Story: Double Trouble

 

A good time travel story is a lot like a magic trick. It's not actually possible to travel back in time. It messes with cause and effect in really obvious ways. It raises questions too, for example, can you change past events? What about paradoxes? The bootstrap paradox, the grandfather paradox, et al. There are all manner of them, and any good time travel yarn being spun must keep them in the back of the author's mind, to either play with or talk around - or else, as one movie put it, your characters might wind up sitting there making diagrams with napkins rather than getting anything done.

In this case: There is a clear paradox here. Ranma and Akane do not hook up until Ryugenzawa. The reason they do not hook up until then is because of numerous insecurities, several pieces of bad timing, interfering parents and various would be paramours getting in the way.

So what happens when future versions of them show up on the day they meet, showing the pair that they have amazing chemistry? What happens if that were to push them past those insecurities, before the romantic rivals reared their pretty heads? 

The effect might be quite intense. Instead of a slow burn, you get an alkali metal dropped in sulphuric acid. A fast, explosive reaction that might catch you off guard. Imagine that there had been a plastic barrier between the two compounds that was suddenly yanked away, presumably by someone backing off very quickly to get out of the blast range.

So...? All of a sudden we have a problem here, right? An incongruity that must be addressed. Ranma and Akane have hooked up way, way too early. They are presently hard at work developing a sex addiction with a partner they had a rather intense attraction to.

This leads us to the inevitable question then: This is a clear paradox. What sort of effect might it have on the future version of this hapless pair? This was a clear and rather significant alteration to their timeline. How might it affect them?

For the time being they were necking on a rooftop. Ranma in girl form, sitting in Akane's lap. Akane, with her hand inside of Ranma's shirt, blatantly groping at her breast while planting kisses all along Ranma's jawline.

"Mmm, you're frisky tongiht, ain'tcha?" Ranma whispered.

"Well, it's not every night we ruin the plans for our idiot fathers," Akane whispered with a twinkle in her eye. "Honestly now, they shouldn't be trying to hurry those two along so fast. They're not ready! They both need to grow -"

And suddenly Akane was six months pregnant. Twins, no less. Twins who were, at present, quite feisty.

The two of them looked down at her pregnant belly and tilted their heads.

"... Huh!" Akane muttered. "I wasn't... you know, before, right?"

"Pretty sure you weren't," Ranma said. Her hand slid down to Akane's belly to feel them kicking. Her face twitched considerably. "Um! I feel weirdly mentally prepared to be a father! Almost like I freaked out months back and had time to adjust! But I don't remember it!"

"Yeah, me neither..." Akane muttered. "It's weird. I kinda know how to move already, and it feels like I kinda know stuff that I shouldn't." She shuddered. "God, I could do with a cheese and pickle sandwich, layered high with slices of meat. Any meat would do. Pork, beef, chicken, I don't even care, I'm famished! And horny... Gimme those lips!"

Worth remembering that Akane's hand was still under Ranma's chest, which did give her a fair amount of leverage to haul Ranma in for a kiss. Alas, Ranma broke it off before they could really get going.

"Wait, wait!" Ranma said. "This doesn't make any sense. Neither of us remembers you being pregnant, you definitely weren't when we were in China, and we'd be married if -"

Cue the two of them looking at their fingers and seeing wedding bands right there. Ah. Okay then. That was kinda bad right?

"So, what? Our past changed, but our memories didn't?" Akane asked. "That's kinda... Oh gosh, settle down you two! Oooh! They're Saotomes, alright!"

"I dunno, you can be a hothead too~" Ranma teased.

"Not the time, <i>dear</i>!" Akane snapped back. "I don't get it, why did this happen now of all ti-"

The two of them stopped. They looked at each other in total silence for a moment as the obvious conclusion descended upon them, their collective experience with magical bullshit for once paying off.

"You don't think -" Ranma asked.

"That we were that stupid back then?" Akane sniffed. "I did think it was weird that Nabiki suddenly wanted us out of the house like that."

"And the way younger me told me about pops heading out on a wacky plan to hook them up did seem like it was exactly like when I'm on my manipulative, underhanded bullshit..." Ranma muttered.

The two of them stared at each other again, this time taking a big breath in unison.

"We have to stop our younger selves from ruining their - Oh! Oh no, I think they're trying to do the hiryu shoten ha!"

"Calm down girls - How did I know they're girls? Anyway! I'll get you down from the roof, and then we can hurry back home."

"Buster, I'm not hurrying anywhere anytime soon!"

=====

Back in Akane's room, the present version of her was cuddling into the girl form of present day Ranma, smiling from ear to ear.

"Mmm, so..." Akane said. "How many kids do you want?"

"Kids...?" Ranma yelped. "Um! Look, things might have been said in the heat of the moment that -"

"Ranma...!" Akane grumbled.

"Three! I'd like three kids!" Ranma yelped louder than before.

======

"Mama, I'm hungee!" said little Himiko, hanging off Ranma's back. Both Ranma and Akane looked at the little girl who was, in point of fact, a dead ringer for Ranma's girl form when very young, and the two of them stared at her with absolute dread.

"So... If she's the age she looks, she'd have to be born about... Uh... Nine and a half months from now at the latest..." Akane muttered to herself, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. Though not nearly as wide as Ranma's.

"Must protect!" Ranma hugged her. "G-Guh! Weird instincts kicking in! Weird protective urge for cute tyke! Wait. How did we even get up here together like this?!"

"Mama, papa, hungee!" Himiko pointed at her mouth. Oh gosh! They had to hurry back before those two changed the future any more than they already had!