Story: Pride and Joy

 

 As a warrior trained from birth, Shampoo could hardly help but find something beautiful, yet horrible in her airen's cat fist. Stripped of his humanity and reason, yet becoming even more ferocious and vicious than he already was. Letting loose his animal instincts to assault his foes  relentlessly. With superior grace, the kind of dexterity you normally only saw from a feline on the prowl. 

Even so, she couldn't leave him like this. Thinking about it carefully, Shampoo figured... maybe triggering the curse would change him back? There was a stream nearby. Shampoo nodded to herself, slipped out from under him and tried to carry him off to the stream.

Anyone who has owned a cat knows that this doesn't go well. Cats do not like being carried, and so... Ranma fell into the stream, dragged Shampoo with her, and now they were both back in their cursed forms.

Darn. Maybe there was another kettle in the cave? The others might be able to help her out - or maybe she could help somehow? She hardly imagined that the dumb lost boy could hold off Happosai for very long. And while she could grant that both Akane and Ukyo were fantastic lays, in a fight they were simply not at the old pervert's level. Not that Shampoo would be much use right now.

Still... If she went to help out and then maybe lured Happosai out here, where Ranma was, that should maybe deal with that problem? Content that Ranma wasn't going anywhere, Shampoo scurried back off to the cave as fast as her little kitty paws could carry her. This was, of course, quite fast, and so she was in that cave in the blink of an eye expecting to find Happosai smoking his pipe while sitting on Ryoga's back -

"Ryoga, did you get hurt anywhere during that fight?"

"Would you like us to kiss it better?"

"But not in a perverted way or anything."

"I mean, we might lick your body a little bit if it helps clean your wounds."

Only to find Akane and Ukyo all but humping into Ryoga at the back of the cave. Shampoo tilted her head at the bizarre sight, caught completely flat footed. What the hell was this now? Had those two gone too long without Ranma's amazing enormous penis, and started flirting with anything that had a pulse? That being the case, the only logical thing for Shampoo to do would be to - There! A kettle! Perfect, she could turn back to normal and actually manage to haul those idiots out there. If Happosai had already been dealt with - somehow - then they needed to snap Ranma out of his cat-fist mentality.

However, there was one small problem with Shampoo's little plan. A fact she wasn't aware of. You see, right then and there, Shampoo had been in her cat form. Not human. As such, the Spring of Drowned Playboy curse that had afflicted Ryoga currently had absolutely zero effect on her. That changed the instant she got herself splashed with hot water. Turning herself back into a sizzling hot, bubbly, cute - and most crucially <i>human</i> - girl. A naked human girl.

"Please Shampoo, you should not change so readily in front of a boy," Ryoga said, averting his eyes and tossing over his jumper. Leaving himself bare chested and all three girl staring at him like he was a piece of meat.

"You know, Shampoo just think of something," she said, rising to her feet. "Ryoga is too too strong. Strong enough to hang with airen."

"Ah, pardon me ladies, I simply must take my leave," Ryoga said, squirming quickly out of Akane and Ukyo's grips before making a mad dash for the exit. That is, before Shampoo tackled him and pinned him to the wall.

"Why you leave so soon?" she asked. Her hands shot down towards his trousers. Curiously, this did little to avail Ryoga of his panic. "Maybe trousers too tight, Shampoo help you take them off."

Shampoo is really known for her subtlety, don't you know?

"No, no, I just need some fresh air!" Ryoga yelled, quite loudly, while using his strength to push Shampoo away so he could make a very hasty retreat away from this cave as fast as humanly possible. "Oh no, women are going to be throwing themselves at me no matter where I go!"

This may be the first time that a straight man has ever said that sentence with genuine, gut wrenching terror.

"Ryoga, come back!" Akane called from the cave entrance, but Ryoga was already charging away.

Ah, now let us switch fully to his perspective for the time being. From his point of view, this was... sort of a step up? No more pig, at least, right? Now, dear reader, you might be thinking to yourself "well come on, isn't that kind of a big change?" and the answer to that is... not so much as you'd think?

Really think about what happens in the manga from this point onwards. How often is P-Chan's presence actually important to the plot? Much less than it was in the first half.

In any event, an improvement to a bad situation may be desirable, but you can still wind up in a bad place. Even if it is a different bad place. Seeing Akane behaving like that. His pure, innocent Akane (Hah!) who would never engage in lustful antics like that (hahahaha!), who would never so brazenly drool over a man (stop, you're killing me). Seeing her like that was physically painful for him. As much as he craved her affection, as happy as it made him to hear her say those words...

