Insertion Panic!
A Ranma 1/2 Fanfiction
By Chris "Dame Helen" McFarland
Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 doesn't belong to me. Frankly, I wouldn't want to own it, what with all sorts of hentai perverts makin' Ranma do nasty stuff in girl form. That's like watching a porno and seeing one of your full grown children on screen!
Datclaimer: I never visited the Ranmaverse, this is purely an experimental conjecture to see what I can do with the concept.
De-other-claimer: No, I don't like SI fics, but I thought it'd be funny to write one, seeing as I hate 'em. It's irony, laugh!
Chapter 1 - The Prime Directive for Dummies
There was, all at once, the sound of a mallet striking flesh, a strangled cry of "RANMA, PREPARE TO BWEEEE!!!", a hastily scrawled sign thudding into a wall, and a loud POP!
The POP may need some explanation.
As for the rest, one can easily assume that Ranma said something to upset Akane, Ryoga once again got splashed (completely ignored by Akane, as once again she completely missed the "Ryoga=P-chan" clue train), one of Genma's signs got knocked out of his hand, and another misadventure was about to start. This is where the POP comes in.
For those who require a bit more explanation, a martial arts touring competition company was rolling into town, and Akane wanted to participate, boldly proclaiming that they needed to be shown how "real martial arts is done!" Ranma, of course, said that the tomboy better step aside to let a real martial artist (such as himself, natch) could join. Akane replied that the competition flier said the competition was for girls only. Ranma replied that then she REALLY shouldn't try out, 'cause "how could a tomboy like you know anything about being a girl?", and besides, he could still join, as he made a better girl and was "Better built to boot!" This is when P-chan, incensed at Ranma's treatment of Akane, hopped off her lap and headed strait (with a detour through the kitchen, the dojo, a brief stopover in San Fransisco, Soun's bedroom, and the front gate, in that order) for the furo, and changed quickly back into Ryoga, made his way to the dining room (via Tailand, the kitchen, some place in Africa, Akane's room, a temple to the almighty Cthulu, and Nabiki's room) and made it as far as the back yard when a misstep dropped him in the pond as he was issuing his challenge to anyone who would listen, and specifically Ranma. Genma, who was "Mr. Panda" at the time, held up a sign saying, "For the sake of the schools, show your fiance more respect, boy!" Akane finally ran out of the short fuse she did have and wholloped Ranma with "Mallet-sama," sending him on a collision course with his father into the wall.
And then, of course, there was the POP.
The POP was enough to cause the residents of the Tendo home to pause, as it wasn't one of the usual sounds that resulted from a Ranma/Akane "tough love" session. What made them focus on the apparent source of the POP was the splash of water that came shortly thereafter. As one, Akane, Ranma, "Mr. Panda," Soun, and Kasumi all turned to look at the Koi pond.
Surfacing was a gaijin. His hair was blond, he was wearing what appeared to be very wet sweat cloths, no shoes or socks, and a pig. The pig was on his head, as that was where P-chan landed after the stranger splashed down. Sopping wet blond hair poked out from under the pig, crowning a Scandinavian face. Said face also was very confused.
Instantly, Ranma was out by the pond. Helping the stranger out of the water never even occurred to him. What did occur to him, as with just about every other thought in his head, came out his mouth without a filter. "Hey, are you another challenger?"
"Baka!" snapped Akane, who had followed Ranma outside, "Does it look like he's here to challenge us..."
Unnoticed by the squabbling pair, the eyebrows of the stranger squeezed together in consternation.
"Me." interrupted Ranma.
Just as unnoticed, the wet man's eyes shot open in panic.
"What?!?" sputtered Akane.
Had the couple paid attention, the would have heard the gaijin muttering about "tainted realities," "self-inserts," and "prime directive," but, again, they weren't. P-chan heard it all, but didn't really understand what the man was saying.
"Well, he wouldn't be here to challenge you, would he?"
"What's that supposed to mean?!?" The informed observer would know that whatever Ranma said next would likely buy him a trip to the canal courtesy of Akane's mallet.
In fact, the informed observer did know that, and that's when the stranger spoke up, displaying his superior attention dividing skills to the arguing couple. This isn't saying much, as when Ranma and Akane decide to argue with each other, Nerima could be attacked by skydiving clowns and they wouldn't notice.
