Setsuna was perhaps the least surprised person when the Tendo dojo exploded. Not because she’d seen it coming, but because she had little experience with the day-to-day trends of Nerima. The others understood that even among the noncombatants, Kasumi held an implicit impunity. She was a beacon of calm and relative sanity in the ward. Harming the girl was like kicking a nun. Even thinking of the act made one feel ashamed. For someone to not just accidentally expose the young homemaker to collateral damage, but to intentionally strike her, could be reasonably described as blasphemous.
Therefore, it came as a massive relief to all of the onlookers when the smoke cleared to reveal a light blue dome surrounding the shrine, the fathers, and Sailor Cancer. As the shield dissipated, Kasumi’s transformed state appeared in full detail. Her accents were the silver of the moon behind cloud cover, her ribbons the same blue as the barrier.
She glared at the aggressor, the black-and-white garbed Senshi who was floating above the Tendo compound with no visible means of support. “I asked you politely to leave my home and never return,” the newly awakened Senshi of Protection said darkly. “You have chosen not to acquiesce to my request. Very well.” She shifted into a fighting stance. “In the name of Cancer, I will banish you from this place.”
Sailor Eris paused. “OK, I can respect the whole righteous speech thing and all, but how can you know I’m the same person as the interviewer?”
“Besides your admission?” As the Chaos soldier smacked her forehead, Cancer continued. “You can disguise your appearance, but not your aura. This house cannot bear your presence, and neither can I.” With this, her tiara glowed, and a few more ribbons and diaphanous add-ons materialized on her costume.
“Impossible!” gasped Setsuna.
Nabiki asked the question for the others. “What? Is this good?”
“Very. She’s risen to Super Sailor Cancer. That shouldn’t even be—”
“Possible. Right, you said that,” noted the mercenary girl. “What’s that mean?”
“Cancer only had that shield move,” explained Carmellia. “If she’s powered up, she may have an actual attack.”
Sailor Cancer proved this to be the case with her next action. Arms extended, she intoned “DOMESTIC INCIDENT!”
The pulse of energy raced towards Eris, but was blocked by her cannon. “Cute. Mine’s better. DISCORD DRIVE!”
“GUARDIAN SOUL!” Once again, the dome of energy formed around Cancer. However, without anything to slow it down, the chaos attack had greater than expected potency, driving the Senshi to her knees.
“She can’t win,” Ranma said decisively.
“Not alone,” replied Setsuna, taking out her henshin pen.
The pigtailed boy nodded. “My thoughts exactly.” He charged forward as the Time Senshi intoned her transformation phrase.
Of course, this did not go unnoticed by Eris. She smirked as she engaged some unseen mechanism in her weapon. “Try this on for size. REIGN OF CHAOS!” The cannon’s barrel split into three and spun rapidly, firing a rapid stream of projectiles. The younger Tendos moved inside for better cover. Ranma dodged wildly, but the blasts homed in on him. He took several hits, though without apparent ill effect.
Pluto, meanwhile, had teleported to Cancer’s side. “Are you alright?”
“I’ll be fine. I’m just a bit tired.”
“Using spells in quick succession like that is very draining. You need to be more careful in the future.”
The younger woman nodded. “Duly noted.” Both looked to their foe, who was chasing Ranma with the blasts from her new attack. “We should get her attention away from Ranma-kun.”
“Agreed. Dead scream…”
The chronal blast took Eris by surprise, making her stagger in midair. She turned, glowering. “Alright, then. I was going to shoot the barrel fish before I got to you two, but if you want to die now, it’s fine by me. REIGN OF CHAOS!” This time, the villainess pointed her cannon up. The projectiles moved upward for a time, but were apparently affected by gravity, given how they started screaming towards the ground.
“Do you already know how to unite your powers with mine?” Pluto asked quickly.
Cancer shook her head. “No, I—”
“Put your hands on my shoulders and say ‘Conjunction.’ Now!”
The other Senshi obeyed wordlessly, at least until she got to the verbal component. “Conjunction.”
Sailor Pluto glowed from within, as though she’d been dipped in liquid moonlight. Raising the Time Key Staff aloft, she pronounced the spell of fused time and protection: “TIME CAPSULE.”
