Disclaimer: Not mine.

ooo

Another day, another thrashing.

For some reason he couldn't fathom, Keitaro had finally come to the realization that one of the Hinata girls would be at the hot springs wherever, whenever he decided to clean the hot springs. Several methods he had used in the hopes of detecting the girls' presence in the springs had all failed spectacularly. Either the girls managed to 'miss' a huge red signboard a blind man wouldn't have missed announcing his being inside the springs, or they would take baths several hundred times a day so as to catch him inside the springs when he did notice that they were in the hot springs and came back to clean later on when they had finished. Sometimes, Kitsune would tell him that the springs were empty, but for some reason in the few minutes he took to gather his cleaning tools the girls decided that they needed their one hundredth bath that day.

After uncountable times of being sent to a galaxy far, far away and returning via an enormous star destroyer, Keitaro finally concluded that the girls were out to make his life hell.

Of course, Keitaro had been tempted to fire the main cannon and blow up the inn once and for all, but he couldn't control the strength of the laser which would cause the entire Earth to explode violently due to the high amounts of oxygen present, thus he refrained from pressing the big red 'fire' button.

On his fifth flight through the air today, this time caused by a particularly vicious double attack from Naru and Motoko, Keitaro looked forward and couldn't help but notice that he seemed to be flying in the direction of a black storm cloud positively crackling with electrical energy. Keitaro's eyes widened as he realized what would happen once he entered it, and thus he spun around wildly in the air, trying his very best to either lower his air resistance so that he fly below the cloud, or lower his trajectory so that he would also fly below the cloud. Either way, he would fall differently and miss the storm cloud entirely.

And as the cloud neared, Keitaro's actions, for the first time ever, actually worked in his favor. He had assumed a diving position, with his head pointed downwards and his hand on his hips, and thus his air resistance dropped dramatically and he moved at high speed towards the ground.

His trajectory lowered, Keitaro proceeded to sail by underneath the cloud.

Unfortunately for Keitaro, the cloud chose that exact moment to release its pent up electricity.

Which direction does lightning go? Downward, of course.

What was beneath the cloud? Duh, Keitaro.

It was anybody's guess what happened next, but the ridiculously loud "EEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW!" should provide some clue as to what exactly happened when the lightning was fired. As the lightning struck him, Keitaro proceeded to glow like a light bulb, with his hair standing on ends and his clothes burned beyond recognition. His supposedly 'immortal' body was completely thrashed, as his eye fluid boiled, his muscles and fat burned away from the heat, followed by the demise of his voice box, which promptly exploded under the high influx of energy. His ear drums burst, and his skin burned along with his clothes, mixing together with his sticky mess; once his clothes, and together the molten skin and clothes became a sickening gooey paste. Keitaro was still screaming, but silently now, since his voice box exploded.

Even as he screamed, Keitaro could feel his body starting to regenerate. He could feel every single one of his cells becoming supercharged as they grew back, the mini turbine in each cell starting to spin with a new intensity, allowing his blood to work extra time in repairing his body. As his bones healed, Keitaro could feel a sort of electricity, and unexplainable energy settling into them, making him feel revitalized, as though he was reborn. His muscles promptly grew back, and already he could feel the new energy powering them. His ear drums, voice box, skin, eye all recovered from the energy explosion, and Keitaro was suddenly very much aware of his surroundings. He could hear birds chirping as though he was right next to them; he could clearly see the city skyline several miles away, and his new skin allowed him to know the exact temperature and humidity of the air around him.

Keitaro did not know how, but he knew that the mysterious energy was fueling his newly heightened senses, and when the lightning finally ended Keitaro was left feeling exhilarated as the pain melted away to give way to power. For the first time after the change, Keitaro inspected his new body. The most striking feature was that his body was surrounded by pure, unadulterated electricity. He fervently hoped that it would wear off, since it wouldn't really be fun walking around in his new 'shocking' body. Unfortunately, he couldn't really spot any other difference between this body and his old body. Somehow, Keitaro had expected that he would at least get some toned muscles, but they looked as weak as they had been before he was fried.

Looking forward, Keitaro was pleased to see that he was about to smash into the ground in approximately five seconds.

Five.

Wait, he was pleased?

Four.

Approaching terminal velocity…

Three.

No turning back…

Two.

AAAAHHHHHHH! HELP MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

One.

BOOM.

ooo

Several minutes later, Keitaro awoke to complete silence. His first thought was that he was lying alone in his room after a really painful thrashing from either Naru or Motoko as his head felt groggy and he could feel pain, but then his addled brain kicked into gear and Keitaro suddenly remembered what exactly happened. Inspecting himself again, Keitaro was relived to find that the electricity was gone.

Unfortunately, he had also discovered a new problem. He was butt naked.

Keitaro suddenly screamed like a sissy man and rushed to cover his privates, but then he looked around and realized that he was smack dab in the middle of a dense forest, and that nobody was going to be around to see him.

But that was the least of his worries, for he had discovered a new, completely unexpected problem.

He was in the middle of a relatively dense forest, and yet there was complete silence?

Weird.

Keitaro looked up, and he spotted what seemed like a bird in mid flight. The bird's wings were outstretched, signaling that it had just left a branch for a new unknown destination. The peculiar thing was that the bird seemed to be frozen in time. It hung in mid air, neither falling nor rising, and that simple action immediately shattered every single law of physics stored in Keitaro's head, which while wasn't anything nothing to brag about, enabled him to understand that such an action was impossible.

Or was it?

Keitaro checked out his surroundings again, and he saw that the leaves of trees were frozen in mid swing, bugs and animals were stationary in their movements, even the clouds in the sky were unmoving, but still the ground felt largely the same to him. Moving tentatively forward towards the bird, Keitaro reached out to touch the bird, intending to find out what exactly was causing this unnatural stillness of the forest. As his fingers curled around the bird, Keitaro felt a screen of energy form around his hand and jolt him, but he shrugged it off as nervousness. However, the moment his fingers came into contact with the bird, the creature sprang to life and escaped from his fingers, but the moment the bird lost contact with his hand, it became stationary in mid air yet again.

It all came crashing down around him as he realized that he was the one causing this freeze. Even though Keitaro wasn't exactly smart, that small display was enough to point him towards the notion that he was in fact, the one causing the stillness.

So now there were two possibilities. Either he was moving so fast that the area seemed stationary compared to him, or that he had somehow slowed down the entire area till the point that he was the only one able to move at a respectable speed. Unfortunately, Keitaro still had not idea about the extent of his powers, so he could not know if it was the entire world that was frozen, or whether it was only this small patch of forest that was stopped.

Stuck in such a sticky situation, Keitaro simply sat down on a nearby log, and sighed.