Bad Ideas Gone Wrong Productions presents

Potion

A Ranma 1/2 fanfiction by Geoduck

Ranma was annoyed.

There was always somebody lurking around him. Kuno or Mousse or Ryoga or Happosai or the stupid, stupid principal. And those were just the people who hated him. When you added in all of the stalkers who loved him, it started getting ridiculous. And it never stopped. At any hour of the clock. Even during the hours when Ranma normally slept. Which did make him extremely cheesed off.

"Jeez, can't a guy just get some shuteye?" growled Ranma.

"Saotome! Get the buckets and go stand in the hall."

But maybe it was a bad idea to say that during class loud enough for the teacher to hear.

As they ate their bento lunches underneath a tree next to the school, Akane shook her head at her fiance. "Honestly! How did you think the teacher would react, Ranma?"

"Yeah, I messed up. I couldn't help it. Blame it on a lack of sleep."

"What started all this anyway? You've been twitchy for the last few days."

"Gosunkugi is what started it. He's been following me around and it's really creeping me out."

"Gosunkugi? But he couldn't possibly hurt a fly."

"Oh, you'd be surprised at how sneaky..."

"No, I meant that literally. I don't think he has the physical strength to actually hurt a fly."

Ranma considered that for a moment. "That's probably true, come to think of it. But he gets weird ideas sometimes, and he gets his hands on weird mystical junk sometimes…"

"And doesn't it always backfire on him?"

"Uh, you may have a point there." Ranma paused. "Yeah, now that you mention it, you're right. But that doesn't mean I have to like it." He sighed. "I just wish he'd give up on whatever stupid plan he…"

From behind the tree, a hand shot forward at Ranma's head, grasped a hair and pulled. And pulled. And continued pulling. "I… I… I have you now… Saotome…"

Ranma scowled as his head continued to be jerked backwards by the pulling. "Gosunkugi? Quit it."

"I will… soon… have a strand… of your hair… and with your hair… I will have… your strength and power…"

Akane facepalmed as Ranma sighed in frustration. "Look, you're clearly too weak to even pull out my hair, so why don't you just quit and leave me alone?"

"I…" *tug* "will…" *tug* "never…" *tug*

Akane tapped the shoulder of the boy pulling fruitlessly at Ranma's hair. "Um, Gosunkugi?"

In shock, Gosunkugi let go. "It's Akane! She said my name!"

"Gosunkugi, will you please stop this? Whatever it is you're doing, could you just please stop? For me?"

Gosunkugi's face changed from its normal extreme pale to a slight shade of grey, which was probably the scrawny boy's equivalent of blushing. "Akane is saying such nice things! But, but…" He shook his head, and his normal deathly pallor returned. "No! I must complete my plan! It's all for our future happiness!" Gosunkugi looked at Ranma, and with a quaking finger, pointed. "You and your hairs have won this day, Saotome, but know that the war is far from over! I will defeat you one week from today!"

He dashed away back to the school building, stopping every few feet to pant and wheeze heavily.

"Wow, Ranma, I'm surprised. He won't even listen to me this time. He must be serious."

Ranma sighed again. "What. A. Maroon."

"You think he'll really try to break into your room at night?"

Ranma nodded to Akane as the two walked home from school. "The only way he can get a hair from me is if he cuts one off with scissors while I'm sleeping. So I need to either make sure the room is securely locked, or not be there when he skulks around. That way…"

They reached the Tendo home, where Kasumi was sweeping the front walk. "Oh, welcome home, Akane, Ranma. By the way, that nice Gosunkugi boy was here earlier. He just needed some stray hairs from Ranma's comb. I'm sure you wouldn't mind." Kasumi paused. "Ranma? Are you all right, Ranma?"

Ranma lay on the ground, twitching. "Perfectly fine, Kasumi. Think nothing of it."

A week later, as promised, Gosunkugi faced Ranma in the normal dueling spot: the school's athletic field. Crowds of students were watching, buying okonomiyaki, and wagering on the outcome.

