- Chapter 6: Lost Souls -
"So, the easiest way to do this would be for you to agree to teach me how to make okonomiyaki, then I would turn you into the best batter I can make," Akane specified unenthusiastically as the two girls got started on seriously considering the idea of making Ukyo into another living-food pokemon.
"I want to be food, not another toxic sludge monster," Ukyo grumbled, but seemed to realize this wasn't a serious suggestion.
"I don't really want to focus that much on okonomiyaki either," Akane easily agreed and looked over the currently closed restaurant. "I've got a few more 'easy' ones that we might as well go over. The more options you try the easier some of the other options get." They had been kicked out of the Tendo home by Kasumi, who did not want fey deals being explored at their house.
"Alright, next," Ukyo demanded as the chef went over her supplies for working the day off of school.
"Well, the next easy one would make you into the best you can personally make," Akane started.
"That sounds much better already," Ukyo cut in.
"But you would have to give up your claim on Ranma," the Alcremie continued bluntly. She watched the other girl with some surprise as Ukyo actually seemed to consider the idea.
"Okay, so if I understand how this works right, that means I want Ranma a whole lot to let it do something that good?" Ukyo carefully questioned. "Because that sounds like something too easy."
"The thing there is you would just give him up. You wouldn't even be able to consider the idea seriously anymore," Akane specified to get across the idea better. "I'm also trying to start with the outright bad options for us to get those out of the way."
"Oh," Ukyo said a bit more faintly. "Well at least we got the absolute worst ones out of the way." Akane cringed. "There's still something worse? What could possibly be worse than those two?"
"I didn't want to tell you that one," Akane admitted. She had been more in touch with her sometimes Fairy type since they started considering this idea, and that gave her some instincts she didn't want to follow. One of those made her sort of want to trick Ukyo into making the worst deal.
"Akane, if I can take you literally changing my mind about Ranchan, I can take some silly deal," Ukyo assured her. "Go on, what is the worst of the worst?"
"In exchange for being transformed into the perfect living okonomiyaki batter, the absolute best that could be made," Akane started, and cringed as she realized she could not stop despite how Ukyo had paled at that result. "You would be unable to make okonomiyaki yourself ever again." Ukyo somehow got paler. "Other people could use your batter to make some, and you could technically teach others how, but you would be unable to make any yourself."
"No," Ukyo squeaked. "No, never, I would never ever agree to that!" The chef shuddered. "A better one, please, tell me there are better ones!"
"Well, one of the fairly tricky ones is for you to become the best you can make yourself, in exchange for being friends with me," Akane quickly grabbed in the face of that terrified request.
"'The best I can make myself', how is that different from the 'best I can personally make'?" Ukyo questioned, a bit more collected together.
"Oh, I guess I didn't explain that entirely," the Alcremie said and thought a moment. "The best you can personally make means you are stuck at whatever is your best right now, no getting better but you can't get worse. The best you can make yourself means you are as good as you make your body, like how my Muk form can change what it is made of. With that one you can get better, but you can also get worse."
"Wait, the Ranma one would get me stuck at my best right now?" Ukyo suddenly refocused. "No way, I'd rather have problems with fixing my body sometimes than being stuck at just what I can do now." The chef paused and glared at her. "Wait, make myself as in 'make my self', do you have to say things unclearly?"
"I'm a Fairy type," Akane confirmed, and Ukyo sighed. "Okay, if you specifically want that kind of change we can narrow things down."
Akane moved onto a Muk form a while later, around the time when the restaurant was about to open, to discuss the details of being able to change yourself now that they had some good options to narrow down later. "... and breaking chemicals down to build them again as something else takes energy, so the easier it is to go from what I have to what I want the less of my energy it takes," she specified. "I can technically make just about anything given enough energy, but I'd rather find or buy something close and just change that the rest of the way."
"Hmm, I think I get that. I'd still need to get the best ingredients to make the best okonomiyaki, I'd just eat some of them myself," Ukyo noted with a glance over to the storeroom. "Ugh, I hope it comes with being able to handle some of that stuff raw."
"It should, at least in the changed form," Akane huffed the obvious answer, just before the newly unlocked door was pushed open. She heard a pair of surprised wordless oinks, and turned to spot P-Chan and a pig pokemon. The unknown pokemon was orange and brown, stood on two legs and the markings made it look like they were wearing a tight cloth exercise suit of some kind.
"This place makes good food," Ryoga Hibiki's voice said from P-Chan's mouth, and Akane froze at the confirmation of a terrible possibility that had occurred to her after the discovery that she could understand cursed animals. "Uh, is that a slime monster in the restaurant?"
"In my bed," Akane gurgled darkly, memories playing in her mind with terrible context.
