Ranma and the Relaxing Resort (Ranma Hypno) (Patreon)

Ranma Satome was, despite his reputation and name, a rather predictable creature. Oh, you wouldn’t want to predict him in a fight, that was a recipe for disaster. But you could probably predict that he’d win (unless he was being more of an ass than usual, in which case he’d lose). You could predict he’d say something insulting to someone he shouldn’t (probably Akane) and he’d end up getting thumped for it. And you could predict that, when it came to dealing with a complicated social situation involving a new form of martial arts… He’d probably get out of it with a new fiancé and/or life long enemy.

That was the way of the Satome school of martial arts.

And, if the Tendo/Satome family was on a vacation to an exclusive beach resort? Well, you could predict that he… would be a she.

This was for a few reasons! For one, with that much cold water around there just wasn’t much point trying to be a guy – not unless she wanted to end up flashing everyone when the inevitable happened (which she didn’t mind as much as some, but it always ended up with her getting told off. Pass).

For two, well, here’s where you needed to understand the mindset of Ranma Satome. It wasn’t that he liked being a girl, exactly – he was used to it after all these years, sure, but he was still a guy at heart – but what he did like was how other people treated her when she was a girl. Because, as a girl? She was cute as hell. Like damn, have you seen her? Cute athletic redheads in swimsuits did not grow on trees! A few winks and a smile and people would fall over themselves to give her discounts or buy her treats. It was easy!

Oh yes – Ranma Satome was very happy to make full use of any advantage she was handed. Anything goes, after all~

So that was why Ranma, as a cute girl, was flitting about the market stalls and charming her way into the pockets of tourists and vendors alike, enjoying numerous foods and drinks with glee – for free! Even Nabiki would be proud (if Nabiki wasn’t off doing the exact same thing further down the beach).

This was great! What a way to start a vacation. Her mom and pop had wandered off for some alone time (something the redhead firmly refused to think about in any way, shape, or form), Old Man Tendo had been attracted by the local shogi hall (So had her pop, but Nodoka still had that sword of hers), Kasumi had gone to sunbathe, Nabiki had gone to bankrupt the first sucker she found, and Akane…

Well, she and Ranma had ended up wandering around together completely by accident, totally, no one had intended anything, shut up… So, they’d been going around together for a bit, before Akane had gotten annoyed with her fiancé’s constant flirting (with everyone but her), and stormed off towards the arcade. Which Ranma had, of course, taken as a win, because she hadn’t gotten clobbered. Totally a victory in her book!

… Though… That had been a while ago.

“Where is she?” Ranma frowned, taking another lick of her melting ice-lolly, still lounging in one of the café chairs positioned out in the sun. It had been a couple of hours since her uncute fiancé had stomped away, but she’d expected her to be back after maybe half that, at most. Mainly, because the arcade she’d run off to only had one exit, and Ranma was right outside it. But Akane had gone in… and then she hadn’t come out.

Now, Ranma knew her fiancé, possibly better than anyone else (a fact that both of them would deny vehemently, but still). And she knew, without a doubt, that…

“There’s no way she’s winning anything in there.” The redhead glared at the arcade suspiciously, because it was true! Akane’s luck sucked. Big time. And when she lost, she got upset. When she got upset, she got mad. And when she got mad, she smash. This equation was the basic, fundamental truth of the existence of Akane Tendo. Ranma knew it well – she was usually at least one of the digits down that flow.

The fact that she hadn’t worked out how to stop factoring into that one was part of the basic, fundamental equations of Ranma Satome.

They were both very bad at this. Part of it was they were teenagers! Most of it was they were idiots.

So, yes. There was no way Akane had played the games in the arcade for over an hour and not lost. Badly. She should have stomped out already, probably with a glare and a grouch. Ranma already had a few snacks ready for her to raise her mood (because otherwise there would be thumping. Nothing to do with romance, seriously shut up already). Though, uh, some of them had gotten a bit eaten by now. Most of them, actually.