"It means that if I did present a challenge, which I assure both of you that I am in no condition to challenge even Nabiki to a martial arts match, he wouldn't want you to get hurt." As he spoke the gaijin stood, removing the piglet from his head and stretching his arm out to hand it to Akane, who took the pig absentmindedly.
Akane, well, both of them, gawked at the newcomer, as he was still standing in the middle of the pond, which was roughly one meter (about 3 feet) deep, yet he came to nearly eye level with them. What Akane was even MORE aghast at was this total stranger was proposing that Ranma actually cared about her.
Ranma spluttered for a moment, then said, "Oh, uh, yeah? Well, what do you know about it anyway?!?"
The stranger flipped up an eyebrow, then suddenly pointed over Ranma's shoulder and said, "Look out! Shampoo!"
"YEARGH! WHERE? WHERE?" As soon as Ranma turned to look, the gaijin man grabbed Ranma's shirt and yanked him into the pond. The girl spat out some water and shouted "Hey! What'd you do that for?"
"To show that I know quite a bit, actually." With that, he stepped out of the pond. Akane's eyes bugged out even more as he rose to his full height, easily over two meters tall. "Allow me to introduce myself. As I would probably butcher the traditional Japanese bow, I'll simply use my native form of greeting. Hi, I'm Chris." He reached his hand out to Akane.
Before he could blink, Ranma was between them. "You aint touchin' Akane!" she said dangerously.
Quirking a slight grin, he left his hand out. "Martial arts etiquette contest!" Instantly the red-headed girl snapped into a stance, mirroring Chris'. "Grab your opponents hand!" Ranma complied, expecting to have to throw the newcomer. "Pump up and down twice, then release!" She did so. "Repeat after me; 'Nice to meet you.'"
"Nice to meet you!" she barked back.
"Nice to meet you, too." a full smile broke out on Chris' face, "Congratulations Ranma, you've just mastered the 'Western Handshake Greeting Revised, US Army style'." Ranma blinked owlishly at her hand as the gaijin walked up to Kasumi. "Hello, my dear, could I trouble you for use of your bathing facilities, a plastic bag, and, hopefully, a change of cloths?"
"My, I don't know about the change of cloths. Let me show you to the furo."
As the two walked into the house, Chris telling Kasumi that, sorry, he didn't know where his towel was, the remainder of the family looked at each other.
"Well, Saotome, that was interesting."
[Indeed it was, Tendo, indeed it was.]
Ranma continued to stare at her hand.
"Shall we return to our game?"
[Sounds good.]
The two fathers left to continue their cheating... I mean competitive strategy.
Ranma was still staring at her hand, Akane watched her. After another moment, the red-head burst out, "What kind of stupid special move is THAT?"
That did it for Akane, as the shear lunacy of the situation finally hit her. She broke down laughing, gasping out between guffaws, "It worked on YOU, didn't it?"
~o0o0o~
"Here's my theory," said Chris as he brought the teacup to his lips. He had changed into one of Soun's old training gi, but even that was too small to fit the strange foreigner. One of Ranma's tank tops stretched painfully over the stranger's thankfully thin torso, and the stranger occasionally complained of Ranma's boxers riding up. As it was, the gi pants only went down to his knees, and the gi top had to be left untied, as it didn't fit around the slight belly that the gaijin had developed. Chris took a sip of the herbal tea (specifically requested, "Religious reasons," he explained.) and resumed his speech. "I come from a universe where all this," he waved his hand expansively, "Is fiction."
Nabiki, who had arrived while Chris was in the washroom, raised her eyebrows at that. "What do you mean, fiction?"
"Just that. All of this, Ranma, the Tendo's, Chinese Amazons, even you, is all part of a cute little story." He paused a moment to allow that thought to settle in. "Now, this doesn't mean it's not real. I wouldn't be able to exist here if it wasn't. What it does mean is that I, and a whole planetful of other people, know a lot more about your lives that you'd probably be comfortable with."
"This is your theory?" said Nabiki.
"No, I'm getting to that." he took another sip, "There is a phenomenon about 'shared universes,' such as this one, that when it reaches a certain level of popularity amongst the general populous, individuals will begin to create original stories around the characters of that universe. These are called fanfics, short for 'FAN FICtion.'"