"Um, what's wrong?" Ukyo asked, but Akane only had rage towards a pig.
"Ah, Miss Muk, please don't eat us," the Fire typed pokemon squeaked at the look Akane was giving both of them.
"Eat us?" Ryoga Hibiki asked dumbly, which apparently was how he did everything.
Akane suddenly found that she was an Alcremie, as that was more appropriate for the suggestion, and the other pokemon's worry turned instantly into horror. "Please Miss Food Fairy, do not turn us into food without killing us!" the poke-pig girl requested urgently and dropped to all fours. "Ryoga, run!"
"Akane, what are you doing?" Kasumi asked very critically as she managed to chase the pair of pigs all the way back to their yard.
"Getting ready to make some Jusenkyo pork buns!" Akane screeched at the perverted jerk that had tricked her into thinking he was just a normal pig. "That's Ryoga and some pokemon he met!"
"Please Miss Alcremie, it isn't the same for other pokemon!" said pokemon cried out. "We aren't normally supposed to use bits of ourselves as food!"
"Did she say 'normally', and talk?" Genma asked both vocally and with a sign as she moved past him in pursuit of the two swine, and a soaked Ranma quickly moved to stop her. Akane stopped and frowned at the jerk who could splatter her before she reached the pigs.
"Akane, please tell me you don't know a regeneration technique just to take meat out of people's bodies without really hurting them," Ranma cut her off seriously. "Because there was this one place in China that we did not stay at where it turned out that was part of their special healing technique, and even my pops didn't want to learn that one."
"Technique?" Akane paused to ask, with considerable confusion. "But its eas-" she cut herself off and shifted to human to double check. The morning discussion made her more aware that Fairy types didn't think about things quite the same. "Oh. Okay, maybe that isn't a nice thing to try on... Did you say there was a place in China where normal humans can do that?" she asked with some worry and slumped into Muk again.
"Bah, it barely worked. Three months to restore some muscle after years of training to prepare for that point. They only really used that part of it as a final test of some sort," Genma complained, with a sign that read 'No it was a joke'. Which sort of was the same thing he had said.
"It didn't sound like a 'joke' to me," Ranma grumbled.
"He didn't say it was a joke though," the pokemon pig carefully noted as the Fire type carefully looked to see if it was safe, with Ryoga close behind if a bit confused. Akane glared at the pigs, but the rage had been cooled by the strange topic shift. "Or, well he kind of was saying it was a joke of a skill to insult it maybe? I can't read his sign."
"Wait, he meant it like that?" Ranma questioned.
"So, just to be clear, everyone who transforms into something can understand the orange pig?" Nabiki complained. "Because the strange pig is just oinking, but Ranma even replied to him."
"Her," the called out part of the room corrected the middle Tendo.
"Pokemon can apparently understand Jusenkyo cursed people, and they can understand pokemon I guess?" Akane informed her sister with a bit of uncertainty. "I don't think I've understood Genma when I'm a human and he's a panda."
"Ryoga can only understand me when he is also a pig," the pokemon agreed. "I can technically speak my original human language, but none of you are speaking it." The pig stood back up on two legs, and then spoke in English. "I don't even know how far we are from my country."
"And now she's speaking something I can understand, but most of you probably aren't doing well enough in class to understand," Nabiki sighed. "Do I want to know why you know English?"
"That's not what we call it, but I guess Moltres was also confused about that when she showed up and started giving everyone Fire typed pokemon forms, like my Pignite form," the Pignite explained, still in English so it was a bit hard to follow, but strangely Akane didn't have as much trouble as she expected.
"Please, explain what a Pignite is and how you got here," Nabiki demanded dryly.
"Ah, I'm sorry, I didn't introduce myself did I?" the Pignite said, still in English. "My name is Betty, and I am a Pignite. A fire pig pokemon, and a martial artist from the city of Applia in Unioa. I was originally human before the Legendary pokemon Moltres came to our city and made herself the god-ruler of the city. She declared that we were now her people, and turned all of us into Fire type pokemon."
"Where is 'Unioa'?" Akane carefully questioned, not sure at all that she pronounced it correctly.
"You haven't heard of Unioa?" Ryoga asked with confusion in response, and Akane considered smothering him. It was a very attractive idea, but Ranma was currently between the two of them, and he knew how to stop her effectively in this form. She would get both of them eventually. "It is a pretty big country, about the size of America."
"Yeah, that is a good comparison, about as big as that," Betty confirmed. "Kind of the same shape too."
"So, most of us can't understand Ryoga right now," Nabiki pointed out. "But it sort of sounds like he knows where that is." The middle Tendo let the implication that you would need to be very lost to find the place stand while they waited for hot water. Then the awkward moment of the pig being shuffled to the bathroom to put on some clothes first.