"Gosunkugi, are you sure about this? I don't want to hurt you… much."

Gosunkugi smirked. "Go ahead and act confident, Saotome." From inside his school uniform, he pulled out a small bottle. "This potion will give me all of your power, as well as the power of all of your friends and allies! From the hairs I've collected, I will soon have your martial arts strength! The physical endurance of Ryoga Hibiki! The serendipitous good luck of Nabiki Tendo! The good reputation and personal popularity of Kasumi Tendo! The aggressive cunning of Mousse! The sexy seductive powers of Shampoo! The guile and ability to evade karma of Genma Saotome! The stealthiness of Happosai! The self-confidence of Tatewaki Kuno! The language abilities of Hinako Ninomai!"

"Uh, why would you need that last one? And besides, almost none of those people are my friend or ally."

"Silence, Saotome! Your hour of doom has arrived." With effort, Gosunkugi pulled the cork out of the bottle and drank, throwing away the bottle as he finished. "Now then…"

Ranma prepared himself for anything.

"Err… now then…" Gosunkugi had a weird look in his eyes. A look of complete terror and panic. "Um, Hikaru come up with a brilliant plan to beat you, and use Hikaru's newly enhanced powers to kick ass, yes?"

Ranma looked at Gosunkugi incredulously. "Uh, that's what I'd do if I were in your place."

"Then… uh… attack! Uh…" Gosunkugi got into an unconvincing martial arts pose. "Uh, Gosunkugi school of anything-goes martial arts final attack!"

Ranma waited for the attack to commence.

"Final attack! Final… attack! FINAL attack!" Gosunkugi was hyperventilating in panic. "WHY NOT ANYTHING WORKING?"

Hearing the telltale sound of a body reentering the atmosphere from low-earth orbit, Ranma jumped back a few feet, just in time to avoid getting hit by a human meteorite. A human meteorite that ran smack into the panicking Hikaru Gosunkugi.

After a few moments, the dust from the collision settled, revealing that Gosunkugi has been landed upon by Mousse, who was shaking his head as if to clear it. "Ow. That hurt." Mousse looked in Ranma's direction. "Oh, hi, Hibiki. Where are we? Oh, wait, that's a bad question to ask you."

"I'm not Ryoga, you idiot! Put on your glasses."

Mousse did so. "Saotome? Why are you lost in the wilderness? Are you training to come up with a new technique to steal my beautiful Shampoo from me?"

"This isn't the wilderness, moron. Do you have to study to be as stupid as you are?"

As Mousse and Ranma continued to yell at each other, Akane walked over to the crater that Mousse's collision had caused. Fortunately, Gosunkugi was not dead, only unconscious. Curious, Akane picked up the bottle and looked inside. There was a little bit left, so she recorked it and put it in her pocket.

After school, Ranma was fuming. It had been a spectacular annoying day. After Gosunkugi, Ranma had ended up fighting Mousse. And after getting rid of the blind Chinese boy, Principal Kuno had decided to attack as well. And then on the way home, the ladle lady had gotten him wet.

"I'm home!" Akane called out. She saw Ranma sulking on the stairs. "Oh, Ranma, you'll be interested in this."

"Yeah? What."

"So I took what was left of Gosunkugi's potion and showed it to Cologne. She had a look at it. It turns out that the potion almost worked."

"Almost? What does that mean?"

"Well, it did give Gosunkugi the powers from all of those people. Just not quite in the same order he wanted."

"The same order? What are you talking about?"

"According to Cologne, the drinker of the potion will have: The martial arts strength of Nabiki. The physical endurance of Hinako Ninomai. The disastrously bad luck of Mousse. The bad reputation and personal unpopularity of Happosai. The aggressive cunning of Kasumi. The sexy seductive powers of Genma Saotome. Your guile and ability to evade karma. The stealthiness of Tatewaki Kuno. The self-confidence of Ryoga Hibiki. And the language abilities of Shampoo."