Chapter 8: W.T.F.
Kansas
It had been a little over a week since the Japanese teenagers had arrived and neither had done anything to dispel Jennifer of the idea that they could possibly be what the Anime was based on. Jennifer sat in her room and was making a list of the reasons to support such an outrageous theory.
They acted like the characters...Ranma was in essences a complete jackass but had a heart of gold. Akane was really sweet except when Ranma was involved. Both got really quiet when asked to describe their home life and would mumble something incomprehensible . They looked like the characters. Ranma usually wore Chinese style shirts and black pants. Akane usually wore a skirt and cute top.
"That might not be true after this afternoon." Jennifer mused to herself. Akane had been abducted by Kate and Libbie to go clothes shopping this afternoon and there was no telling what Akane would come home wearing.
Ranma was paranoid about cold water. Enough said. Both of them were amazing martial artists. Although Ranma seemed to tease Akane about how slow she was. Both of them come from a one parent home. Ranma's Dad left his mom a long time ago and the was all Ranma would say about his parents. Akane's mother had died when she was young. Akane had two sisters named Kasumi and Nabiki.
The doorbell rang and Jennifer rushed up the stairs to answer the door.
"Hello?"
"Delivery from Nerima, Japan." The man said holding a pet carrier that seemed to be shaking.
"oh, um what is it?" Jennifer looked inside to see to eyes peering at her. If it had been human she would have said that those eyes were glaring at her.
"It's a pig. Now please sign on the line. Miss." The man held out the clipboard which Jennifer signed and was handed the pet carrier.
"Well where should we put you. I guess you must be P-Chan?" Jennifer went back inside the house and went into the bathroom with the cage. "this is the only room I am willing to open the cage in. That way I can contain the silly thing." She set the carrier in the bathtub and opened the door. Very slowly a very dirty black piglet walked out of the cage. Jennifer blinked when she saw the yellow bandana. "You've got to be kidding me."
"JENNIFER!!!"
"in here boys!!" Ranma, Jon and Zach opened the door to the bathroom.
"what are you doing?" Zach asked coming up behind Jennifer to look over her shoulder to see the pig.
"Checking on Akane's pig." Ranma choked on the water he had been drinking and paled significantly, "He's absolutely filthly." Jennifer reached over to turn on the water.
"WAIT!!" Ranma reached over to grab Jennifer's wrist. She looked at him puzzled and he could swear that there was also a challenge there but he couldn't think of why there would be. "He really doesn't like baths. 'Specially from people he don't know. He goes all crazy and bites."
P-Chan recognizing Ranma voice suddenly leaped out of the bathtub to affix himself to Ranma nose via his teeth. Then Ranma and P-Chan got into what some would call a fight with Ranma trying to get the animal off his nose and yelling in Japanese. Jon got out of Ranma's way to let him get into the living room so that they wouldn't destroy the bathroom. Jennifer and Zach just stared at Jon who shrugged and followed Ranma into the other room where the struggle continued. Ranma had finally dislodged the pig from his nose and was pounding him to the ground when Akane burst in the front doors followed by Kate and Libbie.
"RANMA!!" Akane quickly pummeled Ranma to the ground and was cradling the pathetic looking pig. "oh baby. Did Ranma hurt you? Honestly Ranma can't you leave him alone for a minute?"
Ranma took that moment to look up to see Akane." What are you wearing?" he stuttered.
"Not that you would notice anything different." Akane said as she turned to let everyone else see her new out fit. She was wearing hip-hugging flared jeans and a cute spaghetti strap tank top. Her hair which had been black was now streaked with bright blue.
"Looks good on you, Akane." Jennifer said as she went to shut the front door the girls had left open.
Akane blushed slightly and smiled, "Thanks."
"She makes me sick. She fit into almost everything there AND looked good in it too." Kate said cheerfully depositing the bags she had been holding on the floor. She looked at the pig that Akane was holding close to her chest. "hey, Akane is you pig sick?"
"not that I know of..." Akane lifted the pig to study its face. "oh, Ranma you gave him a bloody nose. I hope you didn't give him any brain damage."
"I didn't give him any more brain damage than he had before!!" Ranma said from his sitting position on the hard wood floor, "and the nose bleed is probably because of close contact of the perverted kind."
Akane had already gone into the bathroom to clean the pig off and didn't hear the rest of Ranma's comment but the rest of the room did, which made them raise their eyebrows.
