Story: Tainted Gestalt

This was going to get old very quickly. Ranma pinched the bridge of Usagi's nose. It was one thing having to turn into a cute girl because of a curse; it was quite another having his brain swapped with a cute girl from a whole other reality. Worse yet she'd just been taking a bath, meaning she was naked, meaning that he was going to do his damnedest not to look directly at -

"Are there any other oddities I should be aware of?"

And suddenly Ranma was on the ceiling. Cat. Talking cat. Get him out of here, please! He'd happily spend some time walking to school with Akane, or be surrounded by monsters, or fight one of those Knightmare things, or have to worry about skyscraper-tall Angels stomping around. But having to deal with a little black talking cat with a moon crescent on its head? Hell no!

"Wow, that was quite the feat of athleticism," Luna said. Ranma trembled in mortal terror, but clung to the ceiling. "Is everything alright?"

"C-Cat!" Ranma whimpered.

"Yes," Luna slowly said. "We have long since established that I am a talking cat. Why, we were even conversing quite pleasantly until your sudden burst of mortal terror. May I enquire what brought this on?"

What brought it on was his old man trying to perfect some stupid martial art involving throwing a bound and tied young boy into a dark pit full of hungry cats, while bits of fish or other kitty treats were strapped to his body. Over and over again. For weeks. While this situation wasn't nearly severe enough to draw out the full horror of the Cat Fist that almost made Ranma's situation worse. Because now he'd actually have to deal with being stuck in a bathroom with a cat!

On the other hand Usagi probably wouldn't thank him for everyone she knew seeing her run around acting like a cat while completely naked, but hey right now Ranma wasn't thinking to nearly that level of selflessness. Though he honestly rarely did anyway, so it worked out in the end.

"Alright, fine!" Luna sighed, jumping up to the window and nudging it open. "I need to make a report. If you're going to be like this, then... Perhaps it's a side effect of your curse? If only we had Sailor Mercury, a genius like her would figure this out in no time at all."

The cat disappeared, and Ranma slunk off the ceiling breathing a heavy sigh of relief. It was gone. Alright, let's see. This seemed to be a girl's school uniform. Which meant he'd ducked out of having to attend his own new school as a boy, and had to attend Usagi's school as a girl. Great. Wonderful. Fantastic. How could this get any more complicated?

<i>Ranma, are you there</i> Usagi asked. Aha! Just the person! <i>Akane's being attacked by a whole bunch of boys!</i>

She is? Oh no! Usagi doesn't have the martial arts experience necessary to protect her from something like that! Ranma tried to concentrate, tried really hard to will himself back to his own body - but no dice.

<i>She is kicking butt! Oh wow, she is ruining their day. It's amazing! She's actually pretty good, you know?</i>

She is? That clumsy girl? Well, if Usagi said so... <i>Do you mind giving me directions to your school? Might as well head over there, keep things simple for you as much as possible.</i>

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Usagi leaned back against the school gate, trying her best to look cool and collected while Akane ran over those athletes like a living steamroller. It was kind of funny, really. She wasn't into girls but sort of felt like she could make an exception here, a feeling she credited to sharing a brain with Ranma.

Or maybe it was that she was the only girl in this, what was it called again, gestalt? Usagi shrugged it off as, ahead of her, Akane dropped the last of them. Wow! That crowd of boys had been about the same size as the possessed people from last night! The difference was, so far as Usagi could tell, they had all been attacking Akane under their own free will. Not so much guilt over hurting them, but never mind that for now.

Usagi Tsukino was a bit of a daydreamer, and this was no less true here and now. She was conjuring up a vision in her mind, a vision of a potential future. She saw herself sitting on a throne wearing a white silk dress with her legs crossed, while seven familiar-looking men wearing naught but loincloths sat around her in adoration. Lelouch the prince rubbing her left foot. Keitaro the scholar rubbing her right. Ranma the warrior rubbing her shoulders. Ataru the jester giving her right hand a manicure. Kyon the stoic doing the same with her left. Tsukune the kind rubs oil up her left thigh, and Shinji the hero rubs oil on her right.

Then a door swings open and a procession of women enter, all dressed in a rainbow assortment of harem girl outfits, all carrying a unique platter of food. There is Akane in Furinkan blue, Lum in a tigerprint design, Haruhi in yellow with hair tied up in a ponytail, Naru Narusegawa in a bright green piece and still more besides, coming towards the eight of them with the intention of serving them, first with food and then with their bodies...

It turns out that sharing a mind with Ataru Moroboshi, fountain of limitless perversion, was not very good for keeping your mind clean.

"Truly, such a boorish lot."

A rose flew through the air, and Akane caught it. Usagi nearly jumped out of Ranma's skin. Her heart was racing. Tuxedo Mask? Akane looked at the flower with keen interest, and Usagi stayed silent, though Akane glanced back to see Ranma's reaction. Oh! Right, she should probably, um... Scowl?

