Story: Mercury Tendo

Nabiki Tendo would not be beaten. There was sense to be found here.  Rules. Rationality. An explanation that was consistent with scientific principles. All you had to do was find the consistency, and then you can form a hypothesis. Once you form a hypothesis, you can form tests. You try really hard to disprove your hypothesis, and if you simply can't do it then there's a damn good chance you have a theory on your hands.

And Nabiki Tendo was succeeding magnificently! In disproving her hypothesis. She'd run through all manner of variables. Temperature was an obvious one. The subject's sense of temperature was another. Then she tried volume, the location of the body getting splashed and wouldn't you know it? Nothing seemed to work.

"Uh, Nabiki?"

"Quiet, I'm trying to think!" she said, pacing around in front of her wall of notes. There were more post-its on this wall than there was wallpaper. Her eyes scanned it, her brilliant mind tried to trace the route. But no. It was an impossible labyrinth of conflicting data. It seemed as though no two tests provided the same result.

"Nabiki, are you sure about -"

"Yes, I'm sure!" Nabiki interrupted. "Sit tight and wait, then tell me when you change!"

There had to be a rational response. Yes, that's right. A truly rational reason for this so called curse. Not magical, not spiritual. A reasonable scientific and rational reason. Because that was what Nabiki was about, don't you know. She was the rational one in the family!

"You've got me sitting in a pot of water over an open fire! Are you trying to cook me?"

"Suck it up, Saotome!" Nabiki snapped back. "All you have to do is wait until you change from girl to boy. That's it, nothing else. Got it?"

"Yeah, forget this. You've gone coo-coo for Cocoa Puffs," Ranma said. The insolent fool climbed out of the water. Curses! Did he not understand? Did he not comprehend? Or should that be she? Whatever! Ranma clearly lacked the commitment to science that she had. This must be corrected, immediately!

"Alright, fine!" Nabiki sniffed. "How about instead, I inject this hot water directly into your veins and we see if you change that way."

"... I don't like needles," Ranma said.

"Awww, is the big bad martial artist afraid of a little injection?" Nabiki asked. "Relax, Saotome. It's all in the name of human advancement. I'm sure they'd laugh at me at first for my discovery. Conservation of matter, they'd say. Psychological ramifications of jumping between genders, they'd say. But who'd be laughing when I put my report before them? Huh? Who'll be laughing then?"

Ranma didn't seem especially impressed with that. Ignorant buffoon! Perhaps... perhaps if she developed some form of intelligence boosting device, this dolt might grasp an atom of comprehension? No, no that would be a waste. If anything she should work to enslave his/her mind, turn him/her into an assistant capable of helping her develop these new and exciting ideas. Yes... yes! The possibilities! The boundless horizons that she could cross! It was so obvious, she should have seen it before! All she had to do was reach out and -

"Enough of that, young lady!" A rolled up newspaper landed on top of her head. "I could hear your maniacal mad scientist laughter from upstairs. Which is impressive when you consider the time I put into soundproofing our library."

"Oh, is that what that was?" Ranma asked. "I thought she'd remembered something funny from television last night."

Nabiki ignored the dolt and turned around to her mother. "Moooom! You don't understand!" she protested, then pointed an accusing finger at Ranma. "His stupid curse isn't behaving itself."

"That's no excuse for going full on mad scientist," Ami warned. "It's not as fun as it looks. It's also extremely expensive."

Drat. She sure did know how to press on her daughter's weak points, didn't she? Well, Ami was the source of their genius.

"I'd make a super hot and awesome mad scientist though..." Nabiki cooly offered. Out the corner of her eye, she saw Ranma make a funny face that could only be interpreted as 'ugh, she's right but I don't wanna admit it aloud'. Play his cards right and she'd show off that labcoat costume for Halloween.

"Remember what happened to Hotaru's father when he gave into those mad scientist urges?" mother asked. Ah. Oh yes. Nabiki actually had forgotten about that. Big cousin Hotaru's daddy had an unfortunate run-in with a certain Sailor Suited team. Ami had shown her photos the crater that used to be the Tomoe residence before he called down an Elder God. Or, to Nabiki's mind, an alien being that was sufficiently advanced enough to pretend that it was something like an Elder God.

"I can't let something like his curse lie," Nabiki said. "It's a mystery. Don't you want to know the answer?"

"Not especially," mother said. Meaning she already knew the answer, and ohhhh, that burned Nabiki up something fierce. "Some things are too dangerous to meddle in unless you know exactly what you're doing, young lady. No more experiments on this nice young man. He might well turn out to be your brother in law one day, you know. Terribly sorry about this, Ranma. I think Akane is about to do some training, would you please spar with her?"

