Ranma was in his new room addressing his situation. It was nice for a small room and actually had a bed, more than enough space for Ranma since he doesn’t have much. Not that he could tell since he was trying to control his powers right now.
Hair was filling up the room, growing and shrinking, moving about like snakes. He was sitting on his bed concentrating; only absently noticing himself switching genders and hair colors randomly. It took a Herculean effort to get to his new room without changing this much, but once inside the powers erupted, going on aimlessly.
After an hour of hard work, his hair was back into a pigtail down his back, a bit longer than normal. Although one thing that wasn’t normal was the fact that he was a she right now. Well… it wasn’t new, except there wasn’t any water in the room.
‘Relax, relax, you just have control over it now, just picture yourself as a guy and things will go just right.’
She did so, turning into a he again, although unlike other times, this hurt and took longer than ever before.
‘Ow. Stupid mutant powers… oh, they’d be great he says, be like Sunfire I say. At least I don’t need hot water to change.’
That brought a smile to his face. It didn’t last long as he fell to the floor, swimming in his clothes.
‘Oh great… just great… I also turn into a stupid cat! I forgot about that. At least that mind melding thing the Professor did on the jet makes it so I’m not afraid of myself.’
With another effort, he changed back into a human… mostly.
Now, instead of a cat, or a boy, Ranma was now a nude catgirl in her room.
‘Huh? Turned into a girl, man this is hard when you have to do it yourself. Wait, that doesn’t feel right…"
She checked her head and found two large cat ears.
Quickly going over to the mirror, she saw something that upset her greatly.
Ranma wasn’t different except that she had cat ears on her head, and a tail, all red. She didn’t freak, but was groaning and put her hands in her face. Her ears drooped comically while her tail fell.
‘A catgirl… why did it have to be a CATGIRL?! Ok… ok… relax, look at the bright side… ok, first find the bright side… um… oh, I know! Good thing is that I’m no longer afraid of those cat demons, uh… oh and the Ki claws probably work when I’m like this. It’s not permanent, I’m in control, and I don’t go crazy anymore.’
She then put on her clothes her tail sticking out the top of her pants.
‘Stupid tail; guess I have to make a hole for it later, right now think about being a guy.’
With that Ranma changed into a guy faster than the last but it wasn’t as instantaneous as water is. He found himself getting woozy.
‘Whew! I’m exhausted! That took more out of me than I thought it would, guess I’ll practice later, sleep now.’ He thought as he fell onto his new bed dead asleep.
Ranma slept the rest of the day. He didn’t even bother to eat. (Gasp!)
The Professor scanned Ranma with Cerebro and found out about his mutant powers. It seemed that it was three odd ones rolled into one, all affecting his appearance. He could control his curse and go from male to female at will. (The curse was seen firsthand as it rained right before they left.) He also could control his hair length and color to the extremes. With practice, he could use it like a whip or an extra arm. He lastly got a bit of cat in him as that D.N.A. mess when he was 6 was a basis for the X gene. He now has 4 forms that he can shift to at ease; Male, Female, Male cat, and Catgirl.
‘So a bit like Mystique, only different with different hormones. I wonder if his scent changes or not. Beast will have a field day with him, that’s for sure.’
With it done, the Professor rolled back to his office, he had a feeling things would get weirder than normal soon.
The next day, Ranma spent 13 straight hours practicing on controlling his new powers. He made progress, as he could now grow his hair 7 feet before it started having a mind of its own, can change from guy, to cat, to girl, to catgirl, to guy again instantly. It didn’t hurt as bad as the day before. He didn’t get to test his theory on Ki claws, and sneaking into the kitchen for hot/cold water and some food, replacing the food in the fridge with potatoes showed that cold water changes him, but hot doesn’t change her back. So he can go bathe in a girl’s only place, but can’t swim in a pool or an ocean as a guy. Typical for him, his powers wanted him to be a pervert, a permanently female in cold water pervert.
‘At least it’s controllable, although it’s going to suck at the beach.’
He wasn’t afraid of his reflection when he was a cat, and used its sneaking ability throughout the house. Too bad the clothes didn’t change with him. He actually started to like some of them once he got the hang of it, although the catgirl was going to be a problem. He settled on one pair of pants with a hole in it for his catgirl form, which was covered by his shirt while human. It was undeniably cute though. If it wasn’t for the whole mutant thing, she’d use it to get more ice cream. After all no one can resist a cute catgirl!
‘Maybe if I ever go back to Nerima, they don’t care about appearances.’
That confused the catgirl very much. Apparently the world wasn’t ready for mutants according to the bald professor. Ranma argued that in Tokyo, especially in Nerima, no one would bat an eyelash about mutants. It just meant they ‘cheated’ or were genetically ‘better’ or something. Not much different than everything else there. Sure people will be mad at more powerful beings walking around and destroying stuff, but they also knew that it would be stupid to fight it. In other words, Japan is weird and mutants are weird, so no problem as long as no evil thing happened.
But, NooOOOoo, in America where it’s so diverse it’s not even funny, they won’t be able to handle it if people can do (to Ranma) ‘normal things’. So what if someone who can run at the speed of sound or read minds, or move things with your mind? It’s a nice upgrade, and can be awesome, but it’s nothing no average Super Martial Artist can’t handle. (Ranma, you’re lucky you think in Japanese. With all those negatives, you would fail English.) Hey, even Akane could probably beat up most of these types of people with powers since most got one and the Professor seemed to make it seem that that’s the only way of fighting they know how. Guy shooting stuff out of eyes? Just outmaneuver him and punch him a hundred times. Guy can run really fast? Just be almost as fast ad hit him harder. Guy with claws? Just don’t get near the claws, duh.
He kept making it seem that they were super powered and stuff like that. They just have one thing that they were really good at, just like all his enemies. So instead of arguing with the poor bald guy more than he already was, Ranma decided to find out a way of beating the mutants at their own game.
But now it was almost dinner, and he was confident enough that he can control it for now. The Professor wanted him to meet everyone inside his office to introduce himself. Ranma was going to be living with them, and the Professor said they need to learn how to fight their enemies. You know the typical things a teenager goes through. But first, how to do it? He never really had a good first impression, and since he would be living with these guys, he wanted it to go better than at the Tendo’s or at the Amazon village, or meeting his mom for the first time.
So yeah, Ranma needed a plan on how much to talk about himself, that and how to not embarrass himself. He seems to be doing that lot lately. The Professor is going to tell them his powers unless he did it at the meeting first. He can just image everyone calling him a pervert and smacking him around.
‘No. Not this time. I won’t let people abuse me left and right anymore. If they hit me, I’ll hit them back. Besides, it’s not like I’m engaged to any of them… I’d better not.’
A sense of dread came over him right then.
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(Posted Thu, 21 Apr 2011 20:02)
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