The Beast That I Am
by OrionPax09 is a Love Hina and She-Hulk crossover fic. It features Shinobu accidentally exposed to one of Kaolla's experiments. One that just so happens to involve gamma radiation. And it isn't long before the other girls of the Hinata Inn discover that they really don't like Shinobu when she's angry. But she and Keitaro might wind up learning to love it...
This Love Hina Fan Fic contains examples of:
- Above the Influence: Shinobu's alter-ego, Jade, is very interested in becoming intimate with Keitaro, but he refuses to do so before Shinobu is ready.
- Amazonian Beauty: Shinobu becomes one as a result of Kaolla's experiments.
- Armor-Piercing Question: After being hospitalized, Naru attempts to justify her attack on Keitaro by recalling how she came across him kneeling over a heavily-bandaged Shinobu and assumed that he attacked her, only to stop mid-sentence when a confused Kaolla asks why Shinobu was covered in bandages if she had only just been attacked.
- Berserk Button:
- Harming or threatening Keitaro near Shinobu is a good way to bring out Jade.
- Following Naru's Waterloo, blaming everything on Keitaro has become one for Haruka.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Naru, Kaolla, and Motoko play this role as Keitaro’s tormentors and the ones responsible for Shinobu’s unstable state.
- Breast Expansion: Shinobu gets this as part of her transformation into Jade. The results are said to dwarf the likes of Naru's and at one point described as a "mammoth set of female assets".
- Cluster F-Bomb: Jade just cannot stop calling everyone (except Keitaro) "bitches".
- Cool and Unusual Punishment: Jade's punishments for Koalla, Motoko and Naru the first time she appears all qualify. Motoko has her sword broken and is left in the turtle exhibit at the local zoo. Kaolla is strapped to a crane's electromagnet at the scrapyard, forcing her to see a bunch of scrapped machines. Naru is stripped naked and tied up with telephone wires above an intersection.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Naru, Kaolla, and Motoko versus one very angry gamma-mutated girl. The Hinata Harpies never even knew what hit them.
- Deconstruction Crossover: Not only is the tenants’ behaviour Played for Drama, but Shinobu’s new power is played up as something potentially dangerous instead of completely good.
- Does Not Like Men: Even more than Motoko, Naru hates men, including refusing to let several police officers untie her from where Jade left her, accusing all of them of being filthy perverts.
- The Dog Bites Back: When Shinobu becomes Jade, she gives a brutal beat-down to the people who have been abusing Keitaro while she watched.
- Enemy Within: Jade is disgusted with Shinobu's meekness and will demand she be allowed to takeover, declaring Shinobu too weak to do what has to be done.
- Everybody Knew Already: Not only are the city inhabitants aware of the girls of the Hinata Inn and their antics, but the police very much want Keitaro to keep a tighter leash on them to keep them from running around, breaking several laws. Also, after Jade's initial rampage, the Hinata Inn is declared a crime scene and the residents can't enter large parts of it until the investigation is over.
- First-Name Basis: Kaolla is constantly referred to by her first name, even though she is rarely (if ever) addressed as such in canon.
- Game Changer: Jade completely changes the status quo. Not only does Keitaro now have someone both willing and very able to protect him from the actions of the other tenants at Hinata Inn, but Haruka makes it clear that Keitaro either has to stop being an Extreme Doormat and put the girls in their place or evict them. While Keitaro worries about negating all the work he's done so far, Haruka explains that if he doesn't change with the status quo, things will only escalate and likely result in Jade maiming and/or killing one of the others in her rage.
- Genre Blindness: For some reason, after being easily defeated by Jade and then called out by Haruka, Naru believes that they just have to wait for Haruka to calm down, and they can just go back to business as usual at the Hinata Inn.
- Growing Muscles Sequence: Particularly Shinobu's first transformation into Jade in chapter 4 is portrayed as this.
- Hulking Out: Thanks to Shinobu being doused in gamma-goo in Kaolla's lab, she winds up doing this every time she's angry, hurt, or stressed.
- I've Come Too Far: One of Keitaro’s biggest problems is that he can't even consider changing the status quo by say evicting the troublesome tenants or applying to a different school, because he feels that doing so would invalidate the years of effort he's already invested. It doesn't occur to him that the status quo is him getting beaten for any slight mistake, even if it's not his fault (the story starts with Naru entering Pervert Revenge Mode because she walked in on him while he was making repairs in the onsen), and Haruka forces him to accept that since Shinobu can now become Jade, things will have to change regardless of what he wants.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Jade subjects the Hinata Harpies to a brutal beat down and total humiliation after they push her too far.