… Well, waste not want not. The redhead shrugged and popped the last dango into her mouth, chomping down happily. Hey, free food was free food.

But, still. She should go and check what was going on in there. Akane might have gotten herself in trouble or something. Maybe kidnapped? Wooed by a magical gaming prince? Assaulted by slot machine ninjas? All very, very possible. And while it wasn’t like she cared about what happened to any uncute tomboys or anything, she should go make sure everything was okay. To keep the rest of the family happy, yeah?

The swim suited martial artist sighed, taking one last bite out of her ice lolly, before standing and stretching. Okay. Time to see where that girl had gotten off to. She set off into the arcade.

Stepping inside was a lot like stepping into another world (something which Ranma had done once or twice) – the change was sudden and palpable. The bright sunshine from outside vanished, replaced by neon lights and slightly smoky air. The quiet hubbub of a happy crowd was replaced by bells, whistles and digital bleeps. There was a slight chill – not enough to make her shiver, even in her skimpy costume, but enough to make the place feel like what it was – a refuge from the summer heat, filled with entertainment and people looking to enjoy it. Not bad.

But also not really what she was interested. Ranma had always been more of an outdoorsy kind of guy. She didn’t do great with electronic games - unless it was some kind of martial art, it wasn’t going to hold her attention. She’d fought someone who used martial arts Tetris once, but that involved actually throwing bricks at your opponent, so it wasn’t really the same thing.

No, she just wandered through the aisles, arms folded behind her head, searching for Akane and obliviously turning heads – because, remember, cute redhead strutting about in a swimsuit. She paid that no mind. Nope, she just wanted to see what kind of trouble her fiancé had gotten into this time…

And it wasn’t long before she found it – along with a very troubled fiancé. Though you wouldn’t know it to look at her. Akane had a bright smile on her face and her stance showed no sign of distress. Which, really, were the most telling signs of trouble there could be – because Akane Tendo would never be seen dead, let alone with a cheery grin, in a bright blue bunny suit… up on stage, in front of a crowd of staring men. No, nope, no way. The real deal would have pounded all these people into paste by now. Her temper had mellowed out a lot over the years… but not that much. Akane would never stand up on stage like that, still like a mannequin, posed with a leg kicked up and a drinks tray in her hands. Something was definitely up.

“Oi.” Ranma called an attendant over – a much more conservatively dressed, though still sultry looking woman in a red dress with purple hair – and nodded up to the stage. “What’d you do to her?”

“Oh? Do you have your eye on today’s grand prize?” The woman smiled. “Yes, she’s lovely, isn’t she? You’d never believe she was a rowdy troublemaker only a few hours ago! But, after she broke the arcade rules and tried to assault some of our staff, she was quickly converted into a prize for one lucky winner to take home!”

“Huh.” Now, there would have been a time when the redhead leaped into action at that, but she had dealt with a couple of scenarios like this over the years. When people started talking about ‘rules’, sometimes, it paid to be careful. “Which rules would those be?”

“Oh, the ones on the big sign by the front door!” The server answered cheerfully. “No violence against staff, no breaking arcade equipment, no stealing, no refunds – under penalty of prizification!”

Hm. Now, Ranma had noticed a sign by the door when she came in. Paying attention to those had become a habit after so long living with Nabiki. And she was quite sure she’d never seen anything about ‘prizification’ on it. Though, come to think of it, there had been that small print written in morse code… God damnit.

Someone was definitely playing dirty here. She’d have to be careful. Not really the kind of phrase one normally associated with Ranma Satome, true, but she’d manage. After all, she was reasoning – this was a martial arts match now, and she was going to win.

“Sooo…” She tried not to sound too interested, because even in a desperate situation, she was still just as tsundere as her partner, “how do I go about winning that grand prize?”

“Just win the most tickets for the day!” The server beamed, not in the slightest fooled by her customer’s feigned disinterest. “The grand prize will be given away in a few hours, and whoever submits the most arcade tickets to the contest wins! Super simple, right?”

