The Hinata-sō, Room 301…
"Kaolla-san?! Can I come over?!"
"Sure thing!"
A portal gate then opened to allow Prodigy to walk through it from a hidden place on the grounds of Tomobiki High School. Accompanying the child genius was her beloved dog, who moved to sit down as the transformed Mihama Chiyo closed the gate behind her. Awaiting her were the three younger residents of the Hinata-sō: Kaolla Su, Maehara Shinobu and Sarah McDougal. All of them had hopeful looks on their faces. Once said gate was closed, Prodigy then turned to gaze on her pet dog. "Now, don't be surprised when you see this, Tadakichi-san," she said before she moved to undress.
The dog remained still as his mistress stripped herself naked; as he was a dog, he really didn't understand it when humans put on or took off those odd coverings they draped their bodies with. He had noted that the three other girls who had been waiting for his mistress — all of whom had the curious mineral smell that indicated that they had also gone to the place where the All-Speaker had gained her power to talk to animals — were also naked. This didn't bother him at all, though he knew that since humans didn't have much in the way of body fur beyond their heads, they might be cold were they not inside this nice big doghouse where the dark-skinned one obviously lived.
"Are we masked?" Chiyo then asked after she slipped off her panties.
"Hai," Kaolla stated with a droll voice. "Just because you stole MY Gift doesn't mean I can't guard against things. Especially from someone like Kitsune."
"HEY!" the young genius from Azuma High snapped. "I didn't steal your Gift!"
Laughter filled the room; the running joke between the two naturally-smart young girls about who got the power of Cerebral Child/Prodigy always was something that made them laugh. "Amazing that she didn't pick up on us right away," Sarah noted. "Not to mention Motoko. She should've sensed the differences in our ki."
"They were too busy apologising to poor Kei-kun for all the things they did to him when they had forgot what Ataru-kun did for them all," Shinobu stated.
The other girls laughed. Like the older residents at the Hinata-sō, the three younger residents were also Terran-turned-Yizibajohei who had gained their Gifts thanks to the help of Moroboshi Ataru. Three of the last ones gifted before the "temporary amnesia" had set in, they had gained the powers of three of the founders of the group that were often known on Yiziba as the "Young Guns." However — unlike previous incarnations of the group — the young Terran women who had become the modern incarnations of Dynamo (Kaolla), Hypersonic (Shinobu) and Cadaverine (Sarah) had found a way to overcome their past-selves' inability to properly master their metahuman skills before the energy of their powers literally KILLED them…and thus making them the first generation of Young Guns to actually manage to survive entering puberty and making it to adulthood.
Of course, that had happened thanks pretty much to Chiyo, who — as the genius known then as "Cerebral Child," another of the Young Guns — actually managed to persuade Infinity herself to allow all four to get a chance to gain bodies that were far tougher than their Terran forms, much less the pure-born Yizibajohei bodies of their past-selves.
All thanks to the Doll House…
The Doll House.
Infinity's version of Superman's Fortress of Solitude, the House had been created by the first incarnation of the God Who Walked Amongst Men during the hectic days of the Dawn of Power. That Infinity had been married to a normal girl when he had received his Gift from the Seeker's Forge; he had fathered a son before that day. But given the sheer chaos ripping the planet apart at the time, it hadn't taken long for someone to target Infinity through his baby. In a fight scene that was the source-point of many of the legends about the Infinite One, his child was fatally wounded…and in a massive use of the Infinite Wave, the mightiest of all Yizibajohei metas teleported the young lad's SOUL into a place where he could be reborn as a living synthetic bioroid of the opposite sex. Once said child was exposed to the Crystal of Power herself, she had become the first Weaver. And the Doll House was then programmed by father and son/daughter to become the place where un-Gifted Yizibajohei children could be reborn in case they died before their chance to gain said Gift could help protect them.
Of course, over the years and centuries that followed, a tradition — on a planet that SHUNNED anything that hinted at the concept of "sameness" to the point of planet-wrecking VIOLENCE! — arose where the various incarnations of Infinity REFUSED to allow post-Gifted Yizibajohei a chance to get better bodies for themselves…in following another "tradition" when it became natural to believe that post-Gifted Yizibajohei could and should take care of themselves without outside charity. Many times over the dozens of generations did previous incarnations of the Young Guns try to do anything to make the God(dess) Who Walked Amongst Men see reason and show mercy. Due to the various Infinities' persistent refusal to give in, the many lines that formed the Young Guns over the generations always died young, sometimes not even living to see physical puberty until their powers killed them.
