Eat away at his/her resistance bit by bit until Shampoo would have the pigtailed pest eating out of her hand.
Step one, then. Shampoo slid forward and delivered a reasonably light - but quick - kick towards the back of Ranma’s thighs. On anyone else that blow would do exactly damn all but make their thighs smart, but with someone like Ranma with a body she was not yet used to -
“Timber!” Shampoo yelled as Ranma waved her arms around frantically and fell boob first into the mud. “That big problem,” she said, crouching down as Ranma tried to wipe the mud off herself. “Boobs make you top heavy. Easy make you lose balance.”
Ah, that was a bit more like it. There was certainly a greater amount of satisfaction in this than merely dumping the water, and Shampoo offered a hand to pull Ranma out of the mud so that they could begin proper -
And then, to the surprise of nobody but herself, Shampoo found herself landing boob first in the mud right next to Ranma. She shrieked while Ranma laughed, and when Shampoo scowled at her nemesis, ready to pounce, a staff appeared between the two of them to keep them separated.
“No mud wrestling,” Great-grandmother sternly insisted. Shampoo reluctantly nodded to that while Ranma stuck out a mocking tongue. Oh! But Shampoo had some uses in mind for that tongue! But anyway. They should save the mud wrestling for an audience that consisted of someone other than the bald glasses-wearing idiot standing over there.
Shampoo sniffed, and felt rather glad that she had the foresight to wear a proper battle outfit instead of something more fancy. Still. She wiped as much mud off herself as she was able to.
“I think what my great-granddaughter was trying to demonstrate was the desperate need to reconfigure your balance,” Cologne said, prodding Ranma in the chest. This stopped the annoying smirk rather cold. “These are going to be your biggest problem. Above all else, you must adjust to these if you are to have any chance of fighting in this form. I am sure my dear Shampoo has some ideas on how you can adapt…?”
Well, of course she did. After all. She’d been reluctantly training with Great-grandmother for a long time now, while mastering True Power. She had several ideas that would work, but for the time being… She would have to stick to the ones that in no way at all had any sexual connotations. Even the ones where it was concealed. She was too canny for that. At least until she could get Ranma away from her great-grandmother’s prying eyes, she would have to contend with the more boring of the methods she knew about. But then again that was rather the point of this new strategy. Patience. Determination. She would have Ranma Saotome in both forms ready and willing and unable to resist, in no time at all.
After all. This was the nature of True Power. It always won in the end. Always.
<hr>
They returned to camp later that night. Ranma with a bit of a spring in her step and a good deal of mud covering her clothes. Up behind her was a golem constructed of mud that was lumbering along the path as though it were drunk. Behind that was her father and an old dried-up monkey.
“Mmph!” Shampoo said through the mud.
“Yeah,” Ranma said, staring up at the sky. “That was the most fun I’ve had in years! You know, you’re not so bad as I thought. Wanna be… You know… Friends?”
For reasons that made no sense whatsoever to Ranma, Shampoo stepped off the path and began to beat her head against a tree. Ah! Wait! Of course! She was trying to get all the dried mud off. Never one to leave a friend hanging, Ranma pounded on her back and chuckled to herself. That really had been the most fun she’d had in ages!
“How much longer did you say it was until we arrived at your friend’s place?” Cologne whispered to Genma.
“I said it was about two days,” Genma said, eyebrows knitting together. “But… If we take a few - ahem - shortcuts and don’t stop at any time along the way, we could probably be there tomorrow morning.”
“Those are quite some shortcuts,” Cologne said with a raised eyebrow. “One might almost think you were intending to mislead us on how far away it was, then steal away with Ranma in the middle of the night.”
“Would I do that?” Genma asked, sounding genuinely affronted.
Cologne didn’t bother answering such a stupid, stupid question. Instead she hopped forward to help free her great-granddaughter from the humiliating mud cocoon she had prepared for herself. Yes. The girl definitely needed to have her training regimen intensified.
- They arrive at the Tendos. Soun is displeased Ranma apparently has a girlfriend.
- Shampoo slips off to check out the Tendos before anyone else arrives, and sets about seducing them.
- Ranma has a disturbing dream that night.
- The group encounters a Kuno, Ryoga, or even Akane out on her morning jog before they get to the Tendo dojo.
- Something else
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