"This fits nicely with a theory in quantum physics that postulates that we live in, not a universe, but a multiverse."
"Huh?" goggled Ranma, who had turned back into a guy.
Chris sighed heavily, "OK, imagine a tree. The tree is time. At the base of the tree is the beginning of time. As choices are made or events happen, the tree grows a new branch, which in turn splits off to create new branches." Chris looked around the table and observed that the only people to comprehend what he was saying was Nabiki and, amusingly, Kasumi. "Alright, we'll try this another way." He picked up his teacup, drained it, and tossed it over Ranma's right shoulder. Ranma easily caught it. "Now, what happened?"
"I caught the cup." said Ranma as he set the cup on the table.
"Let me break that down for you a bit. You, Ranma, saw the cup moving through the air in a general trajectory over your right shoulder. In that instant, you made several decisions, one of which was to catch the cup. What would have happened if you had decided not to catch the cup?"
"It would have broke if I didn't. Duh!"
"The idea behind the multiverse is that you _didn't_ catch the cup, but you caught the cup." He held up his hand to forestall any interruptions, "I'm not done. In that instant, you created a second time line. In one time line, the one we're in now, you caught the cup. In the second time line, you decided not to catch the cup. It's not even as simple as that, really." He took a deep breath, "You could have caught the cup with your left hand, you could have missed, you could have decided to throw it back, you could have decided to refill it, you might have handed it to Akane, it might have tipped off your fingers and broke anyway. Each of these "what ifs" creates another time line. This brings me back to the tree. The base of the tree is the instant you saw the cup flying through the air to you. All the decisions you could have made are the branches." He looked around the table again, noting that several more people were understanding what he was saying, including Genma, to his amazement.
Ranma still seemed oblivious. Chris focused on the part time girl. "Think of it like this. The multiverse is like a house with a bunch of rooms. Got that so far?"
"Uh, yeah..."
"OK, now lets say that each room is going to be a bedroom. What goes in a bedroom?"
"Uhm, a bed?"
"Right, so we are going to put a bed in each room. All the rooms need a bed. What kind of bed?"
"Well, a futon is good."
Chris gave a sort of half-smile, "You're not married and Japanese, so I'll give you that. What about the second bedroom?"
Feeling a little more confident, Ranma immediately answered, "A futon."
"OK, let's say the futons are exactly the same, and they came from the same store. The same person isn't going to sleep on the two different futons. Let's say you sleep in one room on one futon, and your father sleeps in the other room on the other futon. Let's make this even easier and say you both sleep every night in your cursed forms. Can we agree that a huge panda is going to be heavier than a girl?" At Ranma's nod, he continued, "Let's say you sleep in the same futons for a year. At the end of the year, if you compared the two futons, which one would be more worn out?"
Ranma smirked, "That one's easy, Pop's! Heck, he'd wear it out without a curse!"
Genma attempted to whack Ranma over the head with a sign that said, [Show some respect, boy!] Ranma dodged it, grabbed the sign from the panda's paw, and whacked his father with it. "When you earn it, you'll get it, Pops!"
Chris cleared his throat, "Yes. As I was saying, both futons started out exactly the same, coming from the same place, but because they were in different rooms and had different stuff happen to them, they came out differently."
He paused for a moment. Ranma mulled that over in his head, then, tentatively, said, "So, we're like the mattresses?"
"Exactly! Congratulations Ranma, you just grasped an aspect of quantum physics."
Nabiki looked like she was going to freeze him on the spot with her gaze, "I'm still waiting," as she spoke the room temperature dropped a few degrees, "For your theory."
"Ah, yes. Getting back to the stories. There's an unattributed theory in my universe that all the fiction, all the viable fiction anyway, is actually the author tapping into the events of another part of the multiverse with their minds. Some people even theorize that events in these realities can be influenced by the author as they write their stories." Chris reached across the table and grabbed the teacup he had thrown, added some more water and a fresh teabag and let it sit. "For the sake of this discussion, lets call these universes that get tapped by professional writers that wind up as shared universes 'Prime' universes."