"Hey, after being poked and prodded and splashed with water for the last hour or so, even an uncute violent tomboy sounds good to me!"

But Nabiki still couldn't let it lie. Even as mother took down all the post it notes from the wall detailing her experiments, all she could do was sit there and seethe.

"It doesn't make sense," she said. "I tried weighing him, you know. In both forms. Sometimes his weight would shift, sometimes it wouldn't. But the measurements would stay the same every time relative to the form. Height, inseam, waist, bust - they were consistent for the different forms, but every other test gave hugely inconsistent results!"

"That's nice, dear," mother said in that annoying way mothers do when they're listening, but trying to trick you into thinking they're not listening.

"In fact, now that I'm thinking about it that makes even less sense!" Nabiki continued. "The only factor that remained consistent were the spatial measurements of Ranma's two forms! His boy form was the same height every time, his girl form the same height every time! But their weight shifts? The trigger for the curse shifts along numerous variables?! Even the inconsistency is inconsistent!"

"That's nice, dear," mother continued. "Please step away from being a mad scientist. I won't help you out if the Sailor Senshi return and decide you're a threat."

Grk! That left Nabiki conflicted. On the one hand, she didn't really want to be killed by the Sailor Senshi. On the other, <i>how cool would it be if she got to meet the Sailor Senshi?</i>

"I swear... that curse must be alive or something..." Nabiki grumbled.

"No anthropomorphising natural phenomena in this house, young lady," mother warned. "Now, go to your room and think about what you put poor Ranma through. In a moralistic sense, not an analytical one. I will be expecting a philosophical essay by this time next week, so get to it."

Here, we can see the core difference between the late Soun and Ami's parenting styles. For those familiar with Nabiki's usual behaviour, it must seem quite striking that she'd have this relationship with her mother, but here it is. Soun might have been a tough fighter, but he was an emotional pushover. On the other hand, Ami was a bit of a bookworm - but she was tough when pushed far enough. As such, Nabiki slumped her shoulders and began to formulate her opening argument and build a structure to her essay in her head. Play her cards wrong and she'd have none of Kasumi's gourmet standard dessert for a month... A punishment worse than death by Sailor Senshi!

Ah, but let us linger a little longer in the library after Nabiki had left. Ami took a deep breath, then walked up to the door. She checked outside, then produced a small computer from her pocket.

"No listening devices... everyone is upstairs..."

Then she pulled out a certain wand and said the (literally) magic words, "Mercury Prism Power up."

Let it be said that for a mother of three teenage girls, Ami still had it going. She still filled out the Sailor Mercury suit like it was made for her. Largely because it <I>was</i> made for her, but she easily looked half her age.

She then called out the Mercury Computer and set it to connect to the ambient magic in the air. "Now then. Listen up, mister 'curse'," Sailor Mercury said. "I can still feel your presence lurking about. Before you head off to torment poor Ranma some more, I'd like to have a little chat."

Spells as old as Jusenkyo tended to acquire more will and personality than your average bit of magic. Similar to how animals become intelligent if they lived long enough.

"I know how it is. You're trying to teach Ranma a lesson in humility. So you'll splash him with water of the wrong temperature at inconvenient times. I dare say he needs a little touch of humility, so that much, I don't mind."

Deep breath. "What I do mind is when my darling daughter's mental state is pressed to the very edge. Do that to my daughter again - any of them - or to Ranma, and I will call in Sailor Moon. So think carefully now. Do you <i>really</i> want Sailor Moon to be aware that you're here? It probably makes you nervous enough that I'm talking to you already, right? So tread carefully. Teach Ranma his lesson, then leave him alone. I trust we're clear?"

There was no answer, but the presence did vanish a moment later. Ami tried not to be a helicopter parent that worried about her daughters as any of them could easily take care of themselves, but when magic was involved how was she supposed to stay out of it?

Making a threat like that was the only rational response open to her. Much like the only rational response left to the curse was to take on board that one important message: Do not fuck with a Senshi's daughter. A lesson that a certain tribe in China would have to learn before the year was out.

1. Ranma and Akane spar. It goes about as well as you'd think.
2. Makoto is present for the spar so it doesn't quite go that badly.
3. It's about time for Ryoga to appear.
4. Next day at school there are pictures of the cosplayers circulating.
5. Nabiki tries a different approach.
6. Something else