Such a tradition continued until the current generation, when an Earth girl named Kasuga Ayumu became the twenty-sixth Infinity…and shortly after that, another Earth girl named Mihama Chiyo became the thirty-ninth Cerebral Child. When the two first met at Azuma High School a half-year before the "temporary amnesia" was unleashed on them through Ataru, Ayumu had been driven to tears to learn that her new friend was the current Cerebral Child…who, if she wound up following the path of her past-selves, would become a mental vegetable because her brain was SO hyperactive that it never took the chance to rest its neurons before they literally burnt out!
Once Ayumu got Chiyo alone, she unleashed a mini-Infinite Wave to literally MERGE Mihama Chiyo's very SOUL into a perfect synthetic bioroid clone of her old body — with some improvements to allow her brain TO rest when she needed it — and then she was allowed to become fully organic with another quick use of the Infinite Wave!
After fully coming to realise what her new friend and classmate from Ōsaka had just done to her, a teary-eyed Chiyo then asked, "Why…?"
Ayumu had smiled. "Just because my past-selves were jerks because they bought into that whole stupid 'don't butt into other people's fight-scenes' belief doesn't mean that I have to do it," she then said before holding up her finger. "Oh, Chiyo-chan. You really should choose a different name than 'Cerebral Child.' It sounds so dorky when it comes to you. Use 'Prodigy' instead. It fits you better."
Shortly afterward, Chiyo had learned that she was not the only Young Gun to have been given a new body and a new chance of life…
"Are we ready?"
"Yep!" Kaolla said after opening a hidden safe she had been made to forget she had thanks to what had happened to Ataru. "Got it right here."
She pulled out a small meson crystal that was glowing with energy. "Finally! We don't have to act like dumb kids anymore!" Sarah then breathed out. "C'mon! Let's go!"
"Hai! Hai! Wait for it!" the crown princess of Molmol said as she moved to hold it out between herself and her friends. "Here we go!"
Shinobu, Sarah and Chiyo touched the crystal and then they concentrated. Instantly, energy poured out to flood into their bodies, causing them to suddenly begin to mature age-wise to what they would be if all four of them were five years older. Their child's bodies quickly transformed into the more shapely forms of young adults, with Kaolla becoming eighteen, Shinobu and Chiyo both seventeen and Sarah sixteen. Once the last of the energy had been pumped into them, the meson crystal then disintegrated, its function finally done. With that, all four breathed out in relief.
"No more childhood," Chiyo then lamented, a touch of hoarseness in her voice.
"I know," Kaolla said in an equally-hoarse voice — it had been fun being a wild kid even if she had matured beyond that — before she gave her friend a knowing wink. "But you have to admit, you'll be able to date that super-hot Kiyomi-chan now!" As Sarah laughed and Shinobu giggled while poor Chiyo blushed, the more-mature crown princess of Molmol then gazed on the Hinata-sō's resident cook. "Not to mention you with Keitarō-kun!"
Shinobu blushed. "Well, can you blame me?"
The other girls laughed, and then Kaolla leaned down to pull out everyone's proper fighting uniforms, including a new set to fit Chiyo's older body. "Kind of a pity that we couldn't tell the others about what happened to us," she said as she moved to slip on the white jumpsuit with the stylised atom insignia of Dynamo on the arms, legs and left breast. "It would have been nice to get Haruhi-chan to square us off with what was going on around us even if we would wind up with our memories blanked. Not to mention give Shinobu-chan a chance to have a pillow-scene with Keitarō-kun!"
"Are they tracking down whoever did that to Ataru-san, Chiyo-chan?" Shinobu asked.
A nod. "Hermione-san's doing it now. A whole bunch of people from the British Ministry of Magic — all Voldemort's people or sympathisers — were in on it!"
"Well, once I get my hands on those dorks, they'll gonna wish they never got their damned invites to Hogwarts in the first place!" Sarah snarled as she felt the runes that marked her as the top necromancer of Yiziba form on her face while she slipped on her orange jumpsuit with the skull-and-crossbones insignia on her left breast…which was now a very perfect size 36 C-cup, much to her personal relief.