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P-Chan had been placed in the kennel that had been built for him since Jane Talon refused to have a pig running loose in the house. So he was out in the backyard under the small trees by the detached garage. Jane had taken Ranma and Akane up to the local community college to enroll. Their test scores were too high to go to high school all day so they split it up. Mornings were to be at the high school and afternoons were to be at the college. Ranma was the most surprised by this considering he never considered school to be his strong point. The fact that both of them were out of the house gave Jennifer, Kate and Libbie the perfect opportunity to test their theory.
"okay. So we are doing this right?" Jennifer said as she grabbed the garden hose and headed towards the so called pig kennel. Kate and Libbie both nodded, Kate was holding a steaming kettle of hot water.
They had decided that to put Jennifer paranoia and suspicions to rest they would experiment on Akane's pet. That way if Jennifer was wrong they wouldn't have to explain to Ranma why they were attacking him with the garden hose. Libbie held a broom in one had and a sword borrowed from Jon's room. They had decided that if the pig happened to be a man in disguise they would need adequate protection.
Kate took a breath and went to pour the water into the kennel. The pig dodged the water. Kate tried three more times; each time the pig avoided the water.
"I need more hot water." Kate ran into the house. Libbie and Jennifer looked at the pig.
"If he is avoiding the water it means he has something to hide." Libbie stated staring at the pig. Kate hurried back out with a bucket of hot water.
"Stand back girls. He can't avoid this." Kate threw the bucket of water at the kennel. The girls couldn't see through the steam for a second but when it cleared there was a boy standing in front of them holding his genitals and yelling in Japanese. Jennifer hurried let go of the kink she had had in the hose and let the cold water hit the boy full on. A moment later the black pig was standing in front of them glaring. Jennifer dropped the hose and took the broom from a very shocked Libbie. Jennifer used the broom to push the pig back into the kennel. Kate slowly shut the gate and locked it. All three girls went into the house silently leaving the bucket, broom, sword, and running hose where they had dropped them.
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The girls looked at each other hoping that someone would have an explanation for what had just occurred. It had been over an hour since their little experiment but the girls were still speechless and completely confused.
"So was the experiment a success or a failure?" Kate asked finally getting creeped out by the lack of sound in Jennifer's room.
"Depends on what you were hoping to achieve. Were you for disproving Jennifer's theory or proving it?" Libbie said quietly. Kate shrugged and picked up the note book that was laying on the floor.
"What's this?" Kate read for a few minutes, "Jennifer up until this point your theory was that of an anime obsessed freak whose most lame evidence was that they resembled the cartoon characters."
Jennifer looked at her blankly for a moment, "Well, I WAS right." She stated weakly. "So what do we do now?"
"they should know about the anime." Libbie turned on Jennifer's computer.
"maybe they do know. Maybe they sold the story to make money. Or maybe they don't know and Nabiki sold the story...or maybe-"
"Kate! Stop with the maybe's. I think I'll talk to Ranma first. If they don't know about the series then we really cant just go and tell Akane."
"Why not?" Kate and Libbie asked simultaneously.
"Because if they don't know then that means that Akane still has no idea that "P-Chan" is a guy. And telling her like that might put her into shock or something." Jennifer stated
"So how do we tell them – I mean him?" Kate asked
"Well you two distract Akane while I talk to Ranma?"
The girls had been so involved with their discussion that they didn't notice the door open and the sound of people walking across the floor. The back door opened and shut then opened again.
"KATE, JENNIFER WHY IS THE WATER ON AND WHY IS MY SWORD ON THE GROUND GETTING SOAKED!?!?" Jon's bellow startled the three girls.
"Well, well look at the time. I need to go home talk to you all later. Tell me how it goes and all." Libbie managed to say as she ran up the stairs and out the front door.
"CHICKEN!!!" the sisters yelled after her. They walked to the bottom of the stairs to see a very upset Jon holding his sword with water and dirt dripping off of it.
"you two have some explaining to do."
The girls looked at each other. "well he's gonna find out sooner or later." Jennifer said, "Kate why don't you get Jon some hot water. Jon please follow me." Jennifer walked out the back door with Jon following close behind.
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Jon and Kate had agreed to distract Akane while Jennifer talked with Ranma. Jon, Kate and Akane were currently on their way to rent movies for the weekend.
"hey Ranma. Come with me will ya." Jennifer grabbed his wrist and pulled him into her bedroom.
"What's up?" Ranma said nervously. He wasn't sure what Jennifer had in mind but he was positive it wasn't going to be a pleasant experience.
