Gendo looked at the ball of electric energy hurtling toward him. Time seemed to slow with the understanding of the danger. He was aware that his left arm was rising, despite the futility of blocking the strike.
The ball of lightning slammed into his palm, discharging into his arm.
Gendo winced at the pain in his left arm, but. . . he also felt a strange sensation, like his arm was a sponge and the electricity was water. Then in his hand the sensation intensified, and suddenly his hand changed, going from flesh and blood to shaped electricity. The change spread down his arm.
'Wha??!! This isn't. . . Stop!' as he willed the change to end, the transformation halted and reversed returning his hand to normal. "What is happening?"
"Flame," Mars called as she formed a bow and arrow of fire. "Sniper!" she called as she fired the arrow at Gendo.
Gendo saw the arrow hurtling toward him, tensed his legs to leap away, then paused wondering if his new powers could handle fire like they could electricity. Deciding that he wanted to find out in a less dangerous way, he leaped to the right.
Because of the pause however, Sailor Mars's attack struck him squarely in the leg. As the conflagration engulfed the limb, he once again felt the absorptive sensation, and this time he willed it to go faster instead of stop. He hit the ground a ball of fire, then rose to his feet a human shaped flame.
"I wonder. . ." He thought looking at his blazing hand. In response to his thought, flame rose from his palm and formed into a ball. Looking at his attackers, he thrust his hand forward and hurled the ball of fire at them.
Mars grinned as she saw the burning form fall to the ground. "Got him!"
Mercury looked uncertainly at her friend. "Wait, are you sure he wasn't human?" she asked.
"Look, he blew a hole in Naru with some sort of energy blast from his hand! He. . ." She trailed off, staring at how the blazing form had gotten up, not noticing the flames engulfing his body to the point where only the flames were visible.
Suddenly the form thrust it's hand forward, and a ball of fire shot toward the Senshi. They jumped to dodge the attack, Mercury punching at her computer and staring at the result. "H-He's living fire?!" Putting away her computer, she raised her hands. "All-right, Aqua," She called, drawing water and forming it into a harp, "Rhapsody!" She cried, strumming the harp and releasing dozens of streams of super cooled water toward the flaming figure. Each stream turned to ice the moment it struck something, and several slammed into Gendo's burning body.
Gendo almost screamed in pain as the freezing water struck him. It hurt! However he pushed pain aside and thought. He could feel his the absorption sensation, offering him the ability to absorb the ice, but he felt uncertainty at the thought of using it. Then he realized that he also feel the redness to absorb elsewhere, including through the sole of his foot. The sense of change was more familiar now, as his body turned from fire to packed dirt. And with a flex of his muscles he broke the ice covering him.
"Naru's ok!"
Gendo, Mars Jupiter and Mercury all turned their head to look at Sailor Moon who was running toward them. Stumbling she slowed, and rested her hands on her knees, panting loudly.
"HOLD ON!" Sailor Jupiter called. "How can Naru be all right?! That bastard blew a hole right through her!"
"It was a robot that looked like Naru. Naru's fine, and the robot's fine too." Usagi responded.
"But then why?" Mars asked, turning back to Gendo, then freezing and looking around. "Where did he go?!"
"Was that really necessary?" Gendo asked as he followed Doom from the teleporter. "Fighting the Senshi at this point?"
"You would be of no use to me if you lacked that capability to handle them despite your new powers." Doom commented casually
"That- That. . . OOOOHHHH!!!!" Ami hit the table angrily.
Usagi looked up from her ice cream sundae with a startled look on her face that was mirrored by Rei, Makoto and Mina. "What's wrong?"
Ami sighed and massaged her forehead. "I've been analyzing the readings I had of that fight. Fortunately I started scanning right at the beginning. Basically the guy we were fighting was somehow altered by Doom so that he could absorb, pretty much anything, acquiring it's powers in the process."
"So if I'd been there, and had blasted him with a crescent beam. . ." Mina started.
"He could have absorbed the beam and turned himself into light. But that's not the frustrating part. According to the earliest scans, the enchantment empowering him was unstable, right on the verge of breaking down and fading away."
"Then he's powerless, or about to become powerless?" Mars asked.
"No. When he absorbed our attacks, it supercharged the enchantment, allowing it to stabilize and complete itself! Thanks to us, his powers are now permanent!"
See other episodes by Black & White
(Posted Sun, 29 Jun 2003 22:17)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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