- Neutral No Longer: Haruka's default attitude to the usual Hinata Inn antics was to wait for Keitaro to finally put his foot down. But when Shinobu wound up getting hurt (and ultimately afflicted with Hulking Out when under stress) because of said antics, she decided it was time to lay down the law so that didn't happen again.
- Never My Fault: Naru complains about Keitaro "taking off" while Kaolla's new attack Mecha-Tama are unveiled, completely ignoring the fact it was because she punched him out of the inn.
- New Ability Addiction: Haruka lampshades the likelihood that Shinobu will continue transforming any time she's put under stress simply because she can.
- No-Sell: Jade easily shrugs off every attack the Hinata Harpies unleash on her.
- No Sympathy: Naru's response to Kaolla taking everyone's take-out dinner is to send Keitaro out for more, completely ignoring how exhausted he is.
- Older Alter Ego: Jade serves as this to Shinobu.
- Only Sane Man: Haruka is the only one to realize the status quo seriously has to change. Naru, Koalla, Motoko, and Kitsune are their canon selves, Keitaro is too spineless to think of standing up to anyone despite knowing the consequences, and Shinobu is too tempted to turn back into Jade so she has the power and confidence to do the things she's always dreamed of.
- Open Mouth, Insert Foot: While discussing Su's desire to up the security at the Hinata Inn (to stop Jade, the "ogre", if she shows up again), Keitaro tries to dissuade Kitsune by pointing out that eventually Su will turn all of that security on him.Kitsune: But it ain't a big deal when bad stuff happens to you! It's me and the other girls I'm worried about!
Keitaro: Wait... what did you just say, Kitsune?
Kitsune: I said it's me and the other girls I'm worried about! It don't matter when bad stuff happens to -! Well, what I mean was that...well, you're indestructible. You and I both know that!
Keitaro: Uh... yeah. - Reasonable Authority Figure: Haruka actually cares about Keitaro, and is pissed when she sees the full extent of what trouble the tenants have caused to him, Shinobu, and the city in general. She also helps Shinobu keep her secret for fear that the military might do something to her.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Jade tears into why the Hinata Harpies beat up Keitaro while she's in the process of fighting them.Jade: Defend yourselves?! That's a laugh, bitch! "Keitaro's looking at me! He's being a pervert! Keitaro's talking to some young girl! He's being perverted! Keitaro's doing absolutely nothing! He must be thinking something perverted!" It must be really convenient, being able to label every man a pervert just so you have a reason to beat them up! Makes you sound like you're actually a victim when all you are is a sadistic bully who gets off on treating people like dirt, all because you can!
- Shapeshifting Excludes Clothing: Transforming into Jade generally destroys whatever Shinobu was wearing at the time, leaving her in scraps of clothing at best.
- Shout-Out: In Chapter 7, while driving Haruka to the Hinata Inn, Gai says verbatim Obi-Wan Kenobi's description of the Mos Eisley spaceport in A New Hope.
- Statuesque Stunner: Jade is considerably over six feet tall and drop dead gorgeous.
- Stopping the Blame Game: Haruka shuts down any and all attempts by Naru to blame Keitaro for everything.
- Superpowered Evil Side: Jade is played like this, though not exactly evil.
- Took a Level in Badass: Shinobu not only goes to investigate a potentially dangerous situation in Keitaro’s place, but gains a Hulk persona and proceeds to destroy the girls who did this to them.
- A Twinkle in the Sky: At the start of the story, Naru punches Keitaro so hard that he quickly becomes one of these.
- Unprovoked Pervert Payback:
- In the first chapter, a towel-clad Naru enters the hot springs to see Keitaro in there. Even though Keitaro is A) clearly doing repair work and B) unaware of her presence until she makes a sound, she gives him a Megaton Punch.
- Naru does it again in the third chapter, when she barges into Keitaro's room and sees him with his shirt open, then proceeds to punch him out of the inn, even though he has every right to be half-dressed in his own room, and SHE was the one who entered without knocking.
- You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Haruka does not take it well upon being told that Shinobu is Jade.Haruka: Please tell me this is your idea of a joke...
Keitaro: Um...sorry...
Haruka: I need a damn drink...