"Evidently, each of them intends to ask you out, Akane, on the dawn that he finally defeats you."

Wow, what a hunk! Look at him standing there, sniffing that rose. Oh gosh, that hakama fit him like a glove. Who was this dreamboat?

"Oh, upperclassman," Akane said, sounding about as interested as someone who had just finished a rousing session of 'watching grass grow'. She tossed the rose to the ground and stepped on it. "Good morning."

The mysterious, cool and handsome upperclassman lifted his bokken and aimed it towards Akane. Ah, hold on a minute, that's not right! "And now, Akane Tendo, will you fight with me?"

<hr>
Blast, he'd lost contact with Usagi. Wonderful, simply wonderful. Here he was in a girl's body, wearing a girl's uniform and running off towards a school where he didn't know anyone, didn't know the way and dammit how did chicks deal with skirts anyway?

"If only I could reach the roof," Ranma complained. "Gah, this stupid non-martial arts body, why can't it..."

Wait a minute. Ranma slowly stopped running. Back in the bathroom, he'd jumped clear onto the ceiling. In Usagi's body. How the hell had he pulled that off? She couldn't do that normally. This body didn't have the muscle for that sort of feat.

To hell with it. He was running late already as it was. Ranma closed Usagi's eyes and focused. This probably wouldn't work, that would be kind of ridiculous. On the other hand, anything's worth a try given how stupid things have been.

He jumped. Opened his eyes. He was high in the air. Easily clearing the rooftops. Aha! So he <i>could</i> still fight if he wanted to! Even when using the bodies of the others! Although, that did make him worried about one thing. What about when the others were in his body? Would it suddenly become weak? Or... Hold on... Something wasn't right here. Something felt different than when he normally made a jump like this. It felt like the energy was coming from someplace else, like it was not a part of Usagi's own body but rather...

The landing was a perfect ten, as always. Ta-da! Alright! He could use that to figure out where the school is and get there in no time at all! "Haha! I really am awesome, aren't I?" Ranma clenched Usagi's hands into fists and pumped the air in victory.

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Ami Mizuno did not believe in luck. It was a nebulous concept brought about by the human brain being really good at spotting patterns, but terrible at separating irrelevant causes from effect. Still, misfortune could arise in even the most prepared and intelligent individual: Entropy did exist in this universe, therefore systems failed and the unexpected did often occur.

In this instance her alarm clock battery had died sooner than she had calculated. Then a small fire had started in the kitchen when she'd tried to cook breakfast. Then her shoelace broke when she put them on, meaning it had to be replaced, and that was quite possibly what was making her think of bad luck as that was considered quite the omen in Japanese -

A blonde girl wearing her school's uniform jumped a good fifteen feet in the air. That sort of sight puts a screeching halt to your thought process, whoever you are. Ami also physically halted and darted around a nearby corner out of fright. Or should that be sheer mortal terror?

Anyone could say 'that is not possible' at a glance, but Ami was different from pretty much anyone else you would meet. Why? Simple. She could crunch the numbers, and more crucially understand what they meant.

"Approximate height, four foot eleven," she whispered to herself. "Approximate weight, perhaps a hundred pounds, must enquire further. Jump cleared one hundred and eighty inches off the ground with approximate knee angle of sixty degrees." She stayed silent for a moment while her mind processed the maths. "Speed required, nine point four seven miles per hour vertically regardless of weight. At estimated weight and knee angle, sixteen thousand four hundred and seventy two newtons of force would need to be pressed against the ground."

Over sixteen thousand newtons into the ground. Of course, the numbers were almost certainly slightly off as she was purely estimating, but the estimation said a great deal. Ami read quite a lot. While she wasn't especially a fan of American comic books and their superheroes, she'd read quite a bit about them. They were blatant power fantasies tailored to the culture, and most of them were simply physically impossible.

Until some mysterious blonde girl goes and does it!

"There it is!" she heard the girl cry out from high in the sky. "Aha! I'll be there in no time flat!"

To Ami's utter disbelief and horror that girl was heading directly where she'd feared. Obviously, the same school as her. A genuine superhuman carelessly flaunting their powers. At the very least she could understand the motivation, as being late for school was almost as frightening to her as -

"Oh gosh, I'll be late!" Ami yelled, and quickly hurried off down the street.  One problem at a time. She had to figure out who this girl was without drawing attention to herself. A little voice in the back of her mind asked why she should do such a thing, but like many questions rooted in deduction Ami already knew the answer, and in this case could summarise it in one word. Or two if certain points required emphasis.

The one was was 'curiosity'. If the second is needed, it would be 'intellectual'.

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Let's focus our attention elsewhere briefly. Which of the others shall we return to?

1. Kyon
2. Tsukune
3. Ataru
4. Keitaro
5. Shinji
6. Lelouch