- Chapter 14: "Cured" -

Akane flowed under Ranma's kick with an upwards splatter that would give him a bit of poison to deal with. "Its weird being the better fighter," she commented.

"Sayuri is a bit like both of your forms at once," Ranma replied as he got some distance. "But not really as good as either."

"She can maybe barely manage to dodge, let alone actually take a hit," Akane pointed out, and slung some more toxin at her fiance.

"Nah, I mean your sludge is better poison, and your icing works better for sticking someone ta the ground," he clarified as he easily broke the ball of goo in a way that meant very little actually hit him. "Her stuff kind of does both but really just makes a mess."

"How about Yuka?" Akane asked with a roll of her eyes since he apparently wanted to play expert.

"Can't really do much of anything yet besides try ta hit people with a hammer," he said dryly and shot forward to hit her powerfully. The result was her Muk body splattered across the room for a final time today. "And 'try' is the way ta say it."

Which wouldn't be enough to stop them normally, but Kasumi had interrupted. "Ranma? There is someone here for you. She arrived with the Kuno girl," the eldest Tendo said, sounding a bit confused.

The confusion made sense when they got to the living room to see the visitor. The blue haired woman clearly looked a lot like a grown up version of Akane's human form, if an older Akane had never exercised once in her life. The sight of something so close to her own face on a body that wasn't even a quarter as defined as her own was unnerving, and the presence of Kodachi Kuno next to the mysterious woman did not help. It wasn't even a lookalike of her mother, as this woman had features that Akane knew she shared with her father as well somehow.

"Hmph, this is the guy?" the woman asked with a glance at Ranma, even sounding sort of like Akane. "You Fighting types always confuse me with liking to get sweaty all the time and stuff." Then the woman outright sneered at Akane. "Not to mention Poison types being dirty messes."

Even Kodachi didn't seem entirely happy with that statement, but the rich girl did laugh as if it was funny. "Yes, this is my darling Ranma, and one of the pokemon I am hoping to catch as well. Akane is a very unique Muk," the Kuno said grandly. "Darling, I found someone who can fix your curse!"

Akane looked at Ranma, who turned to look at her at the same time. That was a scary idea given what had been going on lately. "Um, ya do know that it-" Ranma started.

"Listen, kid, I've worked with curses for longer than your grandparents have been around, you cannot have something I haven't seen similar to," the woman cut him off with the same kind of careful look Alakazam had given him before. "I've definitely seen harder to fix problems than just a really tricky trigger link. I'm just going to replace it, and as long as you don't get dunked in cursed water again you should be fine."

"That sounds fine, miss...?" Genma said, clearly fishing for a name but his trailed off topic only barely attracted the woman's attention. "Is this an open offer for-"

"I'm here because this young lady managed to convince me to help the guy she wants to date," the woman again cut a Saotome off. "She bribed me well. You on the other hand remind me of my future father in law." Akane wasn't the only one to nervously stare at the older almost-doppelganger for that specification, although Genma simply sputtered. "Now, I'll just get this kid another male form and switch out the trigger," the woman continued, clearly not even considering asking Ranma first.

There was a pop sound as soon as she was in a foot of him, then a splash of water onto her fiance, and suddenly there was a redhead next to the woman, but a clearly male redhead. "Wha- At least give me a moment to get ready!" Ranma shouted.

However, the woman was now staring at Ranma. "Where is he?" the woman asked in a cold tone that seemed to cut through all of them. "Where is Kadabra?"

"Who?" Ranma asked quickly. "Lady, I ain't never heard of-"

"Don't you dare lie to me, kid, where is he? I can tell you met him," the woman demanded again. "In fact I am certain Kadabra has been here." Akane blinked at the sudden change in topic, thinking that the answer should be obvious, but thrown off by the unfamiliar name.

"Listen, I don't know anyone named that," Ranma said in the tone that indicated he was more angry than thinking. "And if your asking like that I'm not sure I'd tell ya even if I did know who ya were talking about."

The room froze, in fact Akane suddenly found herself unable to move a drop of herself. "Really? Really, mister martial artist?" the woman asked darkly. "How about some incentive then." This time the pop was much louder, and Ranma was entirely changed. "You tell me everything you do know, and I'll turn you back from just about the opposite of a marital artist. A form that even missed out on the chance for the Fighting type. One you will be stuck with more firmly than that 'curse' stuck you as a part time girl."