Taking a breath, he scooped the teabag out of the tea and reached for the sugar he had requested and began shoveling a liberal amount into his tea. "This will probably give Ranma a big head, but the Prime universe for this particular section of the multiverse revolves around, er... Ranma."
The results of this declaration were predictable. Ranma turned to Akane and said "HA! And you said I was stuck up!" Nabiki looked like she could curl up and die, Genma seemed torn between pride in his son and disappointment that the universe didn't revolve around him. Kasumi smiled and said, "Oh, how nice for you Ranma!" Akane, meanwhile, was whipping out Mallet-sama, "Watch it Ranma," she growled, "Or that head of yours won't fit through the door!" She did her part to make it fit through, at least vertically, with repeated blows to the top of Ranma's head.
"Hmm, yes," remarked Chris, "THE POINT is that the Ranmaverse is one of the most tapped areas of the multiverse for creative fiction. It's part of an even larger continuum called the Takihashiverse, named after the woman who wrote the original story about Ranma called Ranma one-half."
"Referring," Nabiki broke in, "To the fact that Ranma changes from boy to girl?"
"Exactly. The story became so popular that loads of amateur writers began tapping into the Ranmaverse creating fanfics. You wouldn't believe what kind of fan following the lot of you have." Chris began sipping on his tea as he continued. "In fact, Ranma one-half has, perhaps, the second largest fan base in the entire world. Funny thing is, it's not acknowledged like the others are because of the nature of Ranma's curse. Heck, my own wife doesn't like that the whole thing is about a guy that turns into a girl."
He smiled, "In fact, don't get your head too big, Ranma, some of your popularity is due to the fact that you look HOT in a two piece!" Once again Akane burst out in laughter, while P-chan made some piggy noises that resembled laughter. Ranma turned absolutely white while Genma started looking about frantically about for any sign of a katana. Nabiki grinned, thinking, So, there is justice in the uni... multiverse!
"Now," said Chris, drawing the attention back to himself, "There is a sub-genre of fanfiction called the 'self-insert' fanfic. These are considered to be the absolute /worst/ fanfics ever written, but they are usually the very first fanfics a fledgling writer writes. As a result, there are literally thousands, if not hundreds of thousands or even millions of self-insert fanfics."
Nabiki leaned forward. "Wait, then that means..."
"Yes, but let me finish." Chris knew Nabiki would figure it out quickly. "I'm subscribed to the Fan Fiction Mailing List, or FFML. One of the authors wrote a piece that had shades of self-insert, and I pointed it out. He objected, strenuously, so I decided, in a fit of pique, to write a SI fic just to show him how it's done." He chuckled, "I think I got just a bit carried away."
Their was a pregnant pause at this statement, "Wait," said Akane, "You mean you WROTE yourself here?"
Chris took another sip of his tea. "From a girl who's engaged to someone who transforms with a splash of water, you sound skeptical." He set his cup down. "Frankly, I was joking. I don't know precisely what caused me to show up here, so I'm just as much in the dark as you all are."
"So, when do you go back?" asked Nabiki.
Trust her to think of that, thought Chris, I would, after all, wind up staying here if I did stay in this universe, and they'd be footing the bill. "I gave that some thought. Here's my thought, there are two basic types of SI fanfic; the type that solve all the problems of a given continuum, and the kind that are just humorous one-shots. As I have no intention of even attempting to solve the problems inherent to this continuum, which I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy, I'm hoping this is just a humorous one-shot that's badly written. I should be shuttled home soon."
"How soon is 'soon'?" asked Akane.
"Probably after roughly two hours worth of writable material occurs, which around here should develop pretty quickly. For instance, this conversation and my arrival should have made roughly 45 minutes of material, but the time I spent in the bath wouldn't count toward that, even though I've been here for a little over an hour if you include that time."
"What counts as 'writable material?'" asked Nabiki.
"Oh, romantic scenes, slapstick, action, any pivotal plot point, stuff like that. Oh, and the more stuff happens to me, the better." With sudden realization, Chris slapped his hands over his mouth. Shouldnasaidthat... Shouldnasaidthat... Shouldnasaidthat... Shouldnasaidthat... Shouldnasaidthat... the thought ran through his head repeatedly.