“Riiight. And if I was to say…” Ranma folded her arms behind her head, still looking casual. “You know, jump over there and carry her off…”

“Oh, that’d be stealing. Instant prizification.” The purple haired woman nodded. “Actually that was pretty much what she did, too! You’d make a lovely set~”

“Like hell we would!” … Ranma blinked. Honestly, that had just been an automatic reaction. Better dial it back. “Uh, I mean. Nah. Anyway, how do I earn tickets?”

The attendant nodded. “Well, it depends on the day. Our arcade is full of games and spectacles to impress any guest, and every day we rotate which games give the most tickets, to give every visitor a chance at winning it big!” She put a finger to her cheek as she thought. “I believe today, the best ticket prizes are in the fighting game simulator.”

“…” Ranma looked at her. “Fighting game?”

…

“What the heck kind of arcade game is this?!” The redheaded martial artist stared at the weird contraption with a healthy mix of confusion and suspicion. It looked like a giant glass ball, with a small platform in the middle, and a hole in the roof. A pod, really – one in a series of six, dotted around in a circle beneath a series of huge monitors.

“It’s the combat simulator!” The purple haired attendant explained with a cheerful smile (Ranma was starting to wonder if she had any other kind of expression). “The latest in modern gaming technology! You step in, and it’s like you’re transported into the game world!”

“… But I’m not actually transported into the game world.” Ranma’s suspicious look grew deeper. “Right?”

The server looked confused. “Uh. No. No, it’s just VR.” And then she looked at Ranma like she was the weird one. Rude! “Would you like to join the queue?”

Hmm. “Nah. No time to wait for that. Need to get as many tickets as I can.” The Martial Artist shook her head. “I’ll just go in now.”

“But-”

The redhead gave her a polite(ish) wave, and then jumped, flipping over through the hole at the top. A moment later, and the guy who had been using the simulator was thrown back out the same way, and within it, Ranma was cracking her knuckles. “Right. Let’s do this.”

She was the best fighter around, after all! How hard could a fighting game like this be?

… Hard. It turned out virtual fighting didn’t actually have all that much in common with real fighting. Punching at super speed just meant the computer missed your input, and almost none of her techniques were accepted as doing what they were supposed to do. It wasn’t long before the martial artist was in trouble – her health bar flashing red as it dropped low, and her opponent ready to finish her off! Surely this was it for the red headed heroine…!

“Hey,” she yelled out, looking out at the attendant. “Is that guy I’m fighting a staff member?”

“Uh…” The purple haired woman glanced over. “No?”

“Good.” Then Ranma jumped up, popping up through the hole in the top of the dome once more, and chucked a can of cola (a gift from a vendor outside she’d not gotten around to drinking yet) at her opponent. There was a satisfying Clonk! from the next dome over, and her digital enemy toppled over, a lump growing on their head.

Victory!

“Uh, that’s not…”

“Ain’t against the rules is it?”

“I guess not…”

“Heh.” The redhead flicked her nose. “Ranma Satome wins again.”

She did better in round 2. This time she was starting to get the hang of the controls, and some of the combos were starting to make sense. She was still rough, though, and the guy she was playing against this time knew what he was doing – he was steadily winning the fight with tight defences and sharp attacks while she was still learning. Plus, he was wearing a helmet – apparently he’d seen what had happened to his predecessor. Darn.

Still, he was a gamer nerd. Ranma knew how to deal with this. “Hey, buddy!”

“Huh?” Her opponent looked over to her from his glass dome. “What?”

She lifted her top.

“WOAH!” The guy stumbled – and proved completely unable to defend himself from the sudden killer combo the redhead unleashed on him in game, securing the win. Another victory earned by Ranma’s complete lack of feminine modesty.

“Huh,” the server noted from outside, looking towards the stage. “I’ve never seen a Grand Prize twitch like that…”

But this was good! Ranma’s tickets were starting to mount up now. Another solid win and she was pretty sure she was in the lead to win Akane back. Now she just had to handle her last opponent… Annnd why was the attendant getting into the next VR dome?