After all, Sarah McDougal was a Californian.
Californians — especially Californian girls! — after all, had to have perfect proportions.
It was the Unwritten Law of the Golden State, after all!
"Good thing!" Shinobu hissed as she moved to zip up her sky-blue form-fitting jumpsuit — as someone who can run as fast as any of the Flashes, Hypersonic wore clothes that ensured as little atmospheric drag as possible when she tapped into the Speed Force — before slipping on her safety goggles over her eyes. "Who on Earth do those people think they are, anyway?! Have they forgotten all about the Separation Act?!"
"Unfortunately," Chiyo said as she finished adjusting her jumpsuit, then moved to get all her equipment from her old jumpsuit's many hidden pockets to put into her new one. "No thanks to that ghost that teaches magical history there, I think. They've tried to exorcise him from the place time and time again to get a more competent person in there to teach REAL history…but the stupid staleblood bigoted sames stop it every time!"
"I'll go over there and deal with it," Sarah stated.
Finally, all four girls were fixed up and ready. As they turned to gaze on each other, they paused before giggling with delight on seeing themselves as they truly should have been all along. "I wonder if Ataru-san managed to help others get the Gifts from other lines in the Young Guns," Hypersonic then wondered. "We are short a few members."
"Oh, I'm sure Kazumi-san could help out there," Prodigy then stated before she perked. "Oh, darn! I forgot! When I was back in Tomobiki, I detected two S.H.I.E.L.D. LMDs in the Moroboshi house!" She smirked. "When I heard Ataru-san had been forced to live with his parents, I forgot that Margo-san had killed them both long before this whole mess started. Might as well go over to look at them so we can get some names."
"Damn straight!" Cadaverine snarled. "Ataru was more family to me than that reckless dork that adopted me before I got my Gift! Anyone hurts him, I'll rot their bones!"
"Let's go!" Dynamo insisted…
Minutes later, in Tomobiki…
"Hey! Look! It's Prodigy!"
"Eh?! Oh, my! What happened to her?!"
"Did someone use an age gun on her?!"
"Hey! Who are her friends?!"
"They must be her hero team!"
Hearing that, the four Young Guns blushed as they walked down the street close to Tomobiki High School as people pointed at them, excitedly chattering with their friends as some people took pictures of them with their cell-phones. The few Canadian soldiers on the streets were staring at them in confusion; as far as they could remember — since the battle-suit designs hadn't changed — the four metahumans called Dynamo, Hypersonic, Prodigy and Cadaverine were all pre-teens. Just as they were about to pass the school's front gates, a woman then cleared her throat. "What happened?"
Prodigy gasped, and then she chuckled on seeing Caltrop giving them a knowing look. "Little time accident, Kagura-san," the young genius from Azuma High School explained as she gazed on her new classmate; she, of course, had activated her personal NOYDB field to make sure people didn't pick up on their real names. "We'll get Haruhi-san to fix it up before we have to go to school tomorrow morning."
The Deadliest Woman Alive blinked, and then she sighed. "Got shuttled into some parallel timeline for a while, huh?" she asked as she pushed herself off from leaning on the gate post so she could come over to join them. "Makes sense."
"We're going over to Ataru-san's house to look in on those LMDs that took the place of his parents," Hypersonic then stated. "Why don't you come with us?"
Caltrop hummed. "Well, I got nothing better…"
She tensed…and then ducked as something seemed to soar right for her head. Reacting instantly, Dynamo shot out a force-blast to destroy the rather LARGE rock that had been sent to crush the other woman's head. At the same moment, Caltrop spun around and flung a combat knife at her attacker…which slammed into the abdomen of what appeared to be a young woman about Dynamo's physical age in a sundress. Prodigy was quick to see that this was NO woman; the visible Adam's apple on "her" neck — not to mention the total absence of breasts under the sundress — were the giveaway.
As a shocked Shiowatari Nagisa looked down at the knife that had been plunged into his guts, Caltrop straightened herself as she peered intently at Fujinami Ryūnosuke's would-be "fiancée." "You're no ordinary person," the Deadliest Woman Alive then snarled as she drew out her other combat knife, her free hand reaching for her sidearm, a Beretta 93-R that had been rebuilt to fire tiny fléchette darts that allowed her to carry FIVE HUNDRED man-stopping rounds of ammunition in one magazine! "Who are you?!"