For the first time in history, Ranma and Nabiki looked at each other thinking the exact same thing. Ranma grinned his big, cocky grin and turned to look Chris square in the eye, "So, do any martial arts?"
Chris whimpered.
~o0o0o~
Chris was laid out on the floor, several bruises marking where Ranma decided to "test the toughness of his skin." His one consolation was that Ranma, in girl form, was laid out next to him with a rather large lump on his head.
"If you'd stopped hitting me long enough to listen, I could have told you that mindless violence in a Ranma fic doesn't count as writable material!"
"Well, how was I supposed to know? Besides, you had the Tomboy on your side, it was two on one, a fair fight!"
Akane reared up like the devil... or rather how the devil only /WISHED/ he could rear up, mallet raised to the ready. "Gee Ranma, you don't seem to be doing so well, I think you need MALLET THERAPY!" Another lump joined the one already there, sending Ranma into slumberland.
Shortly thereafter, Nabiki wandered in. "I hate to tell you, but two hours is just about up."
"What?" said Chris in disbelief.
"Yep. Looks like this is a 'solve everything' situation." Frankly, she was a little disappointed. The "problems of this continuum," as Chris put it, were her primary source of income.
"Can't be, I wouldn't do that in a million years!"
"Why is that?"
"Do you watch Star Trek?"
"The import? Never watched it, myself, but Akane used to."
"There's a law in the Star Trek universe which says that you can't interfere in a group or culture that doesn't have the same level of technological development as your own group or culture. It's called the Prime Directive. I have my own Prime Directive, and that is NEVER MESS WITH A UNIVERSE YOU'VE BEEN DROPPED IN!!!" This last he shouted at the ceiling, in hopes that whatever power dropped him here would hear and understand.
"Why's that?" asked Nabiki calmly. After over a year of listening to Ryoga shout aimlessly, she could easily ignore Chris' ranting.
Chris eyed her critically. "Do you know what kind of /damage/ I could do if I started messing with this universe? Heck, I may have caused irreparable damage just by being here. Think about it," he got a disgusted face, "How would you like to be paired up with Kuno?"
A look of shock passed over her face. "What? Why would I be paired up with Kuno just by you being here?"
"It's not my presence that would do it. If I started to interfere with things, all of a sudden strange things would happen like Akane and Ranma admitting they love each other, or you and (ick!) Kuno would get married! Every SI fic winds up doing something like that, even if it would be totally out of character for those people to do... whatever it is that the author of the SI fic wants them to do."
"How do you mean? You can't just tell me what to do..."
"That's just it, in a 'problem-solver' SI fic, I _can_ tell you what to do, and you'd do it, because you wouldn't have any choice! Remember what I told you about authors having some influence over what happens in their tapped universe?" At her nod, he continued, "There are authors who abuse that ability terribly. It's a given that just about everybody who starts writing fiction is dissatisfied with life, but SI people are dissatisfied with /fiction/ as well! They have these ideas about how things should be, and so they set up these timelines where people act just like the authors think they should. Heck, if this were an SI fic, I could make Ranma spontaneously decide to marry Ryoga, and she'd do it without looking back."
That comment penetrated Ranma's state of unconsciousness. The part-time boy jolted upright screaming, "W-W-WHAT?!?!"
Chris smirked, "You think that's bad? I could pair *you* up with Kuno."
Ranma turned green, "I think I'm gonna be sick..."
"Try this one... I could pair you up with Kuno as a guy."
Ranma slapped a hand over her mouth, "Fcuse me!" she said around her hand and bolted to the toilet.
"Heh, I haven't seem him that green in a long time, last time Akane tried to cook, in fact." Nabiki said as she turned to her visitor. He wasn't sharing in the mirth. In fact, he looked downright upset. "Anything you want to share?"
"That was a test. Ranma should still be knocked out cold."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, I wanted to see if I had any control over this universe. Ranma was my test subject. Just focusing on making her wake up and be ill made her do just that. I could have said 'Kumquats are tasty,' and she would have still tossed her cookies."
Nabiki mulled this over, "So," she said after a moment, "You're stuck here?"
"Yep," sighed Chris, "At least until everyone's different problems are solved." He collapsed back with an even heavier sigh. "Oh, fuddy-duddy!"