"Do you turn into a girl when splashed with cold water?" Jennifer asked casually.
"W-what?!" Ranma wasn't prepared for this question. deny all knowledge "of course not that's impossible." He choked out.
"uh-huh." Jennifer took the water bottle she had been holding and poured on Ranma's head. In seconds, the boy turned girl.
"WHADDA DO THAT FOR?!?!" Ranma screeched
"Oh shit. Wow you make as pretty a girl as you do a guy." Jennifer blinked trying to fight the mental shock and panic of seeing a guy turn into a girl. think and stay with this
Ranma just looked at Jennifer with outraged yet curious eyes How did she know I turned into a girl?
"Well now that I have to points of undeniable proof I must ask. Ranma have you ever written or sold permissions to your life story to be made into a cartoon?"
"What? Of course not what are you talking about?" Ranma grew more confused by the minute.
"ok brace yourself. I am going to show you how I knew about your curse and how I knew about P-Chan interesting little secret."
Ranma who had gotten incredibly pale was now turning a slight pale green. He gulped and nodded for her to continue.
"Please know that we have no intentions to use your identities for profit or to harm you in any way." Jennifer went to her computer and put in a disk, "this is the first episode of an anime series called Ranma ½." She pushed play. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------
Jennifer had let Ranma watch a few episode before checking to make sure he was still conscious he hadn't moved, spoke or blinked since she started the series.
"Ranma?" She waved her hand infront of his face. He blinked and looked at her.
"Where did you get these?" He asked quietly.
"I uh well I got them off a friend at school. There's also a Manga series in which the anime was based off of but I've never had the pleasure of reading them. Is it based off you life or what?"
"Kinda, its not exactly how things happened. Its almost like seeing the condensed and mild version of your life being played out by cartoons. Its creepy."
"So do you think Akane should know about it?"
"NO...if she sees this she'll have a heart attack for sure. I gotta find out who is behind this. I'll start with suspect #1." Ranma ran up the stairs of the house with Jennifer close behind him. He picked up the phone in the hallway and was dialing when Jennifer caught up with him.
{Kasumi, is Nabiki there? No. Where is she? What? Why? Oh. Thanks, Kasumi. Bye}
"Well?" Jennifer looked at Ranma who was again paler than normal.
"Nabiki is on her way here."
Kansas
It had been a little over a week since the Japanese teenagers had arrived and neither had done anything to dispel Jennifer of the idea that they could possibly be what the Anime was based on. Jennifer sat in her room and was making a list of the reasons to support such an outrageous theory.
They acted like the characters...Ranma was in essences a complete jackass but had a heart of gold. Akane was really sweet except when Ranma was involved. Both got really quiet when asked to describe their home life and would mumble something incomprehensible . They looked like the characters. Ranma usually wore Chinese style shirts and black pants. Akane usually wore a skirt and cute top.
"That might not be true after this afternoon." Jennifer mused to herself. Akane had been abducted by Kate and Libbie to go clothes shopping this afternoon and there was no telling what Akane would come home wearing.
Ranma was paranoid about cold water. Enough said. Both of them were amazing martial artists. Although Ranma seemed to tease Akane about how slow she was. Both of them come from a one parent home. Ranma's Dad left his mom a long time ago and the was all Ranma would say about his parents. Akane's mother had died when she was young. Akane had two sisters named Kasumi and Nabiki.
The doorbell rang and Jennifer rushed up the stairs to answer the door.
"Hello?"
"Delivery from Nerima, Japan." The man said holding a pet carrier that seemed to be shaking.
"oh, um what is it?" Jennifer looked inside to see to eyes peering at her. If it had been human she would have said that those eyes were glaring at her.
"It's a pig. Now please sign on the line. Miss." The man held out the clipboard which Jennifer signed and was handed the pet carrier.
"Well where should we put you. I guess you must be P-Chan?" Jennifer went back inside the house and went into the bathroom with the cage. "this is the only room I am willing to open the cage in. That way I can contain the silly thing." She set the carrier in the bathtub and opened the door. Very slowly a very dirty black piglet walked out of the cage. Jennifer blinked when she saw the yellow bandana. "You've got to be kidding me."
"JENNIFER!!!"
"in here boys!!" Ranma, Jon and Zach opened the door to the bathroom.
"what are you doing?" Zach asked coming up behind Jennifer to look over her shoulder to see the pig.
"Checking on Akane's pig." Ranma choked on the water he had been drinking and paled significantly, "He's absolutely filthly." Jennifer reached over to turn on the water.