"So, you didn't know that the pig was Ryoga?" Akane's father cautiously questioned while the damn pig was out of the room.
"Daddy, I'm going to pretend that doesn't mean you've known this whole time," Akane sweetly told her father, and plotted using him as a tester for her next attempt at hidden poison. "Does anyone else want to joke about that idea? It would be so silly for you all to have left me unaware of what was happening." She did not plan on making her best effort to improve her food for a few days.
"Ranma tried to be 'subtle' about it," Nabiki harshly pointed out, with the implication that Akane should have known from how bad Ranma was at subtle.
"You didn't know," Kasumi said lowly. "It wasn't an attempt to make Ranma jealous." The eldest Tendo looked a bit angry as well.
"Everyone is getting poisoned," Akane informed her terrible family. "All of you, especially Ranma."
"I'd complain, but that sounds better than smothered in my sleep," Ranma admitted. "So things are looking up." He was being fairly sarcastic.
Ryoga returned from the bathroom to cut off further discussion, now clothed and human. "Ryoga, good news, you're staying for dinner," Akane declared. Kasumi glared at her. "You won't be dinner, don't worry about that."
"So, we were discussing the English speaking pig monster," Nabiki said to change the topic back away from that one. "One that is from somewhere that was taken over by some other monster?"
"Moltres, a massive bird made out of flames who changed the entire city into Fire type pokemon," Betty repeated and clarified. "Ryoga, do you still have that map with the route to get there with a trip to Honolulu?"
"Yeah, let me get it," Ryoga answered. "I still don't believe some of the maps they sell in stores."
"Always so wrong, and missing how so many places are close together," Betty agreed, and Akane dully stared at the pair. Apparently Ryoga had found someone just as lost as he was.
"I've been seeking a proper method to return to human form ever since," the Pignite declared as the useless map was retrieved. "I've tried mystical pendants that only work when you're wearing them, but I don't like the results of those very well." A blue gemstone necklace appeared from somewhere that sort of made sense to Akane, and possibly was related to how the Amazons held extra stuff. "I had some special medicine that can turn you fully human too that was better, but if you forget to take it or run out you're stuck as a monster for a whole week. An option that sounded good at first was a magical dance, but that only works for two days for me and nearly throws my back out. I've tried all kinds of things that don't really work."
"Ryoga, did you find someone with a curse that isn't a Jusenkyo curse, but still needs to fix the curse?" Ranma complained lightly.
"Why is Akane a slime monster?" the now clothed and human lost boy asked instead of replying. "And a pokemon too somehow? Did Betty's bird god thing show up here too?"
"I made a wish on a star, and got better at baking," Akane grumbled at the jerk that had used her a bit too much. "It Is Not A Curse!" she strongly informed both of the people who had not heard about it before.
"You found a Jirachi?" Betty questioned, clearly to change topic to something else. "I tried to find one of those once. They are only ever awake for a week at a time, but they can grant all sorts of wishes then."
"The wish thing was a Jirachi?" Ranma asked uneasily, and Akane could agree with that feeling. Tatewaki had mentioned that Kodachi Kuno thought she had seen one.
"Probably. The other pokemon I have spoken with told me about the other pokemon of legend, and that was the one they said granted wishes," Betty explained. "They also look like stars, and wake up from comets, so that is who it sounds like." The Pignite sighed. "I guess I missed out on that option."
"What about that Ala-kal-guy you said was around here?" Ryoga asked, and Akane wondered what counted as 'around here' for the two of them.
"Alakazam, a powerful Psychic type pokemon who is an expert on things like curses," the Pignite declared.
"Oh, him," Genma grumbled with a matching sign. "The real psychic."
"Old spoon guy was a pokemon?" Ranma questioned and held up a hand. "About this tall, yellow hair, a bit of a fox-like face, giant mustache, and always carrying around spoons?"
"I'm not even surprised at this point," Akane burbled as Pignite nodded eagerly to confirm the description. "What did you guys steal from him?"
"The spoons of course," Ranma complained at his father, who simply harrumphed. "I remember going to a pawn shop with them."
"Please let this guy not have a daughter," Akane heard her middle sister complain quietly. "I could use fewer pokemon around instead of more."
[Author's Note]
This update brought to you by Writer's Block. Specifically I have stalled out on my main story, but have ideas on how to continue here.
I just needed to reorder the few plans I had for this story too.
Betty was a bit of a late addition, but I kind of like her as a complication here. For clarity, she is from an alternate New York City that was taken over by a rogue Legendary pokemon.
There will be another chapter of this to go next as well, and it has been going well enough to come out before I manage to get back to Typechange Johto.