Besides, his body wasn't going to atrophy, as long as his practice area was not observed he could give a bit of improvement a day and still never lose a bit. All he'd had to do was risk his very self. And he'd been doing that in hopes of slam-dunking his bizarre parental expectations (from equally bizarre parents). The irony of the end result teaching him of the true enemy just as he became well-equipped to deal with her, well.
As the sensors in his apartment indicated a added heat source just outside his library (where he was) Ranma turned the wheelchair to face the door. Pluto stepped through like she owned the place. She was in for a few surprises, however. Ranma felt himself becoming grimmer inside, as his 'game face' mentality slipped into being. Even as Pluto opened her mouth to speak, Ranma announced "Ah, Setsuna. I was wondering when you'd bother to show!"
He stood casually while making it look like it was a great effort. Meanwhile Pluto figuratively tried to work out Pi and blew it, as her excusing herself for her temporal crimes by way of her station as Time's Senshi had naturally led to circular reasoning. "Ranma Saotome, I don't know how you came to remember your previous history, but I"
He interrupted "I haven't a clue what I did to draw your wrath before you did your usual bullshit on my analog, Setsuna Meiou. It's enough that I know your crimes and your self-deception. The biggest threat to Time in this room, or rather in this world, is you." He spoke up before she could issue a cover story or a denial. "You are Time's Guardian and you know damned well you're changing the timeline. I'm betting the job's been acting up the more you have too, since the purpose of your magical powers is dedicated to preventing the kind of garbage you actually put them to use to inflict on us all.. but I digress. I have no intention of being your patsy or letting you stunt the lives of your comrades so you can feel powerful and wise, leading them into your personal version of paradise and deluding yourself and them into believing its necessity."
Setsuna was turning redder as this punk was talking down to her on her choices, her responsibility, and her very nature. She was so angered she didn't see the man standing before her so much as she saw the annoying Martial Artist that had never come to pass in this time. That being the case, she simply snarled out "Dead Scream!" and fired off a glob of aging, one meant to tear the body apart from temporal entropy.
Ranma grabbed the attack.. and rippled, a wave of melting and regeneration passing from his arms down thru the rest of his body front to back. And as a spiral of golden energy cascaded around Ranma and removed even the damages to his clothing, he smiled. "Setsuna, you are the greatest disgrace I have ever known. I am not whatever the heck you assume I am, likely whatever I used to be. before you changed history. Here I was crippled and beaten.. the way you like all to suffer so you can save the parts you feel are worth saving. I know. I can feel the crimes, they are singing of your deeds in you as in all living things."
Pluto fired again, but this time Ranma decided to not get hit. He flicked a B-B he let roll from a wrist container into his palm, and it glowed brightly with constrained energy until it hit and destroyed the Dead Scream attack. "Surprised, Pluto? I never let you see me after I found them, but I certainly listened in on you and the others. They're mostly blameless, but with all the changes you keep inflicting, you're far past the point of being forgivable. Your very cells carry the list of your crimes, and they sing it to me clearly.."
Pluto didn't speak, reason was useless, as this was obviously a evil. It wasn't what she wanted, after all. Her mind was locked into the circular logic needed to excuse her previous actions, so she sidestepped into the flow of time in order to emerge next to Ranma and directly age his brain to dust. ..But he wasn't where her fist went. He'd ducked her attack and grabbed her ankle, flipping her up with savage power. As she flipped a few times in midair, he said "I'm not even going to break into the second iteration of these powers, Setsuna, nor will I kill you. I will present you and your crimes to the Moon for judgement. Then I'll do the one thing you cannot stand. I will live my own life, for as long as my Mitochondria allow!"
As Setsuna bounced off the wall, her breath knocked from her by the impact of back to bookshelf, Ranma finished the concentration he'd begun while speaking. With a simple growl of the word "Liberate", he changed. He grew longer, leaner, with wings of cascading fiery energies emerging from his back and flesh suffused with it to where he seemed a angel of fire and power. He rushed forward with literally blurring speed, slamming his wing, his arm, his kicking leg, all limbs stunning and overloading with energy as they slammed into Setsuna time and time again. None were lethal as he was pulling the shots, but they were far too potent to allow her to speak or concentrate as he spun and whirled about her, slamming her head again and again. And again.
As Setsuna blacked out, Ranma reformed into his normal configuration, pleased but exhausted for a moment, as the Liberate Energy move tended to do. He bowed his head in memory of the Dead whose pain and sacrifice allowed him to combat the menaces to finding one's own destiny. Then he secured Setsuna in a hogtie and gagged her before going to the phone. He called out to the sleeping Senshi "Better be glad you didn't face the other recipients of free willed mitochondrial symbiosis, Setsuna. I understand Ms. Brea tends to shoot her enemies."
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(Posted Thu, 24 Mar 2005 16:05)
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