...

Let's get real here, if Ukyo hadn't been there too he'd have totally gone for it. Seeing her and then Shampoo acting like that was really bothering him. It bugged him when he saw Ranma being close with a whole bunch of girls, and it bugged him that apparently this new curse made him sexually irresistable to women. Hijacking their common sense and their will, driving them into his arms. Well, he was not some wild animal so easily controlled by base lust!

"Mrrrooooowr!"

"Oh, hi there Ranma, you've gone cat again, I see..." Ryoga said. Lying flat on his back while Ranma was sitting on his chest. Peering into his eyes, then sniffing at his body. She padded around in that distinctive feline manner, then rubbed her body up against his. Trying to mark her scent on him, no doubt.

"You are a very nice cat," Ryoga said, tentatively reaching out. Ranma practically leaped to rub her scalp into Ryoga's palm. "Haha, please don't scratch me with those invisible ki claws of yours."

You see, here we have an interesting situation. While earlier on, Shampoo was a human in mind and cat in body, here Ranma was a human in body and cat in mind. Strangely enough, it seems as though it's the body that matters more for the purposes of Ryoga's curse. You can tell quite easily because Ranma was, not to put too fine a point on it, presenting for Ryoga.

And Ryoga, while weirded out by this, had to admit to feeling a bit of temptation there. It was strange. Really strange. Intellectually he knew it would be wrong. That Ranma was actually a guy with a curse. However, no matter what his morality might tell him, the fact that four cute girls had all but thrown themselves at him within the last few minutes was definitely awakening something inside Ryoga. Something he didn't much care for.

Luckily, before things could even start to happen, Ranma turned around and hissed for some reason. It wasn't hard to identify. After all, several rivals had just appeared. Oh no, what had he been thinking? Being tempted by Ranma of all people, was this curse - could it be getting to him already? How awful!

"So, what exactly is the plan here?" Ukyo asked. "I mean, we're all getting a shot of that, right?"

"Might be difficult with Ranma being all territorial," Akane said.

"Maybe we let them fool around first?" Shampoo asked. "Not sure how to feel about that."

"Ladies, please, come back to your senses!" Ryoga pleaded. Oh no, Ranma, don't rub your cheek into Ryoga's face like that! "You're not thinking clearly!"

"Oh, no to worry Ryoga, one round of nice hard sex will clear that up for us," Akane said. Oh dear. He seemed to be turning to stone. How terrible. "You know, I'm not sure how I feel about letting Ranma have a go, especially in cat form."

"Shampoo think that kinda hot."

"I'd rather Ranchan be a boy, actually."

Aha, okay. This is what must happen if a living statue looked directly into Medusa's eyes. This feeling went beyond petrification into whatever came beyond that.

"You're not normally like this," Ryoga somehow managed to say. For some reason, the girls all seemed to find great amusement in this. "So dirty minded, so filthy, it's obvious that this curse will - Ranma, get off my trousers! Cut that out!"

Needless to say, but the reason they were all finding such amusement in this was because they were all thinking the same thing. If Ryoga only knew how much sex they'd be having recently, he would not be saying such things.

And, just to put the icing atop the cake, Ranma had apparently decided to settle in atop Ryoga's lap. Padded around a little. Then curled up and went to sleep. Purring contently. Wonderful! This was not remotely how Ryoga had imagined today going!

<hr>

"This was not remotely how I imagined today going."

Pantyhose Taro limped off, holding onto a branch for support. Humiliated. Defeated. And worse yet, on checking the barrel in the cave, the spring water was all gone. Urgh! How frustrating! All his meticulous work had gone to waste, and he was still stuck with that stupid name.

But possibly worse than that...

"This is how my introductory arc turns out?!" he wailed to the heavens, as if swearing revenge upon God or fate or whoever was listening that was responsible for this turn of events. "I had more dignity at the end of the canon version! You bastard!"

Hey, takes one to know one. Look on the bright side, I'm planning to have you hook up with Rouge later on when she shows up.

Pantyhose cocked his head a little from side to side. "Okay, sure. But my second appearance is kinda... Not going to work that well anymore? I already used the idea of spring water to deal with the old pervert. What are you gonna do there instead to keep it fresh?"

... I'm working on it. Now, slink off into the shadows again so I can focus on non jerk related smut.

"If that was your goal, you picked the wrong cast of characters."