“I’m pretty good at this game too!” The purple haired woman said with that same old smile. “Let’s have a match!”

Well crap. This meant no sabotage allowed… Wait, hold on, she could check- Nope, the lady wasn’t interested in her boobs. Damn. She didn’t have any other dirty tricks in mind! This was bad.

Unless…

Unless she actually gave this game her all! Hah, she’d been learning how to play all along, after all – and heck, she’d seen some pretty powerful moves from those other players before she’d taken them out. Really, she just needed to think of it like she did any other contest – like a martial art! Martial Arts Game Playing Style, go!

What followed was a blur of motion, as both Ranma and the attendant pushed themselves to the limit of what their simulators were capable of. Darts, dashes, flips, combos, supermoves fired this way and that, both players struggling to defeat an unexpectedly skilled foe, until, at last, one side’s hp finally hit 0, and a winner was declared.

The impromptu little tournament was over.

“Ha! There it is.” The martial artist hopped out of her dome – why start using the door now? – and gathered up her tickets. “Ranma Satome don’t lose! Now, is this enough for Akane?”

“A wonderful battle! And yes, that should do it.” The server emerged, quite content with their fight. “I don’t think anyone could compete with that many prize tickets.”

“Great!” Ranma hopped up on stage and hooked her arm around Akane’s waist, lifting her up. “Then I’ll just be taking her out of here now…” And get as far away from this weirdo resort as she could before anything else crazy happened. Why did her vacations always end up like this?

“Of course, Miss.” The attendant bowed to her politely – and then paused. “Just one thing though. Did you pay for those tickets yourself, Miss?”

The martial artist drew up short. “Uhhh…”

The server’s smile never wavered. “Oh dear, Miss. Stealing is against the rules, you know.”

Suddenly, Akane’s arm wrapped tightly around her, pinning her arms to her sides and drawing a shocked gasp from her lungs. Ranma struggled, naturally, but her fiancé was a strong girl (some unkind people might have used the term ‘gorilla strength’ about this quality - they were certainly regretting it now), and her blank expression didn’t so much as flicker as she squeezed.

“W-w-wait a sec…” Now the redhead was nervous. She really didn’t want to hurt Akane, and her female form wasn’t really strong enough to break free anyway. “This is just a misunderstanding! I’d be happy to pay! I just, uh… left my wallet in my other clothes…”

“Don’t worry miss.” A glowing crystal on a golden chain dropped down in front of her eyes and started to swing – held up by her bunny girl fiancé. “We have ways of working this sort of thing out. But maybe it’s time you took a rest…” The world started to go dark as Ranma found herself struggling to pull her eyes away from the pretty shiny crystal. “You’ve been playing a lot of games today. You must be tired. Sleepy, even. So very, very sleepy…”

The redhead slumped into Akane’s arms. She wasn’t sure why – it was just really hard to stay upright all of a sudden. And she was really, really tired…

It was okay, she thought as she yawned, and the attendant leaned in to whisper in her ear. She was with Akane. Everything’d be okay. And that crystal was really so very pretty…

Her eyes fluttered one last time, and then closed, drifting of to dreams of bunny girls and pretty shining lights.

…

“Step right up, everyone! Today’s Grand Prize is an amazing rollover! Two sensational beauties for the price of one! Better get those tickets, folks, because prizes like this don’t come along every week!”

Up on stage the two martial arts maidens posed together happily – if a little empty headedly. They didn’t mind the way the woman was talking about them, or how the crowds were staring at them. They were prizes, after all – they were supposed to be looked at and admired!

No, the grand prize stood up on display happily, without a single thought in their heads. There’d be plenty of time for that once someone won them – then they’d think whatever their new owner wanted! But for now, a blue haired bunny girl, and a red haired bunny girl, standing with arms wrapped around one another, shooting the audience a come hither look, the redhead even blowing a kiss… Yes, they were definitely a fine prize to be won.

And still, not the worst vacation they’d ever had!