Ranma now was taller and notably thinner. His arms, some of the outside of his chest, and what looked to be hair was all a light green color, along with the inside of a large flap of fabric like skin that floated around his legs like a dress. That was a pale white on the outside that continued across his legs, the middle of his chest, and face. A large red spike or blade extended out the front and back of his body, as if it had pierced it.

"What? What is this?" Ranma asked in a strange way, his voice clear but his mouth barely moving. "A Gardevoir?" He sounded as if he knew what the creature he had turned into was.

"You made him into a pokemon?" Akane had to ask with concern, fairly sure that the energy felt somewhere between Alakazam's Psychic type and a Fairy type like the other transformed pokemon in the area.

"Yes," the woman said smugly, and then with a flourish flipped into the air and changed into a small blue furred floating kitten with an overly long tail. "Now you only have to tell me what I want to know, even just give me permission to pluck it from your mind, and I'll turn you back into someone who can actually punch people again."

"C-c-c-" Ranma stuttered at the sudden appearance of a feline.

"Oh? Finally understand the reality of your situation? Realize that you've been getting a Legendary Mew mad at you?" the cat finally introduced herself. "You can-"

"Cat!" Ranma shouted and then vanished in a burst of light.

"What," Mew said a moment later at the sudden disappearance. "Did, did he really just teleport away from me, just because I was a cat?" The Legendary turned to Kodachi. "Why is he that afraid of cute little kitty cats?"

"A Gardevoir," Kodachi said instead of paying any attention to the powerful creature that had just transformed Ranma without even a blink. "The perfect form for a poke-husband! Oh, Mew, I didn't even think of that. This is wonderful, I'm going to get you extra gold star choice tuna for this."

Mew narrowed her eyes at the madwoman. "Your bribe is acceptable," the kitten declared magnanimously. "Fine, if he's scared of cats too then he just needs to apologize to me about that as well before I turn him back. I'm sure he can find me to do that," she added, and then vanished herself in another flash of light.

Akane found Ranma on the roof, now blue colored in place of the green he was before somehow. "So, what happened?" she asked as she flowed closer to him.

"Good news is that she actually fixed the girl-form thing," Ranma grumbled and moved from holding his knees to laying down flat on the roof. "Tried to use cold water to at least get human again when I realized I actually managed to get away from the _. Changed but didn't really change."

Akane was impressed with how Ranma somehow managed to pronounce the lack of saying something. "That's something," she admitted. "You basically look the same."

"I know what you mean by Deals now," he added after a moment. "Can sense people's minds, not dad or a few others, but most people's. Kasumi is angrier than she looks."

Akane didn't really know what to say to that. "You know what you are?" she asked.

"Yeah, the _ was 'nice' enough to give me that," Ranma said with a huff. "Somethin that can't fight like I used to." He held up an arm, and Akane could tell that there couldn't be the same amount of muscle. The arm dropped, and the movement made Akane frown.

"Well, you can get the strength back again, right?" she questioned and considered what mix of toxins could help with that. "Do training to get it back at worst?"

"Akane," Ranma said, far too seriously. "I'm probably as strong for a Gardevoir as I was for a human before. Just as strong as I was before, but my body just isn't made for it now."

"Like how I can't grapple like this," Akane sighed in admission that she had realized that before asking and slumped down to be a thin puddle sticking to the roof.

They both sat in silence for a long while, just next to each other thinking, or possibly just not thinking, about this development.

"Akane, did you find him?" Nabiki shouted up to the roof. "Genma is getting worried about him being locked again."

"'Locked'?" Akane asked with Ranma. She flowed off to the ground, and Ranma simply stepped off the roof and floated down easily.

"I wouldn't say it like that when I'm finally a guy all the time now," he complained to what turned out to be the entire family and his dad at the bottom. "Get some hot water and I can prove it."

Nobody seemed to agree with that obvious statement. In fact Nabiki just held out her hand, like Ranma being clearly a male Gardevoir was somehow evidence that he was shaped like a girl again. "You look like you're wearing a dress," Nabiki finally pointed out after it became clear to her that the two of them needed an actual explanation.

"Boy, do you realize how girly you look right now?" Genma demanded with a firm tone.

"Jeeze pops, I know ya think anything not good fer marital arts is 'girly', but do ya have to say it like that?" Ranma questioned with a funny look toward Nabiki for her own contribution.