A dome formed over the two, but it was wholly unlike Cancer’s solo technique. This one was transparent, but the view from within or without was oddly distorted, as though seen through poorly made glass. The lumps of chaos hit the barrier with audible smacks and stuck there. Each dwindled away as it adhered to the capsule, fading back into the universe’s entropy.
Grinding her teeth, Eris switched gears. “DISCORD DRIVE!” The chaotic blast hit the dome and stopped. Unfortunately, only the front edge did so. The rest still tried to move forward, resulting in the stream bulging, crackling unstabily, and bursting outward.
Back at the prime spectator spot, Ranma rejoined Nabiki and Carmellia. “I can’t move fast enough t’ beat that machine gun attack o’ hers,” the martial artist noted. There was no irritation in his voice, merely a statement of an obstacle he intended to overcome.
Irritation was plentiful in Akane’s voice as Carmellia used it to say, “That ‘machine gun’ attack of hers is using my power!”
This came as a surprise to the other onlookers. “How can you tell?” asked Nabiki.
“I can’t describe it, but I can feel it. It’s not a sense most people seem to have developed these days.”
Nabiki considered this. “There’s something that’s bothering me, though.”
“Who this rogue Senshi is?” guessed Carmellia.
“How she’s usin’ Leo power?” offered Ranma.
“Neither. How is she flying? Can Senshi fly?”
The aquatranssexual shook his head. “Not that I’ve seen. They can jump roofs OK, but other than that…”
“Maybe it’s magic?” hazarded the ex-noble.
Nabiki considered this. “Can you sense anything like a flight spell on her?”
Carmellia pondered the antagonist for a moment and shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Then how is she flying?”
The answer came swiftly: Eris wasn’t flying. At least, she wasn’t anymore. As she made a graceless landing, her glare turned on the peanut gallery. “OK, who asked how I was flying?”
Ranma, his disadvantage considerably reduced, grinned cockily. “Why? Y’ got a problem?”
“When my antigravity source was an SEP field, yes.” She rose and positioned her cannon. “For forcing my abilities to face reality, I will punish you. Right now. DISCORD—”
Her incantation was interrupted by a sad little whine from somewhere deep in the golden cannon. “Eh?” As the Senshi of Chaos looked at her weapon quizzically, the device popped open, suddenly ejecting the Leo Amulet.
Carmellia followed the trinket’s trajectory eagerly. Crying “Mine!” she raced for it.
“Not!” Eris caught it long before the Leo Senshi could make it.
Adapting, the preincarnation took a flying leap to begin a technique she’d once taught Sailor Venus. “Boot to da head!”
Unfortunately, the technique was easily countered by a little thing called “sidestepping.” As Carmellia found herself sprawled on the ground, she also found a cannon barrel looking her in the eye. “So long, pussycat,” gloated the Chaos Senshi. "DISCORD—”
“GUARDIAN SOUL!”
“—DRIVE!?” The blast found itself interdicted almost before it could leave the blaster. While Cancer struggled to maintain the shield when cast remotely and against a point-blank attack, Eris had difficulties of her own. The chaos energy literally splattered off the shield, some of it returning to sender. While it wasn’t the raw entropy that could take the carefully arranged proteins of flesh and reduce them to atomic slag, it was still nasty stuff, as Eris attested. “Gah! Fxwlqrstn! Ph'nglui mglw'nafh E'lvis R'lyagh wgah'nagl fhtagn!”
As interesting things happened to Eris’s mind and body, a second cry of “Boot to da head!” was heard, as Ranma delivered the described attack successfully.
“Nice,” noted Carmellia. She spotted the Leo Amulet from where it had landed after Eris had released it in her shock. “Miss me, baby?” cooed the girl as she took hold of the item. Her smile remained steady even as she collapsed.
“Carmellia?” Ranma asked worriedly. Before anyone could attend to her, there was a small blur, after which Eris was nowhere to be seen. “What just happened?”
“Sorry,” called Pluto. “We had some trouble deactivating that shield techni—” She paused. “Does anyone else feel a draft?”
Nabiki made the leap of logic. “You may want to change back before you flash someone. It looks like ‘Grandpa’ Happosai struck again.”
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(Posted Tue, 15 Jul 2008 03:39)
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