"It's a ghost, Cally," Cadaverine declared as the runes on her face seemed to glow for a moment. "Resurrected by some sea spirit by the feel of the magic. Hold still."
The young necromancer then reached out with a hand…as Nagisa suddenly gasped, curling in on himself as he felt something torn away from him. Instantly, his skin began to fade into the pale grey shade of a disembodied spirit as Caltrop's knife — now that it wasn't sticking into a physical body — dropped to the ground at his feet. "No…!" Nagisa gasped as he gazed up at the young gaijin girl that was breaking the power of the Great Sea Urchin that had given him a second chance at life so he could be with the person he had been promised ages ago it. "Please…"
A shake of the head. "You had no right to reassume physical form once you died," the transformed Sarah declared, a touch of sympathy in her voice. "It was your fault that you didn't realise those sea urchins you ate were poisonous; didn't your dad's death teach you anything?" A smirk as Nagisa's ghostly form began to fade from view. "'Sides, there's no way in hell that Ryūnosuke's gonna go along with any stupid idea her dork ass old man came up with about how she'd live her life."
Nagisa cried out as he finally faded from view. "Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo…!"
And then he was gone. People had fallen silent on seeing that, though Aisaka Sayo had ducked behind Windtalker on sensing that the blonde girl was an honest-to-goodness NECROMANCER of all things! As the metahuman reporter moved to focus her camera on the California native, Cadaverine sighed. "Once one dies, one must stay dead. To do anything like THIS is fundamentally against the basic laws of both Life and Magic. While people — on dying — can become ghosts and remain in this plane of existence for whatever reason…" — On her saying that, Sayo relaxed as she gave the Californian an apologetic smile — "…they cannot be restored to true life unless their belief system allows for reincarnation, as the faiths of this part of Earth allow."
Hearing that, people nodded. "C'mon! Let's go over to Ataru-san's house!" Prodigy then bade as she waved her friends down the street.
The other Young Guns — and Caltrop, with Windtalker and Sayo following — headed off as people parted before them. Many of the older people there bowed respectfully to Cadaverine as she went, which the Californian acknowledged with a nod…
"Damn! What the hell happened to those kids?!" Wolverine asked.
A shake of the head. "Search me, man! Search me," Carcajou said…though she was smiling at having one of the annoyances in her life finally removed.
Hopefully, Oyaji won't cause Sarah-chan any problems, she then mused…
"Ah! Comrade Prodigy…Bože moj!"
Prodigy jerked on hearing the shocked cry of the strongest of all the X-Men, Pyotr Rasputin (Colossus). She then scratched the back of her head. "Time accident, Pyotr-san," she said as the now-metal clad collective farmer's son gaped at them; he — not to mention his sister Il'yana Rasputina (Magik) — had been standing close to the Moroboshi home, whose living room lights were still on. "Just like what happened to Il'yana-san when she fell into Limbo thanks to that horrible creep Belasco!"
Hearing that, Magik blinked, and then she laughed. After she had emerged from Limbo as a teenager — she had been six when she had fallen into that timeless realm seconds before in the timestream of the "main" universe — the Weaver had come by to help "merge" Il'yana with her proper reality. Fortunately for her, the magically most powerful of the so-called "New Mutants" team hadn't been forced to find some way to explain herself when the "temporary amnesia" had befallen everyone. "Well, welcome to the club, Chiyo-chan!" she said as she reached up to high-five Prodigy, and then she nodded to the other Young Guns. "I'm sure Haruhi-san can make things all better for all of you. But what are you all doing here?"
"Ataru-kun's parents were killed by Doctor Death before this all happened to us, Il'yana-chan," Dynamo stated. "Chiyo-chan learned that someone got a pair of LMDs from S.H.I.E.L.D. to take their places when they hurt Ataru-kun, so we came here…"
"Eh?!" Colossus gasped before he gazed on the name plate by the gate of the Moroboshi home, quickly spotting the 諸星 kanji there. "This is where Ataru Muchiovič lived?"
"Da!" the transformed princess of Molmol answered. "So if you'll excuse us…"
"Wait!"
Eyes locked on Cadaverine. "What is it, Sarah-san?" Prodigy asked.