Nobody agreed with that attempt to clarify either, and Akane started to get nervous about the reaction. "He doesn't look like a guy to humans?" she carefully asked, to clarify a bit more.

"No, Akane, Ranma does not," Kasumi said with an uneasy expression. "He looks as feminine as his old girl form, possibly more."

"But I'm still a guy," Ranma pointed out glumly. "I'm a guy now, even when I'm splashed." He crossed his arms, which was again not quite the movement Akane expected from the limbs.

"Well you need to fix this," Genma said firmly. "You look like some European princess," the elder Saotome said insultingly. "Now go find that cat thing and get her to turn you back."

Ranma glared at his father, which was different than normal because now that the two were in the same place Akane could see just how much taller Ranma was, and possibly not touching the ground. "How the heck am I supposed ta do that? She teleported farther than I could follow!" Ranma answered as if teleporting was just something he could follow someone doing. "And I still don't know who 'Kadabra' was."

"Do you mean Alakazam?" Betty suddenly asked, walking into the yard with Ryoga. Akane sent a brief glare at the two of them, given they were the last people she had seen Kodachi with that seemed appropriate. "Because Kadabra evolve into Alakazam."

"She did look like me," Akane pointed out, now fully confronted with the possibility she had dismissed. "And said Genma was like her father in law." Alakazam had said he was something like Ranma after all.

The new Gardevoir did not seem to take that idea well. "In that case I ain't gonna help her at all," he grumbled. "We don't know where he went either."

"Ranma?" Ryoga asked, and then started laughing. "Ha, of course you'd end up a pokemon that looks like a girl. Looks like I've got an advantage now, Dark types can't get hit by Psychic powers."

"I'm glad I don't have to put up with your mind at least," Ranma shot back. "Besides, there's got ta be ways around that."

"Ranma was given knowledge of his new form too?" Betty asked Akane while the rest of them descended into an argument about using Ryoga to help find the Mew.

"Looks like it," Akane admitted as Ranma started to faintly glow pink and float a bit higher off the ground. Only a foot or so but still enough to make it clear he could lift himself. "Any idea where Kodachi found Mew?"

"We ran into a Lugia, and he told her about the other Legendary," Betty admitted nervously. "We lost track of her after that. Could you ask Alakazam?"

"He skipped town," Akane explained, and then frowned. "I doubt he will help with this one."

"No, a Deal with Akane isn't going to turn me human again!" Ranma shouted, still glowing but no higher off the ground. "Do ya think someone who can just make me look like this can't make it harder to change me again?"

"How are you doing?" Akane asked the next morning on the way to school. She had decided to go with Alcremie for the day, not really wanting to be human when Ranma couldn't.

"Well, I'm still not human, still a lot weaker, and apparently I've just got ta deal with reading minds fer now," Ranma complained, a green color at the moment. "I sort of get why pops doesn't want me to look like what humans think is girly, but I guess I don't get why humans think that looking girly right now means I am one, even when I'm in their heads."

"Not sure you got that before either," Akane grumbled remembering some of their recent conversations. "Any ideas on how to fix it?"

Ranma didn't answer her, just half walked and half floated along the rest of the way to school. Akane wasn't sure if he was thinking of an answer or just didn't want to say what he thought.

"You there," Tatewaki Kuno said as they reached the school. "Identify yourself, good sir!" the rich kid demanded of Ranma.

"I's just me, Kuno. Ranma, the guy you've have a problem with," Ranma said dryly to the faux samurai.

Kuno clearly considered that statement for a moment. "Ha, 'Ranma' is a far too popular name," Tatewaki declared. "First the foul sorcerer, then my dear Pigtailed Girl, and now a fine foreign knight. Well, good sir, please let me know if you see a beautiful red haired girl, or a black haired man with a heart to match."

Akane and Ranma just stared for a minute as Kuno nodded to himself and left for class. "I think I hate him more now than ever," Akane commented about Kuno of all people being able to tell Ranma was a guy, but not realizing that there was only one person named 'Ranma'.

"Took the words out of my mouth," Ranma agreed.

"Ranchan? Is that you?" Ukyo questioned, human for the moment, from just inside the entrance. "What happened?"

"Ugh, Kodachi found a _ monster that turned me into this," Ranma admitted. "Good news is I don't turn into a girl anymore, bad news is she did this so I couldn't fight normally anymore."