"WAIT!!" Ranma reached over to grab Jennifer's wrist. She looked at him puzzled and he could swear that there was also a challenge there but he couldn't think of why there would be. "He really doesn't like baths. 'Specially from people he don't know. He goes all crazy and bites."
P-Chan recognizing Ranma voice suddenly leaped out of the bathtub to affix himself to Ranma nose via his teeth. Then Ranma and P-Chan got into what some would call a fight with Ranma trying to get the animal off his nose and yelling in Japanese. Jon got out of Ranma's way to let him get into the living room so that they wouldn't destroy the bathroom. Jennifer and Zach just stared at Jon who shrugged and followed Ranma into the other room where the struggle continued. Ranma had finally dislodged the pig from his nose and was pounding him to the ground when Akane burst in the front doors followed by Kate and Libbie.
"RANMA!!" Akane quickly pummeled Ranma to the ground and was cradling the pathetic looking pig. "oh baby. Did Ranma hurt you? Honestly Ranma can't you leave him alone for a minute?"
Ranma took that moment to look up to see Akane." What are you wearing?" he stuttered.
"Not that you would notice anything different." Akane said as she turned to let everyone else see her new out fit. She was wearing hip-hugging flared jeans and a cute spaghetti strap tank top. Her hair which had been black was now streaked with bright blue.
"Looks good on you, Akane." Jennifer said as she went to shut the front door the girls had left open.
Akane blushed slightly and smiled, "Thanks."
"She makes me sick. She fit into almost everything there AND looked good in it too." Kate said cheerfully depositing the bags she had been holding on the floor. She looked at the pig that Akane was holding close to her chest. "hey, Akane is you pig sick?"
"not that I know of..." Akane lifted the pig to study its face. "oh, Ranma you gave him a bloody nose. I hope you didn't give him any brain damage."
"I didn't give him any more brain damage than he had before!!" Ranma said from his sitting position on the hard wood floor, "and the nose bleed is probably because of close contact of the perverted kind."
Akane had already gone into the bathroom to clean the pig off and didn't hear the rest of Ranma's comment but the rest of the room did, which made them raise their eyebrows.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------
P-Chan had been placed in the kennel that had been built for him since Jane Talon refused to have a pig running loose in the house. So he was out in the backyard under the small trees by the detached garage. Jane had taken Ranma and Akane up to the local community college to enroll. Their test scores were too high to go to high school all day so they split it up. Mornings were to be at the high school and afternoons were to be at the college. Ranma was the most surprised by this considering he never considered school to be his strong point. The fact that both of them were out of the house gave Jennifer, Kate and Libbie the perfect opportunity to test their theory.
"okay. So we are doing this right?" Jennifer said as she grabbed the garden hose and headed towards the so called pig kennel. Kate and Libbie both nodded, Kate was holding a steaming kettle of hot water.
They had decided that to put Jennifer paranoia and suspicions to rest they would experiment on Akane's pet. That way if Jennifer was wrong they wouldn't have to explain to Ranma why they were attacking him with the garden hose. Libbie held a broom in one had and a sword borrowed from Jon's room. They had decided that if the pig happened to be a man in disguise they would need adequate protection.
Kate took a breath and went to pour the water into the kennel. The pig dodged the water. Kate tried three more times; each time the pig avoided the water.
"I need more hot water." Kate ran into the house. Libbie and Jennifer looked at the pig.
"If he is avoiding the water it means he has something to hide." Libbie stated staring at the pig. Kate hurried back out with a bucket of hot water.
"Stand back girls. He can't avoid this." Kate threw the bucket of water at the kennel. The girls couldn't see through the steam for a second but when it cleared there was a boy standing in front of them holding his genitals and yelling in Japanese. Jennifer hurried let go of the kink she had had in the hose and let the cold water hit the boy full on. A moment later the black pig was standing in front of them glaring. Jennifer dropped the hose and took the broom from a very shocked Libbie. Jennifer used the broom to push the pig back into the kennel. Kate slowly shut the gate and locked it. All three girls went into the house silently leaving the bucket, broom, sword, and running hose where they had dropped them.
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The girls looked at each other hoping that someone would have an explanation for what had just occurred. It had been over an hour since their little experiment but the girls were still speechless and completely confused.
"So was the experiment a success or a failure?" Kate asked finally getting creeped out by the lack of sound in Jennifer's room.
"Depends on what you were hoping to achieve. Were you for disproving Jennifer's theory or proving it?" Libbie said quietly. Kate shrugged and picked up the note book that was laying on the floor.