The runes on the Californian's face were glowing. "There's black magic here!"
Silence.
Instantly, Magik concentrated as a soulsword — after meeting the Weaver, the younger of the Rasputin children had gone to Yiziba to learn how to properly master a soulsword from Moroboshi Negako — appeared in her hand. She then focused her mage-sight on the home before gasping. "My God!" she cried out, her voice possessing the more American accident she had adopted in Limbo. "This place is a…!"
"Necromancer's wet dream! Probably because of what Black did!" Cadaverine snapped.
With that, Magik lunged forward to plunge the soulsword right into the outer barrier of the magical fields that permeated this place — right at the level of the main gate door! — and then she cried out as she pulled the soulsword up to make a vertical cut.
A second later, a titanic explosion of energy rocked Tomobiki!
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!" Wolverine demanded.
"That was at Ataru's house!" Carcajou snapped. "C'mon!"
Both of them raced off…
A cough. "Hey, Il'yana-chan…!"
Coughing. "Y-yeah…?"
"The NEXT time you attack a magically-hardened place, will you be CAREFUL?!" Caltrop snapped as she glared at Magik. "Geez, girl! Did Negako-san teach you THAT?!"
"I did not."
Hearing that toneless — yet clearly NOT amused — voice, Magik suddenly turned VERY pale before she slowly looked over and up into the face of a woman appearing to be in her early twenties, appearing to be a close relative of Moroboshi Ataru save for a more fuller head of dark brown hair and eyes that were almost as black as pitch. She was draped in what were "normal" clothes for her: A black martial artist's gi with a black belt wrapped around her waist, the ends of which had the kanji 地 in gold thread stitched there. As the interdimensional teleporter/master mage chuckled on recognising Moroboshi Negako, the ninjutsu grandmaster took a deep breath. "Il'yana."
Magik gulped. "Y-yeah, M-m-Miss Negako?"
"What was the purpose of doing THAT?" Negako asked, pointing.
The blonde Russian-born heroine turned to look…
…and then she gaped on seeing the rather BIG bomb crater where the Moroboshi house had once stood! As the others gaped at this, Prodigy blinked before she drew out her own tricorder — no superhuman Star Trek fan ever went without one! — and did a scan. "Oh, my!" she gasped. "It was some sort of probability field that was here!"
"'Probability field,' Chiyo Kenjiovna?!" Colossus asked.
"Hai, Pyotr-san! I'm not really an expert in magic, but whoever set this up probably had to do something to make those LMD replicas of Ataru-san's parents as realistic as possible!" She then indicated Cadaverine. "If Sarah-san was right and this place did feel like a 'necromancer's wet dream,' they must have found some REAL necromancers to draw on the killing energy Margo-san's powers always unleash to draw the souls of his parents back from the next life to help program the androids! But now…!"
"It's okay, Chiyo-chan!" a familiar cheery voice called out. "I can fix it."
A flash of energy later, the Moroboshi home reappeared, whole and complete. Though — as Cadaverine and Magik were quick to sense — it was now totally cleansed of any dark magic, much less the necrotic energies unleashed by the current incarnation of Doctor Death, Margo Black. "There we go!" Infinity said as she drifted down to the ground beside Magik before she reached down to help the Russian-born master mage to her feet. "All fixed up! Chiyo-chan, you make sure you get all the names of all the creeps that were involved in this, alright?" she then asked Prodigy. "I'm sure Fury-taisa's gonna be pretty mad when he finds out that two of his LMDs were taken away for this!"
"Hai!" Prodigy said, nodding with determination.
The Goddess Who Walks Amongst Men then turned to fly back up to Lum's orbiting ship, and then she stopped. "Chiyo-chan?"
Prodigy blinked. "Hai?"
"When you and Sakaki-chan get married, can I be the godmother of your first child?"
The now-teen genius from Azuma High School fell flat on her face!
And now we…
Read the comments on this episode
(Posted Thu, 22 Mar 2012 01:52)
Questions? Problems? Suggestions?
Send a mail to addventure@bast-enterprises.de
or use the contact form.
らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
All other series and their characters are © by their respective creators or owners. No claims of ownership of these characters are implied by the authors of this Addventure, or should be inferred.
The Anime Addventure is a non-profit site.