"Just a second," Ukyo said, melted down into Okonomiyaki batter, and then solidified into a human again. "Huh, you aren't a girl. Weird, I'd think you would have gotten stuck again instead."

"He doesn't look that girly, right?" Akane asked as the three of them made their way to class. "I haven't been back to human yet," she clarified.

"He looks more like what I expected Kodachi to end up if she was turned into a pokemon, 'kane," Ukyo said, and Ranma flinched at that news. "Which is kind of weird, because as a pokemon I can just tell he's a guy."

"Do ya have to put it that badly?" Ranma said with a shudder, then cringed a bit. "Ugh, there are a lot of people here."

"Psychic stuff?" Akane questioned as they entered the classroom itself.

"Oh no, what now?" Yuka lamented as soon as they were visible.

"Please tell me this is not my fault," Sayuri added, both of them cutting off Akane's question.

"Yeah, Psychic thing," Ranma quickly answered her anyway. "No, this was Alakazam's fault," he then answered the others.

"Well that explains why that guy skipped town," Sayuri sighed. "At least you're a guy?" the sugar-Muk suggested.

"All the time now," Ranma said with a nod as he sat in his seat, his dress like body part shuffled a couple of times to get it comfortable. "The one good thing about it." Then the rest of the class shuffled in. "Although this whole 'able to read minds' thing is a new bad thing."

Lunch time seemed to take forever to arrive, and it was clear that the boys at school were taking the new Gardevoir's appearance poorly. Not as badly as they had taken the increase in number of slimes, but Ranma had enough issues, even in Akane's opinion.

"You know, I could have gone an entire lifetime without direct access to the brain of every guy in school. Some of the girls too," Ranma said as he quite deliberately sat down with the rest of the slime group, and Akane was finally able to place what looked strange about his body. "It was bad enough when I didn't know why they wanted ta do stuff with girl-me, now I get what's left of that and people getting what I look like now wrong."

"You don't have bones," Akane pointed out, as his body was acting sort of like a squishy, but purposefully shaped, jelly filled balloon.

"Huh? Not really," he admitted as if it was obvious, probably because of whatever information Mew had given him on Gardevoir. "That's part of the problem. I've got these Psychic things that work like bones. They aren't stuff I do, more stuff I am, but I could maybe turn em off for a bit if I wanted," he clarified and raised an arm to sort of demonstrate as it bent like a thin rubber pipe full of water. "I'd say it feels weird, but it doesn't. I don't really wanna think about it feeling normal. Regular _s messing with my head is bad enough when it happens."

"Ha, another one for team slime," Sayuri said a bit too cheerfully. "Are you a Fairy type too on top of that?" Ranma rolled his eyes and nodded. "There we go then, the whole group."

"You don't have a dad that made Deals all the time for you," Ranma grumbled. "Its going to be a mess for me to work out how I'm getting out of those."

"You aren't the only one with a dad," Sayuri said with a bit of a glare, suddenly unhappy. "I've got Deals to deal with too now."

The rest of them simply looked at the sugar-Muk. "I seriously doubt you have bigger Deal problems than Ranma," Yuka bluntly stated, tone matched by dropping her very blunt mallet on the Muk.

"Hey, careful where you splatter her!" Ukyo shouted at the mochi rabbit. "She doesn't know how to keep away from people yet, and is still too toxic."

"At least she smells better," Ranma sighed and with a rather simple motion floated a few splatters off himself wrapped in a pink glow then tossed them to the ground. "... what the heck did I just do?"

"Psychic stuff?" Akane hedged thoughtfully. "Like the whole floating thing you've been doing."

"I've been what?" Ranma questioned with a look down at his feet that had barely been touching the ground.

[Author's Note]
... well, its here. My take on "how to change Ranma", and I decided "you know what, it shouldn't fit him well, it should in fact be a new problem for him".
So what is the worst case scenario for a Ranma change? Something that technically fixes his gender problem, while practically making it a thousand times worse, and at the same time actually hitting him where it hurts in his martial arts prowess.
Gardevoir and Shiny Gardevoir with cold water, but male Gardevoir all the time. Psychic/Fairy, so he fits in with the Fairy type theme this fic picked up, and is as far from Fighting as possible.

This has been planned for a while now, it has been thoroughly setup, and I have finally given in and written it out. The plan is one more followup to this at some point, no idea how quickly that will be written (I'm hoping for next Wednesday to post), and then back to foodstuffs afterward.