"What's this?" Kate read for a few minutes, "Jennifer up until this point your theory was that of an anime obsessed freak whose most lame evidence was that they resembled the cartoon characters."
Jennifer looked at her blankly for a moment, "Well, I WAS right." She stated weakly. "So what do we do now?"
"they should know about the anime." Libbie turned on Jennifer's computer.
"maybe they do know. Maybe they sold the story to make money. Or maybe they don't know and Nabiki sold the story...or maybe-"
"Kate! Stop with the maybe's. I think I'll talk to Ranma first. If they don't know about the series then we really cant just go and tell Akane."
"Why not?" Kate and Libbie asked simultaneously.
"Because if they don't know then that means that Akane still has no idea that "P-Chan" is a guy. And telling her like that might put her into shock or something." Jennifer stated
"So how do we tell them – I mean him?" Kate asked
"Well you two distract Akane while I talk to Ranma?"
The girls had been so involved with their discussion that they didn't notice the door open and the sound of people walking across the floor. The back door opened and shut then opened again.
"KATE, JENNIFER WHY IS THE WATER ON AND WHY IS MY SWORD ON THE GROUND GETTING SOAKED!?!?" Jon's bellow startled the three girls.
"Well, well look at the time. I need to go home talk to you all later. Tell me how it goes and all." Libbie managed to say as she ran up the stairs and out the front door.
"CHICKEN!!!" the sisters yelled after her. They walked to the bottom of the stairs to see a very upset Jon holding his sword with water and dirt dripping off of it.
"you two have some explaining to do."
The girls looked at each other. "well he's gonna find out sooner or later." Jennifer said, "Kate why don't you get Jon some hot water. Jon please follow me." Jennifer walked out the back door with Jon following close behind.
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Jon and Kate had agreed to distract Akane while Jennifer talked with Ranma. Jon, Kate and Akane were currently on their way to rent movies for the weekend.
"hey Ranma. Come with me will ya." Jennifer grabbed his wrist and pulled him into her bedroom.
"What's up?" Ranma said nervously. He wasn't sure what Jennifer had in mind but he was positive it wasn't going to be a pleasant experience.
"Do you turn into a girl when splashed with cold water?" Jennifer asked casually.
"W-what?!" Ranma wasn't prepared for this question. deny all knowledge "of course not that's impossible." He choked out.
"uh-huh." Jennifer took the water bottle she had been holding and poured on Ranma's head. In seconds, the boy turned girl.
"WHADDA DO THAT FOR?!?!" Ranma screeched
"Oh shit. Wow you make as pretty a girl as you do a guy." Jennifer blinked trying to fight the mental shock and panic of seeing a guy turn into a girl. think and stay with this
Ranma just looked at Jennifer with outraged yet curious eyes How did she know I turned into a girl?
"Well now that I have to points of undeniable proof I must ask. Ranma have you ever written or sold permissions to your life story to be made into a cartoon?"
"What? Of course not what are you talking about?" Ranma grew more confused by the minute.
"ok brace yourself. I am going to show you how I knew about your curse and how I knew about P-Chan interesting little secret."
Ranma who had gotten incredibly pale was now turning a slight pale green. He gulped and nodded for her to continue.
"Please know that we have no intentions to use your identities for profit or to harm you in any way." Jennifer went to her computer and put in a disk, "this is the first episode of an anime series called Ranma ½." She pushed play. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------
Jennifer had let Ranma watch a few episode before checking to make sure he was still conscious he hadn't moved, spoke or blinked since she started the series.
"Ranma?" She waved her hand infront of his face. He blinked and looked at her.
"Where did you get these?" He asked quietly.
"I uh well I got them off a friend at school. There's also a Manga series in which the anime was based off of but I've never had the pleasure of reading them. Is it based off you life or what?"
"Kinda, its not exactly how things happened. Its almost like seeing the condensed and mild version of your life being played out by cartoons. Its creepy."
"So do you think Akane should know about it?"
"NO...if she sees this she'll have a heart attack for sure. I gotta find out who is behind this. I'll start with suspect #1." Ranma ran up the stairs of the house with Jennifer close behind him. He picked up the phone in the hallway and was dialing when Jennifer caught up with him.
{Kasumi, is Nabiki there? No. Where is she? What? Why? Oh. Thanks, Kasumi. Bye}
"Well?" Jennifer looked at Ranma who was again paler than normal.
"Nabiki is on her way here."